I doubt that speed limits are helpful at all. The sections of the German Autobahn with no speed limit (roughly 70%) have half the mortality rate per distance traveled of American highways[1]. Granted, the average American driver is probably worse than the average German Autobahn driver but hey.
How about instead of doing some random proposed change with speed limit maximums and what not we do some AB testing and figure out what’s safer?
Of course safety concerns don’t exist in a vacuum. Every second we save on the highway by going fast is another second of life we get to spend doing something actually enjoyable.
German Autobahns with no speed limit have been designed to be safely driven at high speed. For example, wide lanes, long straight sections, very large radius of curvature for non-straight sections, minimal layout changes, good drainage. And also features which minimise the impact if accidents do occur, e.g. strong central barriers.
It does not therefore follow that removing speed limits on typical American freeways, which have not been designed for high speeds, is a sensible thing to do.
Plus, the way US politics works, if you did any kind of no speed limit trial, it would not last long. Let’s say you’re a politician who somehow gets approval to push through a policy to trial no speed limit on a freeway. An accident happens (regardless of whether speed was a cause), and you’ll be out of office the next day, and that’s the end of the trial.
I doubt that speed limits are helpful at all. The sections of the German Autobahn with no speed limit (roughly 70%) have half the mortality rate per distance traveled of American highways[1]. Granted, the average American driver is probably worse than the average German Autobahn driver but hey.
How about instead of doing some random proposed change with speed limit maximums and what not we do some AB testing and figure out what’s safer?
Of course safety concerns don’t exist in a vacuum. Every second we save on the highway by going fast is another second of life we get to spend doing something actually enjoyable.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autobahn#Safety:_international_comparison
German Autobahns with no speed limit have been designed to be safely driven at high speed. For example, wide lanes, long straight sections, very large radius of curvature for non-straight sections, minimal layout changes, good drainage. And also features which minimise the impact if accidents do occur, e.g. strong central barriers.
It does not therefore follow that removing speed limits on typical American freeways, which have not been designed for high speeds, is a sensible thing to do.
Plus, the way US politics works, if you did any kind of no speed limit trial, it would not last long. Let’s say you’re a politician who somehow gets approval to push through a policy to trial no speed limit on a freeway. An accident happens (regardless of whether speed was a cause), and you’ll be out of office the next day, and that’s the end of the trial.
Rolling out this proposal on some randomly selected matched pairs of high-fatality roads and comparing outcomes would be relatively cheap.