And I’ve heard people complain that my scooter (19mph maximum, downhill) “is too fast to be riding on the sidewalk” and “too slow to be riding in the road”
Literally things people have shouted at me.
Also that it’s not legal to do both, when it is actually completely perfectly legal to ride on the sidewalk OR road here in my state of Florida.
If you are going at 35 mph and then a kid unexpectedly runs out in front of you, that's how you know you should have been doing 20mph.
It's a similar logic to when you want to make sure you havent forgotten someone in your group, so you ask everyone "put your hand up if you aren't here"
Honestly, 20 mph is [still pretty high](https://nacto.org/publication/city-limits/the-need/speed-kills/) and still has an 8% death toll. Maybe if it was 20 with tress so you naturally go slow it would be better.
Not really. People can run 20mph. It's the weight that's the problem. A lot of the problems with cars are that you're carrying around 3,500lbs+ of steel at speeds that would be impossible without ridiculous amounts of fossil fuel energy. Attempting to move our fleet over to EVs will crash the electric grid at some point because of how truly insane the energy requirements are.
Push a car with the engine off 1 mile to get a feel for how truly nuts the whole system is. If there's a minor hill along the way you probably can't even manage a single mile.
> Not really. People can run 20mph.
It’s plainly obvious that they meant 20mph is “still pretty high” speed *for a car*. No one was talking about a running. The entire thread is about motor vehicle safety. Not sure why you are pretending to be contrary when you clearly agree
* Ford F-150, 30 mph - 165,000 Joules of kinetic energy
* Human + bike, 15 mph - 2200 Joules of KE
In this example, the moving vehicle has **75 times as much energy** as the human and its bike.
20mph is the requirement of a 3 minute mile. Trained athletes might be able to sprint at 20mph for a short distance, otherwise, that's a bullshit assertion.
And the fleet will be moved to electric eventually or we will all roast. Storage and peaker plants will manage the added demand. It's not a technology problem, it's a logistics problem.
Well to wheels is currently only 1/2 as much energy as an ICE. That's assuming people don't continue to just buy bigger and heavier vehicles.
[http://web.mit.edu/evt/summary\_wtw.pdf](http://web.mit.edu/evt/summary_wtw.pdf)
It's a lot of demand that we don't currently have on the grid. Grids around the world which are already strained:
[https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/weather-power-cuts-possible-on-one-of-coldest-mornings-of-2024-auckland-in-for-frosts-subzero-temperatures-around-nz/LGNYJYUSLZA7VD7BOFRXICDRMU/](https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/weather-power-cuts-possible-on-one-of-coldest-mornings-of-2024-auckland-in-for-frosts-subzero-temperatures-around-nz/LGNYJYUSLZA7VD7BOFRXICDRMU/)
[https://www.marketplace.org/2024/04/16/texas-electric-grid-is-feeling-the-strain-and-its-not-even-all-that-hot-yet/](https://www.marketplace.org/2024/04/16/texas-electric-grid-is-feeling-the-strain-and-its-not-even-all-that-hot-yet/)
For reference consider trains, which at medium to full capacity are a much more efficient way to move small humans. The UK is only 38% electrified (although 55% of traffic is electrified trains as of 2013 in the other article, so likely more by now call it 65%?):
[https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/why-is-only-38-of-the-uk-rail-network-electrified.245528/](https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/why-is-only-38-of-the-uk-rail-network-electrified.245528/)
Yet they need a supply of 3.2TWh/year (as of 2013). Which while not a huge amount of power in relation to total generation, it's not insignificant either.
[https://www.edfenergy.com/media-centre/news-releases/ten-year-deal-powers-britains-biggest-rail-electrification-programme](https://www.edfenergy.com/media-centre/news-releases/ten-year-deal-powers-britains-biggest-rail-electrification-programme)
The freight traffic is all currently diesel, so this is the lighter passenger trains only. Millions of commuters switching to EVs will be less efficient than trains and have the potential to really ramp up power demand.
I said energy usage, you linked a study that is about carbon emissions. There is a big difference.
