Re:Self-driving car accidents: Robot drivers are ‘odd, and t...
by dragonwriter on Tuesday October 17, 2017 @07:50PM
(#15495919)
OTOH, if the prima facie limit were followed consistently (or enforced effectively), people would not be exceeding it, and speeds would be more tightly clustered and safer.
Not so simple.
The rules are created via legislation affected by lobbying.
The AAA for decades have been lobbying to keep speed limits low.
In the perfect world, speed limits would be informed by the 85% percentile speed of engineering surveys.
In reality, it's much different.
If a large number of drivers are driving at a speed higher than a prima facie speed limit, the speed limit could actually be low, in which case, the drivers actually following the prima facie speed limit are creating a hazard to the flow of traffic.