And no, that isn’t my argument. That’s just one word I happened to use.
First you assert the car won’t actually change speed enough to matter.
Then you argue the extra speed will make the collision materially worse.
Those two things cannot both be true. Pick a side and stick with it.
I mean, to play devil’s advocate to what I said above, there are probably a lot of situations where acceleration would be a person’s natural impulse, and it may prevent the perceived risk happening, only to create a new one - for example if you are traversing a crossroads type junction and you glance to one side and see a red-light-jumper on a course to T-bone you, you might stamp on the accelerator to try to clear the junction before they hit, but in those circumstances, with your attention stolen by the light-jumper, you are quite likely not even looking ahead at the place you are now accelerating into.
But that’s generally true with people’s panic reactions; a lot of the time people swerve to try to avoid a collision, but swerve in a direction that has a common component with the object they are trying to avoid, and they end up colliding when a much smaller swerve in the opposite direction would have done it. People brake hard and stop right in the path of a thing that then smashes into them.
My only qualification would be “in SOME work zones, and in ALL work zones when workers are actually present (seemingly a minute fraction of the time.” Around here, it seems barrels and reduced speed signs go up weeks/months before any other work is done. And there is a big difference IMO between - say - lanes all jogging, narrowing ,or merging, vs one shoulder closed.
IME, it seems the most frequent experience is folk speed down to 10-15 MPH over the posted work zone limit, as there is no work going on, or work is being done and traffic is stop and go.
One example of a situation where speeding may be the safest option:
If you’re on a non-divided, two-lane (one in each direction) highway, and you want/need to pass another vehicle. The safest way to do so is to pass them and get back into the right lane as quickly as possible, even if that means exceeding the speed limit while doing so.
I’m skeptical about that one - if they’re going fast enough that you’d have to do that, it’s probably not justifiable to even overtake, and if the properties of the road are such that you would need to do that to overtake a vehicle going much slower than the limit, then it’s not safe to overtake. IMO, the solution in both of those cases is suck it up and take it as a free lesson in developing patience.
On the other hand, a clear, straight road with no oncoming traffic, a driver travelling let’s say 20mph under the speed limit - i.e. safe to overtake - and after you begin the overtake manoeuvre, a vehicle pulls out of a side road(that you could not possibly have seen) without seeing you (because people only tend to check upstream in the lane they are pulling into), then there might be cases where it would be safer to accelerate to complete the overtake quicker, rather than braking and aborting the overtake altogether.
I’ve heard people say that it’s legal and acceptable to break the speed limit momentarily to overtake. It just isn’t. If you did it to avoid an unforeseeable accident, it would still be illegal, but justifiable under the circumstances.
Found at least four states which allow that. Cite (with links to the relevant laws in question).
Fair enough - I wasn’t considering the worldwide context. It’s illegal here.
Anyway, where i live there is already a law to allow speeding in an emergency situation to avoid an accident. I’m paraphrasing, but “the fundamental law of the road is to drive safely any reasonably”. If a camera records you speeding, and you can convince the judge that you were speeding to avoid an accident, you will have the ticket waived.
If you increase your speed from 60 to 70 you increase your kinetic energy by 36%, that is significant, especially since energy at 60mph is already pretty high.
If you increase your speed from 60-70 because of an imminent collision, let’s say you have 2 seconds to react, because the collision point is about 200 feet away and your car can add 10mph in 2 seconds. That act will change your car’s position at the collision point by 16 feet over that 2 seconds. (60mph is 88fps, and 65mph is 95.3fps)
16 feet may be significant, but it’s also based on your instant assessment of closing speeds that will apparently coincide 200 feet away from the point of assessment. Like I said, you better damn well be right.
We can also note here that most modern cars, in 200 feet, can slow down from 60 to zero. When the other object enters the collision point, you have reduced your KE by 100%, and aren’t even at the collision point.
Unless you have a big honkin’ 4x4 3 inches from your tail, in which case it is his kinetic energy you have to worry about. My scenario above was involving a semi being next to me and the maniac being on my tail, and in fact several times in the past year the semi has put on his flashers indicating he wants to merge into where I am, in which case you had better believe that I am going to floor it and get out of his *^$^% way. [and did with no issues, esp. since there was nobody ahead to worry about]
In a world where you and your would-be collisionmate are the only vehicles on the road, then sometimes a max effort slowing all the way to a stop is appropriate.
But as you implicitly say, it’s fine for you and your mate to occupy the same space as long as you don’t do it at the same time as well. If you observe what looks like an impending collision, being when it isn’t is just as good as being where it isn’t.