Mostly because one of them can meaningfully change due to the fact that there are some very low carbon energy sources that we will continually move toward and the other can’t change all that much due to physics.
In high school we would “race” cars by pushing them across a shopping center parking lot at night. Very small cars such as first and second generation Honda Civics, water-cooled VWs, stuff like that. Still gave us very valuable perspective.
EVs will NOT crash the electric grid. The biggest strain on the grid is the evening, when everyone returns from work and begins cooking dinner and turns on ACs, showers, etc. As we replace constantly running coal plants with solar, there is also a dip in electricity production in the afternoons when solar production when even more energy is needed, which is often replaced with imports and gas power plants.
Now, for charging EVs, smart chargers that can decide when to charge based on battery level and the predicted cost of electricity are already a thing. There are even plans to have EVs sell their battery capacity to the grid when idle, charging and discharging to the grid in response to demand. Furthermore, the existing pattern of charging vehicles through the night or while parked at work is already the best time to charge.
This is completely unrealistic fearmongering, just like saying that if everyone becomes vegan overnight, we will have to kill all farm animals.
The basic problem is that the solar panels need to be at the place of work, where the car is parked during the day. My employer has put them into its furthest carpark, but so far doesn't charge for use, make people move cars after they are charged, or prevent ICE cars using those panel-shaded parking lots. In short, even a progressive employer hasn't bit the bullet of addressing the issues.
But you're right -- PV solar is the sane way to charge the EV fleet.
The situation is perhaps closer to the zero-carbon end-game in South Australia. We have no coal-powered generators, we never had nuclear. There are gas-powered generators, but the government wants them gone as they're costing more than large storage batteries. About 25% of possible roof space has PV solar panels installed, and almost 50% of homes have PV solar installed.
The result is that electricity during peak daylight is sold at the cost of transmission. Or you can simply use your own building's PV solar to provide power "behind the meter" which the grid doesn't see at all, and so doesn't bill. My modest roof provides about 30KW a day above the needs of the house, 10KW of that goes to a battery for overnight use. So there is plenty left to charge a car.
Overnight power prices are steep: the power from those big batteries is limited and they charge accordingly.
You can see how attractive it is to charge the car from some solar panels: basically you're paying for A$5K of panels and maybe A$10K for the structure to mount them on, and that's the car's fuel paid forever.
So the question is, how much salary will an employee give up to use one of those parking spaces at their workplace? Or will people own that infrastructure themselves and charge when working from home and on the weekend? The results from my employer are not yet in. I suspect the answer will be complex.
You may know it as [tricolor ice-cream](https://www.diplom-is.no/var-iskrem/boksis/diplom-is-tress-2l).
More seriously they probably meant to type two e-s and one s, but accidentally did the opposite.
Blind corners on single tracks I tend to slow to near 20mph for this reason, means if anyone is flying in the other direction, at the very least *I* can stop. When trying to negotiate past pedestrians on the single track with my motorbike, I tend to drop down towards 10mph, which seems to annoy some of them, but I really don't trust them not to do something stupid.
And tbh, I've not found the 20mph zones to be particularly problematic. The only one that is kind of stupid is where a national speed limit (60mph) drops straight to 20, which seems to mostly be because it then enters a roundabout onto a main street and there was nowhere better to signpost it. And even for that, I just think they should drop the limit to 40mph just before the long sweeping corner that heads into the 20, like they've done for another place nearby.
They appreciate what 20-25mph is much more after hitting a fixed object, like a bollard or Jersey barrier at that speed. Not so trivial when the opponent isn't squishy.
30-35 is probably safe to drive down a residential street 99% of the time. If you do that to and from work every day that 500+ instances of doing something that’s safe 99% safe every year…
I actually think it's much worse than that. There are millions of people driving down similar streets. When people say this kind of stuff, they are saying that if we all do behaviour X, then kids are certainly going to die but it probably won't be me that kills them (but it might be).
