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mcv 2 minutes ago [-]
Halved? So you could go 60 on narrow city streets?
In Netherland, the speed limit in cities used to be 50, and even in the 1980s, people were complaining that that was too fast. Most residential streets have been 30 (or less; the street I grew up in had a limit of 5 or 10 km/h) for some time, and Amsterdam recently made it the default for all streets with only exceptions for the biggest thoroughfares. They've also experimented with closing some of those thoroughfares.
Cars are bad for cities. It's a simple fact. The big advantage of cities is that everything is within walking or cycling distance, and the density is perfect for dense public transport. The only use for cars is to get out of the city.
Low speed limits make cars safer, but they also encourage safer forms of transportation. It's great to see this insight take hold in more countries.
tcp_handshaker 30 seconds ago [-]
Its ironic, because the biggest danger in Amsterdam are cyclists doing well over 60 inside town narrow streets.
Usually these roads are so small, you can barely fit a car and maybe one pedestrian on one / each side. And these streets are quite common in residential area. As in the picture, usually there are light poles along the pedestrian street. the pictures pole is pretty small but normally they're big enough you can only circumvent it by going in the path of the car, and that's a Hotspot when people get hit.
I didn't even know you were allowed to drive 60km/h on those streets. Most people slowed down because the chance of damaging your car is quite high
Edit: also why big American car are not that popular in Japan. You can't even reach your house for many, if you get an American car
rwmj 13 minutes ago [-]
The really big thing in Japan is you're not allowed to park ("litter") your car in the street. In fact you can't even buy a car unless you can prove you have somewhere on your own land where you can park it. It makes a big improvement to walkability and general attractiveness of neighbourhoods.
buran77 4 minutes ago [-]
I'm surprised the limit was so high on those narrow, low visibility streets to begin with. In many EU countries the limit is 30km/h even on streets that are double the size, if they're in residential neighborhoods to increase pedestrian safety.
Neywiny 6 minutes ago [-]
Your edit reminds me of some years ago at a conference an American was asking in a boasting way what some European people thought of cybertrucks. I don't know if he owned one or worked on them or just liked them, but he seemed to want some praise on it. They tore into it including how big it was relative to narrow European streets and that they wouldn't be legal to sell in Europe. The guy didn't talk to them after that
noir_lord 3 minutes ago [-]
> was asking in a boasting way what some European people thought of cybertrucks
Not a lot at announcement and even less now, not seen one in the UK (they aren't road legal).
It is insane that 60 was ever considered a limit :P
20 seems much more than needed
idoubtit 25 minutes ago [-]
Maybe in Japan it will be effective. Since their "zone 30" creation was apparently a success, it seems probable that people will generally comply. My experience in France differs.
I live in a French town where the default speed limit is 30 km/h instead of the national 50 km/h. In the street where I live, the drivers that willingly (sometimes they can't overtake bikes and slow cars) observe that limit are a tiny minority. Why would they, since there are no automated controls in the city, and police sets manual controls once in a blue moon.
My street was already at 30 km/h in 2016 when the global speed limit was introduced by the city council. I'm pretty sure the mean speed has increased since then, though I don't have hard facts to prove it[^1]. At first I thought that, since all road signs were removed except on the city borders, the drivers needed a constant reminder of a limit that they'd prefer to ignore. Now I just think that people soon saw that there was almost no risk in breaking the law.
[^1]: There was a study, but the methodology was so poor that it was inconclusive. They monitored the speed in a dozen streets before and after the change, but it was done for different lengths of time (one or two weeks), at different times of the year, and with explicitly no attention payed to potential popular events or roadworks. So the average speed was globally lower after the change, but in most streets it had increased!
maratc 4 minutes ago [-]
Street bumps are much more efficient in lowering speed than either "automated controls" or "manual controls". You (plus neighbours, probably) could petition your council to put one (or several) on your street.
world2vec 54 minutes ago [-]
Good. Everywhere in the cities the speed limit in residential areas should be 30km/h and 60km/h for everything else. No need for higher speeds in dense urban environments.
piva00 7 minutes ago [-]
In Sweden it's commonly 30-50km/h for inner city streets, I think it's a good sweet spot, 60km/h has 44% more kinetic energy than 50km/h, and since most time lost in urban areas is due to stoppage (traffic lights, intersections, etc.) there's minimal change on travel times at the lower speed.
vincnetas 30 minutes ago [-]
Fun fact. In Lithuania there was a standat speed limit 60km/h. But we have this curiosity that if you exceed speed limit by less than 10km/h, there is no fine, just a warning. Basically "hey, could you please not"
Because of that de facto speed limit in streets was 70km/h. So to combat this, currently we have speed limit 50km/h in cities, which translates to de facto 60km/h
schnitzelstoat 20 minutes ago [-]
In Spain it's 30km/hr in the city on most one-lane roads. Most people comply, maybe people will go 40 but I can't imagine people going 60 down them.
half_fish 24 minutes ago [-]
I remember reading a news story about how popular kei cars (compact cars) are in Japan.
It feels like these traffic laws and the local conditions really go hand in hand with that.
cucumber3732842 37 minutes ago [-]
>slashed from 60km/h (37mph) to 30km/h
> applies to residential roads with no centre line or maximum speed signs, media report
>The measures apply to about 870,000km of roads that are less than 5.5 metres wide and do not have centre lines or median strips, according to the Mainichi Shimbun. They account for about 70% of the country’s general roads, the newspaper said.
So basically they went from no effective speed limit (since most people will probably not drive 60kmh on those kinds of roads if left to their own devices) to a specific speed limit on a bunch of tiny roads that the overwhelming majority of people were probably already going pretty darn slow on for the most part.
I suspect this will just result in a bunch of roads that really were overdue for it getting center lines and specific posted limits getting them and not much change anywhere else.