Hard deceleration until it’s evident you’ll clear them in the time dimension, followed by resuming your prior speed promptly to avoid creating conflicts with the umpteen vehicles behind you is the pro move. Stomping on the brakes until you come to a stop panting with “Whew!” while a 6-car pile-up develops behind you trying to avoid the suddenly-stopped car in front of them is … not.
All good stuff, but in the case where the potential collidee is a huge articulated truck doing it’s damnedest to topple over the central barrier into your lane, you don’t want to slow to a stop before it gets to you - ideally, you want to get away from the zone where it will fall.
Unlikely circumstance certainly, and also not tremendously likely that a driver would realise and act in time, and their car would respond usefully in time, but not impossible.
Montana has solved all of this by making the speed limit 80 on the interstates and 70 on the secondary roads (including our road). I don’t speed much anymore–80 is plenty fast. Remember 55 on the interstate? I guess it matched the quality of the cars at the time, but, damn, it would take forever to get anywhere (especially in MT).
Maybe this is a hijack but looking at speed as the safety control is out-of-date thinking. Cars are extremely safe and a difference of 20mph re: kinetic energy just does not make that much of a difference in almost all cases.
Don’t get me wrong. Looking at speed and reaction time is important where every extra mph works out to (approx) 1.5 feet per second of reaction time when kids may be running around or blind driveways empty onto a street, but the safety issues I see on the freeway is NOT everyone going 75 in a 65. It is people that no matter how fast traffic is going, they have to go 20 mph faster than everyone else and weave in and out, often missing people by inches, to get ahead of you and you and everyone else. It is trucks going 45 mph side by side in the number 2, 3 and 4 lanes that cause everyone to jam on their brakes and change lanes. It is people that try to merge 20 mph below the speed limit, or cars that refuse to give you a couple more feet to change lanes or cars that hang out in blind spots or the newest craze, you have plenty of room to merge so you hit you signal and the car intentionally speeds up because fuck you for trying to get in front of me. And of course the infamous you are going too slow (60 on a 55 county road) that I have to cross a solid line to pass you and do at least 70. Feel free to add your story here.
I bring it up in this thread because my commute takes me on county roads at 55 mph. A county road access to the freeway that is 45 mph and freeways that range from 55 to 75 mph speed limit where traffic under the right circumstances will do 90+ and at no point do I feel my safety changes because of the speed but rather I feel unsafe because of other drivers. I would feel perfectly safe driving 100 mph on a freeway if everyone was +/- 10% and driving safely.
Agreed. It’s wanton aggression, uncontrolled frustration, and yes, unusually slow drivers creating turbulence in the flow who cause all the safety issues.
Here in Melbourne Australia we have speed cameras every where that will fine you $240 for being 3kmh over the limit. 1.8mph.
It seriously sucks. Most speed limits are too low. Cars have improved, they’re safer than ever, yet speed limits keep getting lower.
Everyone driving at 100mph is fine until something happens. A lorry shedding its load, a deer running onto the road or something like that is likely to be far worse if everyone is doing 100 instead of 60.
Allowing cars to do 100 would also result in big speed discrepancies between vehicles. Most HGVs would be unable to do much more than 70 (less going up hills) many people would want to do 60 or 70 because they can not afford to half their mpg.
To have everyone going at a similar speed that speed needs to be at a level the vast majority of vehicles can achieve and drivers willing to go at that speed. You could force this with minimun speed limits, having a max 60, min 50 might be viable (at least if both can be reduced in adverse conditions), having a max 100, min 90 much less so.
Not sure how much it is considered but fuel economy can be a factor in setting speed limits. In the 70s fuel crisis UK speed limits were reduced. CO2 emissions will be much higher if everyone drives at 100 rather than 60.
Completely untrue. I don’t understand how you could even believe it, this is so untrue. Over 40,000 people a year get killed in car crashes, cars are not that safe.
This is a nice article from https://www.iihs.org/topics/speed
How do you think you can convince everyone else to drive within the same +/- 10%? The state could put up signs and encourage everyone to drive that speed. That would work, except when you have someone driving the posted speed +10%, someone else is going to cross the double yellow line to pass them at +27%.
Stopping distance doubles from 50mph to 70, and then doubles again from 70 to 100. Meanwhile your eyesight does not improve at all, nor does the inattentive driver who swerves into your lane. You are now much, much more likely to be in a disastrous multi vehicle crash.
If I had been going 100 instead of 70 when I hit that piece of tire that was sliding across the road, I’d probably be dead, not just have a badly damaged car.
There are more than just automobiles behaving perfectly on the highway. Laws and driving sensibly has to account for that.