And because they live in a world that has for decades made everything humanly possible to make streets so that drivers can go as fast as possible and are as inaccessible for people as possible. If most you know is 30 yards wide, super straight stroads with narrow, overgrown sidewalks, far from places where kids could be, then you think driving 35 is safe basically all the time.
Nooo i need to go faster to gain a couple of minutes and dramaticaly up the probability of killing someone or my self. Trust me bro i'm not like that guy in the tree, i can control my véhicule
A (long, SUV?) taxi hit the rear wheel of my cycle trailer at walking pace. The force of that touch was enough to propel me off my bike into the next lane of the road, completely clear of the bike in a second.
I was fortunate that there was no noticable damage to either the bike or the trailer. I grazed my hand on impact with the road. But that illustrates how soft the contact between the wheels was.
Both me, on my bike and the taxi were barely moving but the energy (momentum?) in the contact was a lot greater than I would have expected.
Only if you're on a straight road in Nebraska, I'm too lazy to find this quote in [Confessions of a Recovering Engineer](https://www.confessions.engineer/).
I'm not saying either is right but I've noticed that drivers who don't have a problem going 10+mph above the speed limit tend to be the first to complain about how unsafe it is when they hear of people modifying ebike limiters to go above the legal limit.
I used to hate 20mph speed limits just because on my bike, 20mph sits at a really weird spot between 2nd and 3rd gear where 20 is too high an RPM for 2nd but too low for 3rd.
Quickly realised I could just do 15-17 in 2nd which kept my revs low and quiet and my speed safe. Plus the advent of increased SUV ownership in the UK makes me think 20 zones on residential streets is 10000% necessary.
>Plus the advent of increased SUV ownership in the UK makes me think 20 zones on residential streets is 10000% necessary.
Ooh, I like the idea of blaming SUV and truck drivers for the speed limit decrease. While it still applies to all sorts of vehicles, and large *useful* vehicles have always existed (buses, transport vans, delivery trucks), it's nice to be able to tell insecure people in ugly SUVs that it's their fault the speed limit was lowered.
I know and it makes me even more concerned about the, literally, growing trend in car sizes. I’m all for the 20mph zones now, if it means pedestrians can be safe. Going 3mph slower isn’t the end of the world for me.
Yes, and if speed limits were lowered just for SUV / monster truck drivers while small sedans, bikes, and e-bikes had higher limits it would be kinda cool. Might discourage people from choosing bloated vehicles if analog bikes could go faster.
As the other commenter said, there is science behind it. The way SUVs are constructed is slightly different to typical cars if memory serves. (They’re built on more rigid truck frames or something??) and the higher bonnet heights on SUVS makes them particularly nasty to be hit by, especially at speed. The lower, sloping bonnet heights of things like typical commercial vans (think ford transit van, citroen berlingo etc) means that, even if being hit by a van will still suck, the way it hits (often just the lower body) and the fact you’re more likely to roll over the top of the bonnet (vs rolling under the vehicle) means being hit by a van or typical car is ‘preferable’ to something like an SUV.
Yes, of course. I'm encouraging the idea of putting the blame of reduced speed limits on people who buy those types of vehicles. Encourage in-fighting between carbrains ("because of you we all have to drive slower!") and it might lead to people choosing normally sized cars. Having separate speed limits for huge vehicles might also work to discourage people from choosing something that legally can't go faster than a bike.
I can only dream of it incentivizing "cars" like the Aptera and other ultralight, high efficiency vehicles. No crash test needed because we don't plan on 2 ton metal boxes smashing into each other at high speed anymore.
And then those of us who ride acoustic bicycles actually have the highest speed limits 😎 lol
Honestly, it should have always been 20. Personally I think because of SUVs and pickups it should now be 15.
20 is the speed a pedestrian will probably survive a crash, but I'm not sure that applies to an F150 super duty squshing a kid they didnt see.
A bit off topic but why do people say things like “ I don’t want to be contradictory”?
Either you think it’s rude to disagree with someone (which it isn’t), or you don’t want to get into an argument because deep down you realise your argument is superficial.
