A great piece on the general irrationality about them, and the history. I find most interesting (and new) the point that the main benefit of posting a speed limit was not to slow the fastest down, but to speed the slowest up. More people need to understand that it is not absolute speed that is dangerous, but relative speed. When I was young, in Michigan, before Nixon’s double-nickle stupidity, the freeway signs had both a maximum and a minimum: 70/45. That was back in the days when older cars weren’t as safe or reliable at higher speeds. Today, I’d make it more like 80/60.
I’m also glad that they (as I always do) pointed out what a problem a lack of lane discipline is. If they’d give tickets for hogging the left lane, instead of speeding, traffic would flow both more smoothly and more safely.
Have you read Walter Block’s “The Privatization of Roads and Highways”? He makes the very good point that all attempts to make road rules slightly less insane are treating the symptoms, not the disease.
“I’m also glad that they (as I always do) pointed out what a problem a lack of lane discipline is. If they’d give tickets for hogging the left lane”
I would be happy if people actually drove in a single lane.
I regularly travel on I70 across our state. I cannot remember a single trip that I did not encounter a vehicle that was not, or could not travel at 45 mph. The jam caused by these vehicles is the biggest problem on two lane highways. An enforced 55min would ease the congestion and make what is historically one of the most dangerous portions of I70 much safer.
Just recently, I got a whole lot of luv driving down the left lane of the Illinois Tollway at 45 (OK, maybe 48 MPH).
What was that all about, Paul, you ask.
1. The whole way from Rockford to Elgin is one continuous construction zone.
2. It is posted 45 MPH.
3. There were construction workers out and about in parts of it at the time.
4. There were signs along the way designating the left lane as the truck lane in this zone, and Illinois is a split speed limit state where trucks are expected to go slower than cars.
5. There were signs warning of a minimum $375 fine for driving infractions in the construction zone.
6. Every couple miles there were these radar “your speed” signs that starting blinking to scold you if you were a mile an hour over 45.
7. Other signs warned that speed enforcement was done from spotter planes.
8. I have ‘Sconsin plates on the car, a big fat invitation “give me a ticket to set an example, even the score with the ticketing of Illinois tourists, and advertising that being from out-of-town, there was little chance I would appear in court to fight the ticket.”
On the other hand
1. As I said, I was getting a whole lot of luv from the locals. Before anyone starts, I was born in Cook County, I took drivers ed in Cook County, I flunked my first road test in Cook County because I didn’t supply the pro-forma bribe, as a self-identified Republican I had my first election ballot cast thrown out in Cook County. Passive aggression in an art form in Cook County, but these days I am “under deep cover”, both here and when I return to the Rodina/Heimrat.
2. The Tollways have been ripped up for most of the 21st Century, and I can understand people’s frustration. Don’t they ever complete a project?
3. Putting the speed limit down to 45 along with the intense nag campaign may be counterproductive, and Wisconsin sets its construction zones at 55 MPH. To allow 55 without endangering workers, however, they line the road with towering concrete walls, and any second I expect to hear Alec Guiness intone, “Use the Force, Luke! Trust your feelings . . .”
Oh, and I have taken the written test and held a drivers license in Illinois, Michigan, California, New Jersey, and Wisconsin and have experience with driving environments from Downtown Chicago streets, the Dan Ryan Expressway, Telegraph Road in Detroit, Route 22 in New Jersey, to the Harbor Freeway. The only place I ever avoided was Downtown Manhattan.
So, take it away, Rand . . .
Honestly, Paul, I don’t know what your point is, other than that Illinois sucks. Which is not news. It doesn’t seem all that relevant to this post.
The correct speed limit is 20mph, and it should be enforced by agents of the government armed with very powerful weapons.
Not really, I’m just trying to move the Overton window. But in all seriousness, as I’ve posted here before, there is psychological research showing that children younger than 15(!!!!) can not judge when it safe to cross the road when cars approach at more than 20mph. This suggests that residential speed limits should be lowered to 20mph, even as you crazy libertarians eliminate the speed limit on limited-access highways.
See this research: http://pss.sagepub.com/content/early/2011/03/16/0956797611400917.full
OK, Rand, then don’t take it away . . .
My point is very simple and very relevant to this post. Namely that a person driving in the left lane (designated by signage as the “truck lane” in this case, although other drivers who maybe didn’t notice the signs were making “hurry up” gestures) and at a low for a four-lane superhighway limit of 45 MPH (a construction zone, which the authorities appear to be trying very hard to enforce) isn’t necessarily a weenie.
OK, Rand, call me a weenie, but I honestly had some difficulty figuring out how fast and in what lane to drive on that road. I was a safety hazard on that highway as many vehicles were going at least 20 MPH faster than me, but this is a construction zone, and as these roadways come to the end of their design life, many states are a transportation network of construction zones. I could have gone 65 to keep up with the traffic, but a “twenty over in a construction zone” might even cross over into a felony traffic-stop territory “down there” — I didn’t want to risk finding out.