Firaxus 25 minutes ago [-]
Anec-data, but I was in japan recently on my honeymoon, was in some big and small cities, and I was shocked at how fast people were driving on exactly these types of roads. I grew up in a neighborhood where the speedlimit is 20mph, which is slightly higher than this new regulation, so fwiw I think I can recognize when cars are going faster than that as they wiz by me.
So I’m pretty optimistic about this change, better than they way things are now at least.
ghere 53 minutes ago [-]
The sign of an area run by old people
happymellon 44 minutes ago [-]
The sign of people that live in a city that understand how dangerous cars are in a shared space with people.
rwmj 9 minutes ago [-]
From the article:
> The introduction in 2011 of “zone 30” areas on a limited number of residential streets and along school routes resulted in a 30% reduction in fatalities and serious injuries
This benefits everyone.
randerson 5 minutes ago [-]
They're old because they didn't get hit by a car.
codeduck 37 minutes ago [-]
The sign of an area with a dense population where people operate within close proximity to people-squashing-machines, and the people have rightly decided that reducing the severity of any potential people-vs-people-squashing-machines incidents is worth far more than the modest reduction in travel time for the occupiers of the people-squashing-machines, most of which never spend much time at 60km/h anyway due to congestion.
Frankly, anyone driving at 60km/h through narrow streets isn't driving with due care and consideration for the surroundings anyway.
eloisius 15 minutes ago [-]
Not really. Taipei is basically a geriatric colony. You can tell because every year they shut down or limit the hours of nightlife districts, slow the MRT escalators down (more), spend public money on geezer karaoke social hours, etc. But not speed limits. It’s always the senile farts blasting their Mercedes down the street at high speed, losing control and plowing into school kids. There’s absolutely no political will to reduce speeds on residential streets.
cpursley 38 minutes ago [-]
What? It’s the children who get run over by speeding assholes.
PunchyHamster 33 minutes ago [-]
that might be news to you but those people don't give a shit about speed limits
cryptopian 21 minutes ago [-]
Worse than that, driving can be a partially subconscious activity and people tend to drive at the speed that "feels" right. It's why the best approach to slowing motor vehicles in places with people walking is to physically design the road to feel uncomfortable driving too fast, rather than slap a 20mph sign on a wide straight road.
rwmj 7 minutes ago [-]
Arrest them, take away their cars. Repeat until they do "give a shit".
In Netherland, the speed limit in cities used to be 50, and even in the 1980s, people were complaining that that was too fast. Most residential streets have been 30 (or less; the street I grew up in had a limit of 5 or 10 km/h) for some time, and Amsterdam recently made it the default for all streets with only exceptions for the biggest thoroughfares. They've also experimented with closing some of those thoroughfares.
Cars are bad for cities. It's a simple fact. The big advantage of cities is that everything is within walking or cycling distance, and the density is perfect for dense public transport. The only use for cars is to get out of the city.
Low speed limits make cars safer, but they also encourage safer forms of transportation. It's great to see this insight take hold in more countries.
Usually these roads are so small, you can barely fit a car and maybe one pedestrian on one / each side. And these streets are quite common in residential area. As in the picture, usually there are light poles along the pedestrian street. the pictures pole is pretty small but normally they're big enough you can only circumvent it by going in the path of the car, and that's a Hotspot when people get hit.
I didn't even know you were allowed to drive 60km/h on those streets. Most people slowed down because the chance of damaging your car is quite high
Edit: also why big American car are not that popular in Japan. You can't even reach your house for many, if you get an American car
Not a lot at announcement and even less now, not seen one in the UK (they aren't road legal).
I live in a French town where the default speed limit is 30 km/h instead of the national 50 km/h. In the street where I live, the drivers that willingly (sometimes they can't overtake bikes and slow cars) observe that limit are a tiny minority. Why would they, since there are no automated controls in the city, and police sets manual controls once in a blue moon.
My street was already at 30 km/h in 2016 when the global speed limit was introduced by the city council. I'm pretty sure the mean speed has increased since then, though I don't have hard facts to prove it[^1]. At first I thought that, since all road signs were removed except on the city borders, the drivers needed a constant reminder of a limit that they'd prefer to ignore. Now I just think that people soon saw that there was almost no risk in breaking the law.
[^1]: There was a study, but the methodology was so poor that it was inconclusive. They monitored the speed in a dozen streets before and after the change, but it was done for different lengths of time (one or two weeks), at different times of the year, and with explicitly no attention payed to potential popular events or roadworks. So the average speed was globally lower after the change, but in most streets it had increased!
Because of that de facto speed limit in streets was 70km/h. So to combat this, currently we have speed limit 50km/h in cities, which translates to de facto 60km/h
It feels like these traffic laws and the local conditions really go hand in hand with that.
> applies to residential roads with no centre line or maximum speed signs, media report
>The measures apply to about 870,000km of roads that are less than 5.5 metres wide and do not have centre lines or median strips, according to the Mainichi Shimbun. They account for about 70% of the country’s general roads, the newspaper said.
So basically they went from no effective speed limit (since most people will probably not drive 60kmh on those kinds of roads if left to their own devices) to a specific speed limit on a bunch of tiny roads that the overwhelming majority of people were probably already going pretty darn slow on for the most part.
I suspect this will just result in a bunch of roads that really were overdue for it getting center lines and specific posted limits getting them and not much change anywhere else.
So I’m pretty optimistic about this change, better than they way things are now at least.
> The introduction in 2011 of “zone 30” areas on a limited number of residential streets and along school routes resulted in a 30% reduction in fatalities and serious injuries
This benefits everyone.
Frankly, anyone driving at 60km/h through narrow streets isn't driving with due care and consideration for the surroundings anyway.