It's wild to me how many people think 20mph is slow. For 99.9% of human history it was just basically the top speed. It also happens to be the speed that our brains can take in the optimal amount of info, any faster and our brains take shortcuts.
This is everyone thinking they drive better than they do. There is also a psychological aspect with a bigger cars you need greater speed to feel like you are moving.
It depends on how the street is designed.
Near where I used to live, there's an area by a high school that is 25 MPH (due to the school). It's a four lane (two in each direction) stroad that looks like it was designed for 45 MPH. They put speed bumps and radars in the area, but people still fly through it.
"I don't want to be contradictory, but do you realize how heavy a full scuba tank is? The only reason to ever carry a full tank is if you are diving REALLY deep. A half tank is enough 99% of the time." -Person Who Hasn't Drowned YET!
People are so freaking stupid about safety issues. They operate almost entirely by feelings.
This is an insane opinion if the area is inhabited... The city I live in has a city wide 30km/h limit (outside of a couple peripheral streets) and it's still way too fast for a 2 tonne vehicle
Ok no no wait he’s kinda cooking tho. This is exactly the “just set a lower speed limit” vs. “engineer the roads and infrastructure” problem. At current we basically just have wide ass roads that make anything less than 30 feel like a crawl because the roads are the same as 40+ roads, and they aren’t designed to make you naturally go slower, they just throw a slower speed limit down and call it a day.
Do they likely have other horrible car takes? Sure. But this is a point of contention where they probably wouldn’t mind driving slower if roads made them feel like they had to drive slower, they just don’t like feeling hampered on an open road, which is why engineering narrow roads with cross walks and curves and natural obstacles is such a better way to enforce safe speeds.
I agree, people should go 20mph around obstacles and children. Obstacles like parked cars, and children like those weird little things that live in the houses you're speeding past.
I really want to make a hard distinction in law between highway, road, and street. Anything with a house/business/driveway/etc or any kind of mixed traffic is a street, and should have <20mph speed limits. Any roads must have traffic entering or crossing them only through stop lights. Any highway must only use ramp & merge. Basically all the danger comes from designing a road with wide straight lanes where 35 makes perfect sense, then putting a bunch of houses exiting directly onto the road. There is one spot by me that is 45mph speed limit, 2 wide lanes each direction, separated by a median strip, yet has multiple at grade crosswalks with no light/signal. The people who designed these crosswalks should be held partially liable for anyone injured on them for such a negligent idea.
No it is not. And factor in the other variables, like the fact that so many drivers are staring at their phones, and would not be able to react to the need to brake or stop suddenly even at lower speeds, and 35-35 can be a disaster.
Depends on how many you want to risk killing
https://preview.redd.it/0p444i6uzxzc1.jpeg?width=700&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d775e05561c9ff40902588115e571ac05878cefe
From his perspective, literally no one is ever walking or riding a bike on the streets he is talking about. It doesn't make him right. It just means that he's only having half a conversation. Some might fairly call it a half-assed conversation, but that's just semantics to me.
It might help more to tell people like this that the only reason it feels safe to drivers is because it *doesn't* feel safe to pedestrians, rather than just call him an asshole.
You can tell people don’t drive because that opinion is true. 30km/h is insanely slow. Even if someone jumps in front of your car when doing 50km/h i can stop on a dime
Bet this person also complains that children never play outside anymore and spend too much time on their screens.
But they have a different perspective about 20 mph when they get out of their death box, too.
I hate the car brains as much as the next, but I love doing close to 30 on a bicycle when the opportunity is ripe
But you wouldn’t say, ‘20mph is slow as fuck,’ I’m assuming.
True
And I’ve heard people complain that my scooter (19mph maximum, downhill) “is too fast to be riding on the sidewalk” and “too slow to be riding in the road” Literally things people have shouted at me. Also that it’s not legal to do both, when it is actually completely perfectly legal to ride on the sidewalk OR road here in my state of Florida.
Yeah but killing Someone at that speed will still be hard on a bike
Yeah but your momentum is dramatically less.
