Ami, a tiny cube on wheels that French 14-year-olds can drive

Re:Ami, a tiny cube on wheels that French 14-year-olds can d... by Retric on Saturday September 12, 2020 @08:08AM (#24451830)

It feels like doing 60mph in a 50mph zone is about the same thus people assume it’s equivalent even if it’s much more dangerous. The issue is most clearly demonstrated by stopping distance going up by ~40% even though it’s only 20% faster.

However that’s understating the difference. It’s common to be breaking just before impact at higher speeds you have less time to react and thus break less. If you go from 50MPH to 30 MPH that’s likely a completely survivable collision. Breaking from 60MPH to 50 MPH is less so as your dealing with V^2 = ~2.8x the energy. Similarly, many accidents are simply avoided...

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Re:Ami, a tiny cube on wheels that French 14-year-olds can d... by read_if_gay_ on Saturday September 12, 2020 @08:42AM (#24451989)

That's a good point, is there any actual data?

I found one thing which is a bit counter to this, but not directly relevant to cities. Germany manages to have no speed limit on the majority of the Autobahn without a higher rate of accidents compared to surrounding countries.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic-r...

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Re:Ami, a tiny cube on wheels that French 14-year-olds can d... by Retric on Saturday September 12, 2020 @11:28AM (#24453189)

It’s rather hard to directly collect such accident data, but plenty of studies have looked into the effect.

Anyway, overall safety of a given road is a separate factor. Germany has approximately 650,000 km of roads and only 12,996 kilometres (2016) where part of the Autobahn. So while per mile the Autobahn is safer than the older parts of the German road network, speed is hardly the only factor involved. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transport_in_Germany#Roads

They have very high standards for what constitutes a no speed limit zone and such roads are safe enough to offset the added dangers of such speeds.

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Re:Ami, a tiny cube on wheels that French 14-year-olds can d... by imtringued on Monday September 14, 2020 @04:50AM (#24468133)

Many people stick to the standard speed of 130km/h.

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Re:Ami, a tiny cube on wheels that French 14-year-olds can d... by read_if_gay_ on Monday September 14, 2020 @11:38AM (#24471422)

In my experience, I'd say about a third, while the left lane is usually >=160km/h when there's no limit.

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