I know that sometimes there are speed limits like 70, but usually it’s 25, 35, etc. Anyone know why?
WARNING: Total Wils Ass Guesses ahead.
That is a good question JCB. I know speed limits are set according to poulation density, road width and accessibility to the roadway (i.e., lots of residential driveways Vs. limited access highways)among other things. There were probably federal studies done and the State and Municipal goverments probably just adopted them rather than spend money to do duplicate studies.
As to the 5 thing, it might have something to do with how the speedometers of the cars were enumerated around the time of the studies.
They don’t.
Speed limits of 30,40,50 and 60 mph are just as common as the one’s you mentioned.
Limits are determined by many factors, traffic patterns locale, street or highway etc.
The limit can be any number, it just may be that in your area they seem to end in a 5.
When limits start to be 27 ,43 or 56.69, then someone’s got some splainin to do.
Dude don’t spend all you time in GQ, get out and live a little.
I’ve seen (but cant recall where) a 7 and 12 mph zone - maybe a 3 or 4 for cars also. (Also 4 and 12 for boats but that’s not your point).
I have to disagree with imthjckaz. They do seem more common to me, especially on highways. Obviously in the 1980s, 55 was a pretty common speed. After that, Congress allowed an increase to 65 on selected roads. Eventually, the control freaks relented, and states again set their own speeds.
As an aside, I wrote my congressman once, asking why he had voted against a particular bill liberalizing the speed limits in 1987 or so, then changed his position in 1990 or 91. I cited the particular passages of the bills, which were almost identical. Never got a reply.
Back to the question at hand. Many states, having set limits in accordance with the 55 dictate, and perhaps having changed to 65 as soon as they had the chance, didn’t have the willpower to address the issue again, for a measly 5 mph.
Well you know dqa, I was just goin’ by what was common for me. The limit for residential area’s here is 30, 20 for school zones, the county road on my way to work is 50, one of the most traveled roads in town is 40.
I guess what I should have said is that it depends on where you are and what gubmint agency is setting the limits, and who is patroling it. Here the city police patrol city streets, the sheriff’s office does county roads and the interstates are patroled by state troopers.
I-94, the main route from the Twin Cities to Fargo is 65. So it’s not like I said that there are no limits that end in 5, just that one’s endin’ in 0 are just as common.
The Rockefeller University in NYC has speed limit signs imploring you to drive Pi MPH
(I wanted to use the greek symbol, but couldn’t get it in vB. Is there a way?)
because 6’s were too high.
Disneyland has a 14 MPH speed limit.
My guess is that that’s exactly how fast the trams go and they don’t want you making them look bad.
I’m sure it does vary by region. Here in my neck of the woods, 20 mph is the limit in a school zone, and 40 seems fairly common, but that’s about it. Most everything else you see does end in a 5.
The truly odd duck is 30 mph. I can think of only one street in our entire metropolitan area that has a speed limit of 30 mph.
I saw a news report once about a turn on this highway that was badly built. People were constantly getting in accidents because it couldn’t handle anything over 40 mph. They put up a 35 mph speed limit sign, and people said, ah, that means 45-50 easy. Crash wump thud. So they put up a 30 mph sign, and everybody slowed down to 40-45. Crash wump thud. They didn’t want to go down to 25, because everybody would just plain ignore it.
They put up a sign saying Speed Limit: 37 mph.
It worked.
I wish I had a cite for this, but it’s been eons… Anyway, I seem to recall a study that found when the speed limit is something out of the ordinary - like 37 or 22 - people tend to obey it more willingly than if it’s a multiple of 5. Dunno if it’s the challenge of figuring out how to go 22 or a paranoia that someone really is watching your speed… or maybe the inability to add 5 to 37 mentally…
Of course, I could be hallucinating all this, but it made sense at the time.
I was driving to the new Hyatt resort outside of Albuquerque earlier this week. This was on private property, and it was a narrow winding road. The speed limit started at 23, then dropped to 17. Weird. It was, as someone else noted, hard to figure out where that was on my speedometer, as it is marked in 5 mph increments.
My question is, is it more common for speed limits to be in 5 mph increments because speedometers at made that way, or are speedometers made that way because of the speedlimits?
In Switzerland almost all of the speed limits end with a 0. So put that in your pipe and smoke it. 