cross-posted from: https://sh.itjust.works/post/44712264
These up-eds usually complain that photo radar would be fine if the radar worked properly. This one doesn’t even do that. It just complains that speed limits aren’t fair and now drivers have to change their behavior. jfc
It is true that drivers can avoid such tickets by sticking to the posted speed limits, but it is also true that drivers are hardly ever expected to strictly observe those limits.
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It’s like the generally accepted contract between drivers and police – just drive at a reasonable speed and you’ll be fine – has been broken.
Counterpoint: the road I live on is 30mph, it is 30 because houses are less than 50 feet from the road and cars going faster than 30 are really loud from wind resistance and tire noise. Cars tend to go 45+ frequently and we have requested speed mitigation. We were told because we have an EMS and fire station on our road it is considered a main road so we can’t have speed bumps or other measures. So other than enforcement by camera or officer how do you suggest they get the speeders to respect the speed limits?
And to add to that, cars we’re going so fast and we have so many accidents that during the next road resurfacing they were going to remove our on street parking and replace it with a center lane so those that are speeding or passing in the bike/parking lane can now pass on the center turn lane even though that is illegal to pass in a turn lane. They were just gonna turn a blind eye to that law.
Speed bumps can be designed to accommodate emergency vehicles. We can also narrow the lanes to give drivers less room, a skilled driver for EMS would still be comfortable exceeding the limit as needed as they should be trained to do so.
Ive noticed that many roads that get that centerline end up with faster speed, they add that lane to try to reduce conflict points but overall i doubt it will significantly increase the safety of your road. If there are any public hearings for the resurfacing you should voice some opinions on how these changes may not be very effective for the cost of the rehabilitation.
narrow the street so drivers are more cautious and thus drive more slowly
I am not a traffic engineer, so I can’t tell you. I’ve seen signs banning cars from particular streets where residents and commercial vehicles are exempt, to prevent a little residential street connecting larger roads from being used as a thoroughfare, thats probably illegal in the US.
Is there a way you can block resurfacing? People drive slower on crummier roads, though it has to get p bad fir pickup trucks and SUVs to slow.
That was their plan but we as a neighborhood complained and they are leaving our parking and just going to install the floppy barriers at the corners to try to prevent people passing on the right when someone makes a left.
But yeah people did drive slow at the shit spots but then they just speed up on the smoother spots so they actually just speed more.