Because the other cars are speeding too.
> Notably, any reduction in danger that flows from breaking the speed limit is only for the car and other cars breaking the speed limit, in no case it is for pedestrians, cyclists or other non-vehicle participants in traffic.
Correct.
Speed limits in a vacuum are largely about revenue generation. There's ample evidence backing numerous practices that actually slow traffic, things like using traffic circles instead of intersections, reducing the width of lanes to promote slower travel, speed humps, separating traffic that's going a distance (roads) at speed, from slower traffic preparing to enter residences/businesses (streets). Lots of stuff.
Limits though? I mean they probably don't do nothing but they aren't nearly as effective unless you pair them with a regular police presence. And even then, mixed effects. I'm pretty sure the entirety of the Chicago Loop is capped at 55 mph, but if you actually do 55 on that thing, you're gonna die.
As to the topic of the thread: truthfully, IMO, parents should be barred from ferrying their kids to school. Not only is it just a "commute but worse" in terms of ecological impact (the car goes, drops the person, returns home, then returns later, picks up, and returns home. Literally 2x the normal traffic impact) but also it's ridiculously inefficient for similar reasons. School traffic everywhere I have ever lived has been a goddamned nightmare. I would rather be stuck on the highway jam ten times than be trying to navigate around a school full of stressed, harried parents driving big stupid SUVs, who themselves are surrounded by children, who themselves are entering and exiting vehicles at random.
School busses are the safest vehicles on American roads, and starting kids on them early gets them comfortable with the idea of mass transit. Dictionary definition of a win/win.
I actually look forward to self driving taxis/etc doing the speed limit for this reason. It's going to be difficult to speed if there are always vehicles doing the speed limits in various lanes (where passing lanes don't exist, at least)
Maybe software will never get good enough, but that’s not a bet I would make.
That said I think a fair number of people, myself included, are fine to pay and do more to keep our hand-driven cars, and I'll happily drive next to (properly insured) robots.
Perhaps not you (since I don't know your background), but in general do you feel training makes no difference?
Would you say a heart surgeon with decades of experience would be arrogant to say they are a better heart surgeon than Joe Blow on the street who has zero medical experience? No, they truly are better, because their education and experience.
So yes, people can train to become far better drivers than the average. Hardly anyone does, because it is not required and most people don't care. But it is very much possible.
I think training could help. However I don't think it will. People think they are good enough and will write down answers to pass the test. Maybe if the training was mandatory behind the wheel with failure meaning you lose your license - but the voters won't stand for that.
Are they struggling with a 4 way stop - or did they just prevent a crash because someone else you didn't even notice just did something stupid? That someone else might be you not knowing you even did something wrong!
Of course I have no idea how you drive, how much training you have or the other important details. The above shouldn't be taken as a personal attack on your actual driving. The attack does fit every other driver I know though (including me - though it is hard to be honest about my own failings)
These mechanisms among others are much more effective at traffic calming rather than putting up more damn signs to clutter things up, and hiring more cops. But of course fixing streets costs money, and police issuing fines generates it, so it's not shocking that most municipalities go with option B.
Not fixing streets is 'free' and reduces the perceived safe speed. Letting the streets crumble is a win win.
This doesn't entirely work, eventually the street gets unusable and it's often much more expensive to rebuild it than it you had done timely maintenance.
Growing up in Australia, my dad pointed out two things to me, learning to drive: 1) that in my state at that time, you were required to drive at the maximum speed that was: within the limit, appropriate to the conditions and your ability to control the vehicle, and 2) that if it was to directly and imminently avoid an accident, a driver is permitted, for the minimum time possible, to ignore any road law (i.e. you cannot be cited for crossing over into oncoming traffic if it was to avoid traffic about to hit you. It was also commonly used for people cited for speeding while passing another vehicle - you'd appeal, and say "While I realize that I am still required to obey the speed limit when passing, as I was doing so, the vehicle I was passing adjusted its speed putting me in a situation where I felt the safest course to avoid an accident was to accelerate past them and then return to the speed limit").
But yes, as someone who was both a paramedic for 14 years, I've seen more than my fair share of drivers who think that they are safe (which, to be clear, is general commentary - I obviously don't know you).