On Friday 8 December, the speed limit on most roads in Amsterdam will be lowered to a maximum of 30 kilometres per hour (km/h)
On Friday 8 December, the speed limit on most roads in Amsterdam will be lowered to a maximum of 30 kilometres per hour (km/h)
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Damn, that's pretty slow. An ebike can easily match that speed.
That would certainly make it so everyone can share the road comfortably, and encourage more non-car traffic.
All school zones and most residential neighborhoods in sweden have a 30 kmh speed limit.
30 kmh is a huge tipping point when it comes to pedestrian fatalities. below 30 kmh, a majority of pedestrians hit by a car will survive, above 30 kmh, a majority of pedestrians by a car will die.
Frankly I feel uneasy when I'm driving around at 50km/h on residential streets. It's just too fast to be able to react to a kid or an animal jumping out from behind a parked car. So not only is 50 more lethal, it also reduces reaction time and increases braking distance. It's crazy that anybody ever thought this was a good idea to begin with.
I got docked points on my test for going 30 in a residential zone. I didn't fail and I know the tester is just doing their job but daaamn. Encouraging a 17 year old kid to go 50 down side streets with only enough space for a single car, interesting strategy.
17 is way too young to be driving in the first place, but that's another conversation.
I experienced something similar while getting my license, luckily the tester acknowledged that it had been the right thing to do as we later on drove past a kid playing on the street. Imo driving a bit slower in residential areas shouldn't be a problem for anyone.
Hmm, some quick googling says 30 km/h is equal to about 18 mph which feels a little slow. For reference the typical residential speed limit in the US is 25 mph which is about 40 km/h. The lowest speed limit I've ever seen is 15 mph or 24 km/h, but even then nearly everyone ignored that and did 20 to 25 mph. School zones are typically 20 mph or 32 km/h.
In germany there are pedestrian/residental areas with a speed limit of 4-7km/h (2-4mp/h for the American folk here). Basically 1st gear idle speed. Also you can't "jaywalk" in these areas since it's specifically desjnged as a mixed space, nobody has a right of way.
May as well go in your horse drawn carriage at that point
Lowering the speed limit saves lives, whether or not it feels slow should be irrelevant.
https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/edmonton-driving-speed-limit-city-study
I'm proud to not be American
Just seems too slow to be practical, it will take hours to drive anywhere. I drive just under 100 km every day and that already takes me an hour and a half. If the max speed limit was 30 km/h that would be at least 3 hours if not worse because I'm sure traffic would be significantly worse.
At those speeds you might as well not even bother with a car. Hell there's people around here that regularly exceed 30 km/h on bicycles.
You drive 100km down residential streets every day? Main roads will not have this speed limit.
At those speeds you might as well not even bother with a car.
That's kind of the point. Cars are horribly inefficient at moving people, terrible for the environment, and turn cities into dangerous and awful places to be.
The article seemed to imply that there would only be 2 speed limits, 80% of roads would be 30 km/h while the remaining roads would be 50 km/h. If this only applies to residential roads and not major ones then that's fine. Still seems slightly on the slow side but not horrendous.
About 5 miles of my daily commute are on residential roads most of which are 25 to 30 mph speed limits. 20 miles are on roads with a 70 mph speed limit, and the remainder the speed limit is 45 mph. Most days it takes about 50 minutes one way for a total round trip time of about an hour and 40 minutes.
A lot of french cities are limited to 30km/h. It reduces the number of fatal accident, promote alternative mobilities and some studies showed that it actually increase the average car speed.
Lowering the maximum speed reduces the amount of traffic so in fine even if the maximum speed is reduced the travel time by car is reduced too.