Sliding limits
You know what would be really cool: Adjustable speed limit signs. Maybe on an 85 degree blue-sky day on a freshly paved straight road in Arizona, the limit could be adjusted to 100 mph (I’ve actually traveled in AZ in traffic conditions moving almost that speed in similar conditions). At night, it turns down. Animal-collision prone areas? Down. Lots of onramps, offramps? Down. Precipitation? Down. It should be adjustable downwards that the speed LIMIT could be as low as, say, 20 mph during a deluge or night-time snow storm. Speed limits up-hill would be higher than speed limits downhill, since you need less braking distance going up hill.
This would require some serious monitoring, but it seems workable enough. Heck, the New Jersey Turnpike is just chockablock with switchable REDUCE SPEED signs, though the likelihood of anyone, especially Jon Corzine, approving an INCREASE SPEED sign on any overpass in the Garden State — not to mention the Garden State Parkway — seems rather remote.
And 85 degrees in Arizona could be at high noon around the Grand Canyon, or four in the morning in metro Phoenix.
Jeffro »
27 October 2009 · 8:16 pm
The north part of I270 (and IIRC M370) in St. Louis, MO has adjustable speed limits – max 60mph. Which is all I’ve ever seen posted, even in stop and go driving. I70 on the west side is a fixed limit. I don’t know if that particular stretch is the only one with the supposed sliding limits or if there are others.
smitty »
27 October 2009 · 8:20 pm
Got them in VA.
What’s interesting is how they’re used to lower the limit, and increase the cost of speeding tickets.
Donna B. »
27 October 2009 · 8:50 pm
Having been born with a lead foot, I support all increases in speed limits except through residential areas.
As I sat outside this evening enjoying a good book and a glass of wine, I noticed my neighbors traveling this dead-end residential street at speeds exceeding 45 mph. This street has no shoulder and it’s barely two lanes (no stripes) wide. It’s also curvy and hilly.
I seldom drive faster than 30 on any part of this street. I’m not really an old fuddy-duddy slow driver and I have the tickets to prove it. Really, 90 or 100 mph on a straight 4-lane highway is much safer than 45 on a residential street.
Speed limits are arbitrary without regard to safety. Someone who drives unsafely is probably going to do so at any speed. How to target those drivers is not an arbitrary process, but one of judgement.
Those drivers who are unsafe at any speed are much less likely to be caught and fined. Although, after removing multiple mailboxes on my street, one elderly woman was finally denied the right to drive… though, to my knowledge, she never exceeded 20 mph. And it was her son, not the law, who finally took the keys away. I think he got tired of putting up new mailboxes for us.
There’s a highway I regularly travel between my house and my father’s. When it crosses the state line between Texas and Arkansas the speed limit goes for 70 to 55 (65 to 55 at night). There’s no real difference in the highway except that on the Arkansas side, the highway is straighter and visibility is greatly increased. Cruise control is my friend there.
CGHill »
27 October 2009 · 9:56 pm
I stay right around 25 in residential areas, usually exactly what’s posted around here.
Utah is experimenting with some 80-mph zones, which were fairly successful in west Texas. I haven’t been through Nevada in decades, but I suspect that there are still some roads through there on which 80 is a laggard pace.