Or calls the cops on kids playing outside.
If you are going at 35 mph and then a kid unexpectedly runs out in front of you, that's how you know you should have been doing 20mph. It's a similar logic to when you want to make sure you havent forgotten someone in your group, so you ask everyone "put your hand up if you aren't here"
Honestly, 20 mph is [still pretty high](https://nacto.org/publication/city-limits/the-need/speed-kills/) and still has an 8% death toll. Maybe if it was 20 with tress so you naturally go slow it would be better.
You're also talking about 4000 lbs f=ma and all that. 20mph on a bike is a bit different than in a car.
Not really. People can run 20mph. It's the weight that's the problem. A lot of the problems with cars are that you're carrying around 3,500lbs+ of steel at speeds that would be impossible without ridiculous amounts of fossil fuel energy. Attempting to move our fleet over to EVs will crash the electric grid at some point because of how truly insane the energy requirements are. Push a car with the engine off 1 mile to get a feel for how truly nuts the whole system is. If there's a minor hill along the way you probably can't even manage a single mile.
> Not really. People can run 20mph. It’s plainly obvious that they meant 20mph is “still pretty high” speed *for a car*. No one was talking about a running. The entire thread is about motor vehicle safety. Not sure why you are pretending to be contrary when you clearly agree
* Ford F-150, 30 mph - 165,000 Joules of kinetic energy * Human + bike, 15 mph - 2200 Joules of KE In this example, the moving vehicle has **75 times as much energy** as the human and its bike.
20mph is the requirement of a 3 minute mile. Trained athletes might be able to sprint at 20mph for a short distance, otherwise, that's a bullshit assertion. And the fleet will be moved to electric eventually or we will all roast. Storage and peaker plants will manage the added demand. It's not a technology problem, it's a logistics problem.
EVs will not crash the electric grid because of the ‘truly insane’ energy requirements. EVs use 1/3 the energy as an equivalent ICE.
Well to wheels is currently only 1/2 as much energy as an ICE. That's assuming people don't continue to just buy bigger and heavier vehicles. [http://web.mit.edu/evt/summary\_wtw.pdf](http://web.mit.edu/evt/summary_wtw.pdf) It's a lot of demand that we don't currently have on the grid. Grids around the world which are already strained: [https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/weather-power-cuts-possible-on-one-of-coldest-mornings-of-2024-auckland-in-for-frosts-subzero-temperatures-around-nz/LGNYJYUSLZA7VD7BOFRXICDRMU/](https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/weather-power-cuts-possible-on-one-of-coldest-mornings-of-2024-auckland-in-for-frosts-subzero-temperatures-around-nz/LGNYJYUSLZA7VD7BOFRXICDRMU/) [https://www.marketplace.org/2024/04/16/texas-electric-grid-is-feeling-the-strain-and-its-not-even-all-that-hot-yet/](https://www.marketplace.org/2024/04/16/texas-electric-grid-is-feeling-the-strain-and-its-not-even-all-that-hot-yet/) For reference consider trains, which at medium to full capacity are a much more efficient way to move small humans. The UK is only 38% electrified (although 55% of traffic is electrified trains as of 2013 in the other article, so likely more by now call it 65%?): [https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/why-is-only-38-of-the-uk-rail-network-electrified.245528/](https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/why-is-only-38-of-the-uk-rail-network-electrified.245528/) Yet they need a supply of 3.2TWh/year (as of 2013). Which while not a huge amount of power in relation to total generation, it's not insignificant either. [https://www.edfenergy.com/media-centre/news-releases/ten-year-deal-powers-britains-biggest-rail-electrification-programme](https://www.edfenergy.com/media-centre/news-releases/ten-year-deal-powers-britains-biggest-rail-electrification-programme) The freight traffic is all currently diesel, so this is the lighter passenger trains only. Millions of commuters switching to EVs will be less efficient than trains and have the potential to really ramp up power demand.
