It was selected in 1974 in response to the 1973 oil crisis in the hope of reducing oil consumption. 55 was intended as a speed that delivers best mpg for typical 1970s vehicles.
Towns would no longer have this bullshit revenue source, and might actually set the limits to a reasonable level instead of one intended to make you screw up.
No, it wouldn't. In fact the proposal would make things worse, because it would give an even greater level of control to governments than they have now. Right now, all they can do is give me a ticket if I'm speeding. Under this proposal, they would be able to remove control of my car from me altogether based on some arbitrary limit. That is thousands of disasters waiting to happen.
> Towns would no longer have this bullshit revenue source, and might actually set the limits to a reasonable level instead of one intended to make you screw up.
You have much more faith than I do in the ability of the government to know better what is reasonable and prudent under a given set of conditions than the person actually driving the car in those conditions. Not to mention their ability to ensure a safe implementation of the actual mechanics of the proposal.
Removing the perverse revenue incentives of artificially low limits seems like a good step.
The road engineers aren't there. The driver is. Also, the road engineers suffer no consequences if the limits are wrong.
> Untrained individuals are pretty crap at this
Perhaps. If so, I think it's because individuals have no voice in determining the limits, and they know the limits are bogus anyway, so they don't view exceeding them as an error, they just view it as a game they're playing vs. the police. In other words, since there is no reward for exercising better individual judgment, and the penalties are unrelated to the quality of an individual's judgment, there is no incentive for individuals to develop better judgment.
> an out-of-town visitor can hardly know that there's a low-visibility hairpin turn coming up.
That's what warning signs are for. There's no need for it to be a speed limit; just a "caution, hairpin turn" sign is enough.
> Removing the perverse revenue incentives of artificially low limits seems like a good step.
The way to remove those incentives is to stop allowing governments to penalize people who have caused no harm. Sure, put up a sign that says that, according to our best qualified road engineers, the maximum safe speed for this road is x. (For bonus points, make the sign programmable so the posted limit can vary with weather conditions, day vs. night, etc.) But don't allow the government to give me a ticket and make me pay a fine just because I exceed speed x. If I cause an accident and it's found that I exceeded speed x, then the government can penalize me--but penalize me because I caused harm (and, if you like, tack on an extra penalty because I ignored the advisory sign and my error of judgment contributed to the harm).
They were there when the road was designed and built, and they did various calculations based on actual physics, road width, medians, upcoming intersections, etc. to determine a limit. "Eh, this feels like a 75" from an untrained driver with three big accidents on their record shouldn't be of equal value.
edit: Here's the US DOT's flowchart for picking speed limits: https://safety.fhwa.dot.gov/uslimits/documents/appendixk.pdf - they even have a handy web tool for putting in the variables. https://safety.fhwa.dot.gov/uslimits/
> Also, the road engineers suffer no consequences if the limits are wrong.
Real engineers have liability and licensing implications for fucking up.
> If so, I think it's because individuals have no voice in determining the limits...
Nor should they, really, as they're supposed to be based on empirical data about the nature of the road. Your attitude reminds me of this New Yorker comic: https://www.newyorker.com/cartoon/a20630
> That's what warning signs are for. There's no need for it to be a speed limit; just a "caution, hairpin turn" sign is enough.
There are several tight turns near my house. One's a 25 mph one, another is a 15 mph one. Even as a local, I find the numbers a handy reminder; there's absolutely no way a non-local would be able to figure out which turn should be taken at which speed.
Any such driver should have already suffered enough consequences from three big accidents to have changed their behavior. And if they haven't changed their behavior, how is a speeding ticket (which costs a lot less than three big accidents) supposed to?
> Real engineers have liability and licensing implications for fucking up.
For things like bridges and buildings, yes. And for consequences that are easily seen, yes. But what consequences do road engineers suffer if they set the speed limit on a road too low, forcing people to take more time and burn more gas?
> There are several tight turns near my house. One's a 25 mph one, another is a 15 mph one.
Yes, turn warning signs with a safe speed recommendation included. No problem there. But can you get a ticket if you go around the turn at a higher speed than posted, but don't cause any harm? (As I understand it, you can't; the speeds on those yellow warning signs, unlike the ones on the white speed limit signs, are advisory only and you can't be ticketed just for exceeding them. Which is exactly the kind of thing I'm advocating, just for all limits.)
Try this thought experiment: suppose we are at some point in the future, when self-driving cars are ubiquitous and are proven to be safer than human-driven cars. Do you want governments to have the ability to force your self-driving car to do something based on some arbitrary setting of a limit, controlled by government bureaucrats? Or do you want to have control over what algorithms your self-driving car runs and what actions it takes if it detects a problem?
I'd rather not be driving in a world where the other drivers get to pick the "run a family off a cliff if it prevents a bumper dint on my vehicle" algorithm.
How would the rules be determined?
> I don't want individual people modding their cars to obey only the laws they like or to behave differently than everyone else's cars.
So basically, you don't trust the judgment of individual people. But you trust the judgment of a government that is composed of individual people?
The federal government already regulates motor carriers, including inspections by federal and state regulatory bodies. They understand how to predict risk for vehicle operations, and can scale that assessment up to massive fleets like UPS or USPS or down to an individual vehicle operator.
End of the day, individuals on average are awful at risk assessment and consistent behavior. To borrow another phrase, brakes are what allow cars to drive faster.
USDOT/FHWA
So basically, you don't trust the judgment of individual people. But you trust the judgment of a government that is composed of individual people?
Yes.
I'm happy to give up control of driving if it means car travel is safer and more convenient, just like I'm happy to get on a train, bus, or airplane and let someone else drive (under high regulation - I don't want my pilot to decide on his own that ATC is being ridiculously conservative and there's plenty of room for him to land between two A380's).
Government bureaucrats and corporate bean counters will determine how you get around.
No, it isn't; it's whatever the locality decides is a good setpoint for a revenue source. Most "speed limits" have nothing to do with safety.
Even on interstate highways, where the "revenue source" motivation is the least, many speed limits are still too low given the improvements in vehicle handling and performance since the 55 mph rule was arbitrarily selected in the early 1970s. Of course, that argument assumes that 55 mph was reasonable for early 1970s cars--but if the primary purpose is safety, well, there are still traffic deaths at the current speed limits, so why not lower them further? Why not stop people from driving at all, if nothing short of that will eliminate traffic deaths?
That kind of argument leads down a rabbit hole. I think a much better way of viewing things, as I said in another comment upthread, is in terms of a principal-agent problem. If you are driving yourself (or flying yourself, for that matter), you can make your own judgments about safety (and take the consequences). But if you are flying (or driving) other people for money, then you have to abide by an explicit set of standards because it's no longer just you who takes the consequences if you make an error of judgment. And the more people who are endangered if you make an error, the more stringent the standards should be.