What is the "Correct" Speed Limit? (Not Just Bikes)
What is the "Correct" Speed Limit? (Not Just Bikes)
There's a trend towards lower speed limits in cities all over the world, but why is this happening? What is the research behind it? And what is the "correct" speed limit for cities, anyway?
Spoiler it is 30km/h. After that noise and injury risk/severity shoot up. It is the compromise speed.
In the next city where i live and the smaller almost cities around it, all side roads are 30km/h for a few years now. Some people seem to really hate it, and i kinda get why, when you drive there or live there and out of habit go 50 and get fined, it's hella expensive. But i'm super happy with it. 30 is plenty
30km/h is about 18 mph. That's gonna be a hard sell in America.
Many Americans drive faster than that in a busy parking lot.
Shouldn't matter when people and children are dying from the current vehicle speed but I guess slowing down is an infringement on "freedom."
This would be restricted to city streets. If you want more speed, use the highways or bypass roads that (ideally) aren't anywhere near residential or city areas.
And the additional speed actually slows things down on congested roads, because you need more traffic lights (among other reasons).
Yeah well the rest of us really don't care if "all y'all" kill each other on the road so knock yourselves out
Also in many european cities you won't get somewhere faster even if you try, so 30 is definitely a kind of sweet spot.
Most American cities you won't get there faster either, for all the reasons laid out in the video.
Most of his critiques are of US infrastructure, so it would have been nice to have the conversions in the video:
30 km/h = 18.6 mph
50 km/h = 31.1 mph
60 km/h = 37.3 mph
88.5 km/h = 55 mph
You can roughly remember it as:
- 20 mph = 30 km/h
- 30 mph = 50 km/h
- 60 mph = 100 km/h
but thanks for the precise numbers.
Babe wake up, another NJB video just drop