This exact situation was a collision between nanny-state enforcement of an artificially low speed limit and a state with a motoring culture of people who drive fast by anyone’s standards. I raise this situation to advance the position that the driving culture, which varies between states, is a question of social cooperation according to accepted norms moderated with rules considering public safety, and the issue of speed limits is more complicated than “let’s just raise them.”
There are many words to describe the political and social cultures in the State of Illinois, and there are many ways that I feel alienated from a land I left nearly 35 years ago, but there are some words I don’t use in public discourse.
This is your Web site, you are paying for the bandwidth, and whatever language you use is your right. You are paying for the bandwidth, I am grateful for being allowed to freely express opinions here, and if you want to moderate and suppress my remarks as you did recently on another thread, or if you want to ban me, that is your right.
My point is very simple and very relevant to this post. Namely that a person driving in the left lane (designated by signage as the “truck lane” in this case, although other drivers who maybe didn’t notice the signs were making “hurry up” gestures) and at a low for a four-lane superhighway limit of 45 MPH (a construction zone, which the authorities appear to be trying very hard to enforce) isn’t necessarily a weenie.
I can’t imagine why you would have thought that my post about freeway driving in general would apply to that bizarre condition.
if you want to moderate and suppress my remarks as you did recently on another thread, or if you want to ban me, that is your right.
I have no idea what you’re talking about.
With some variation between the states, disregarding speed limits and regarding persons adhering to speed limits as engaged in anti-social behavior has become so pervasive in the culture that it even extends to construction zones. It used to be if you slowed to the limit in a construction zone that others slowed down to because they thought you spotted a cop, but no more.
Maybe the 55 limit brought this on by a universal and unworkable speed limit? Maybe speed limits have been artificially restricted for so long that people don’t accept that speed limits are meaningful in any place or any circumstance, a kind of Boy that Cried Wolf effect that even when you need to slow down to not hurt workers in a construction zone, people give the speed limit no heed?
By the way, I posted a comment on another thread arguing that the triumphalist attitude “It’s Working!” when it is only barely working is an impediment to meaningful compromise and repair of the law, but it was labeled “Comment subject to Moderation” and never posted.
Speed limits that are too low for the road conditions decrease safety and increase congestion, but they’re great for raising revenue through speeding tickets. Follow the money.
Interstate speed limits in the non-coastal West are generally 75mph which means you can safely set your cruise control @ 80mph. Long stretches of I-15 in Utah have a posted 80mph speed limit…set the CC @ 85. (I’ve read that Texas has some 80mph stretches as well.) 75mph posted seems pretty slow in eastern CO and all of NE an WY; it really should be 80mph. What’s entirely frustrating is zipping through CO and NE @ 80mph then being forced to not much more than 70mph in mostly-flat IA and really flat IL. It’s stupidly slow for the conditions.
Yes, in west Texas, I-10 is like the American autobahn. Not only is the limit 80, but there is lane discipline. I did it five years ago, and it was heaven.
The 55 MPH speed limit may have been President Nixon’s stupidity, and I will admit to driving faster than 55 MPH on many occasions to “keep with the flow of traffic.”
But the idea originated with one General Benjamin O. Davis, Jr. — an aviation pioneer and a war hero (leader, 332nd Fighter Group).
With all respect to the general and thanks for his service, if that’s true, he came up with a stupid idea, and Nixon stupidly implemented it.
All that proves is that very good people can have very bad ideas from time to time.
“Be thrifty, drive 50, so Nixon can fly!”
– Bumper sticker on my father’s car.
The majority of roads in Australia are posted at 37 mph. Unposted roads in built up areas are 31 mph.
The highways are mostly 62 mph with rare stretches of 68 mph, and going even 5 mph over for any extended period of time will earn you a speeding fine.
Also, the overtaking lane is the right hand lane, not the left hand lane because we all drive on the wrong side of the road. Except in car parks, it seems, where everyone somehow forgets the road rules, has no idea where to drive, doesn’t indicate and completely ignores any posted speed signs.
So, ya know, whenever I go to the US I enjoy driving at a reasonable speed and on the right side of the road. If yall would learn how to signal, it’d be perfect.
No, no, here on the East Coast, signals for lane changes are interpreted by those in the target lanes as signals to speed up and prevent the person from pulling over.
Also, especially in Maryland, people randomly change both lanes and speeds (the latter span the speed limit +/-20 mph without pattern, and certainly without reason).
“If yall would learn how to signal, it’d be perfect.”
Not sure if true but it was on the internet so…
Nearly 1/4 of accidents are caused by failure to use turn signals properly.
“No, no, here on the East Coast, signals for lane changes are interpreted by those in the target lanes as signals to speed up and prevent the person from pulling over.”
When you cross the MA border north into Vermont, there are large billboards instructing drivers, “State Law: Use Turn Signals Before Changing Lanes” — someone should add to that “Because you are no longer in Massachussetts, D***it!”