[SebC]

Originally Posted by REDVAN

I would be very interested in talking to a civil engineer who designs roads and sets speed limits. I think sometimes they are just set a certain way because it seems like that is a 70 road. Not because going 80 would not be safe. Just because it looked like a 70 road.

I'm not really the guy to comment on this since I'm not in civil... however, I know for sure that speed limits are set by provincial law. Primary highways, 100 kph (with a few exceptions that are 110). In national parks, 90 kph (which I follow strictly because of wildlife, especially around corners). Secondary highways, 80 kph. Residential areas, 50. Rural playground/school zones, 40. City, 30. And so on.

When you consider that the average car with summer tires can handle about 0.75 Gs with all weather tires when the conditions are good, I have no doubt that the safety margins for the actual road / car combination is pretty huge. Of course, I'm also pretty sure they try to keep their safety factors under wraps so that people don't try to approach them. Speed limits are more about trying to provide adequate reaction times for the "lowest common denominator". Of course, when someone's tailgating, there's no way they have adequate stopping distances no matter what the speed limit is.

Now, on to your articles:

Unless someone wants to suggest that Americans are just naturally more law abiding than Canadians -- an argument that won't go very far -- one has to conclude that the more realistic speed limit probably plays a role in the higher level of compliance.

I don't buy it that this the result of Arizona's speed limit being realistic. Last summer I did a road trip in the states from Seattle to San Francisco, out to the Grand Canyon, down to San Diego, and up to LA. Between the two of us who were driving we logged over 3000 miles. And we noticed that Americans tend to stick to the limits everywhere (and most places it's 65 mph = 105 kph). I think it has to be a cultural thing.

And anyways, clearly that guy wasn't there when I was. I hit 100 (mph ) on those roads (well it was actually the California desert, but still). And those roads can handle it. They're super straight, wide lanes, and the curves are extremely large radius. Asphalt was hot an sticky, and you could see for miles.

I love this quote from the second article:

The poll also found that nearly 900,000 Canadian drivers admitted they had to brake or steer to avoid a collision due to excessive speeding in the past month, with a majority of these drivers having done so on multiple occasions.

I'm pretty sure everyone who drives has to brake or steer to avoid collisions, speeding or not. I can understand this making sense if they said had to swerve to avoid a collision, but every time you stop at a traffic light you're braking to avoid a collision, so whether or not you were speeding when you did so is rather irrelevant.