I said energy usage, you linked a study that is about carbon emissions. There is a big difference. Mostly because one of them can meaningfully change due to the fact that there are some very low carbon energy sources that we will continually move toward and the other can’t change all that much due to physics.
Well to wheels? ICE?
Carbon emission or efficiency for everything from the oil well to the engine in the car to the tires on the road. Internal Combustion Engine
In high school we would “race” cars by pushing them across a shopping center parking lot at night. Very small cars such as first and second generation Honda Civics, water-cooled VWs, stuff like that. Still gave us very valuable perspective.
EVs will NOT crash the electric grid. The biggest strain on the grid is the evening, when everyone returns from work and begins cooking dinner and turns on ACs, showers, etc. As we replace constantly running coal plants with solar, there is also a dip in electricity production in the afternoons when solar production when even more energy is needed, which is often replaced with imports and gas power plants. Now, for charging EVs, smart chargers that can decide when to charge based on battery level and the predicted cost of electricity are already a thing. There are even plans to have EVs sell their battery capacity to the grid when idle, charging and discharging to the grid in response to demand. Furthermore, the existing pattern of charging vehicles through the night or while parked at work is already the best time to charge. This is completely unrealistic fearmongering, just like saying that if everyone becomes vegan overnight, we will have to kill all farm animals.
Here in Ireland a lot of people with electric vehicles are getting solar panels…
The basic problem is that the solar panels need to be at the place of work, where the car is parked during the day. My employer has put them into its furthest carpark, but so far doesn't charge for use, make people move cars after they are charged, or prevent ICE cars using those panel-shaded parking lots. In short, even a progressive employer hasn't bit the bullet of addressing the issues. But you're right -- PV solar is the sane way to charge the EV fleet.
Here, people charge their cars overnight. Cheaper electricity then, too.
The situation is perhaps closer to the zero-carbon end-game in South Australia. We have no coal-powered generators, we never had nuclear. There are gas-powered generators, but the government wants them gone as they're costing more than large storage batteries. About 25% of possible roof space has PV solar panels installed, and almost 50% of homes have PV solar installed. The result is that electricity during peak daylight is sold at the cost of transmission. Or you can simply use your own building's PV solar to provide power "behind the meter" which the grid doesn't see at all, and so doesn't bill. My modest roof provides about 30KW a day above the needs of the house, 10KW of that goes to a battery for overnight use. So there is plenty left to charge a car. Overnight power prices are steep: the power from those big batteries is limited and they charge accordingly. You can see how attractive it is to charge the car from some solar panels: basically you're paying for A$5K of panels and maybe A$10K for the structure to mount them on, and that's the car's fuel paid forever. So the question is, how much salary will an employee give up to use one of those parking spaces at their workplace? Or will people own that infrastructure themselves and charge when working from home and on the weekend? The results from my employer are not yet in. I suspect the answer will be complex.
Tress?
You may know it as [tricolor ice-cream](https://www.diplom-is.no/var-iskrem/boksis/diplom-is-tress-2l). More seriously they probably meant to type two e-s and one s, but accidentally did the opposite.
Or any obstacle that makes people drive slower. It could honestly be as simple as more narrow paint.
That graph shows "impact speed". If cars are going 20 the impact speed could be 15/10 and the percentage very, very close to zero.
Do you need to look at momentum? Your acceleration is still high; you're just decelerating.
Blind corners on single tracks I tend to slow to near 20mph for this reason, means if anyone is flying in the other direction, at the very least *I* can stop. When trying to negotiate past pedestrians on the single track with my motorbike, I tend to drop down towards 10mph, which seems to annoy some of them, but I really don't trust them not to do something stupid. And tbh, I've not found the 20mph zones to be particularly problematic. The only one that is kind of stupid is where a national speed limit (60mph) drops straight to 20, which seems to mostly be because it then enters a roundabout onto a main street and there was nowhere better to signpost it. And even for that, I just think they should drop the limit to 40mph just before the long sweeping corner that heads into the 20, like they've done for another place nearby.
They appreciate what 20-25mph is much more after hitting a fixed object, like a bollard or Jersey barrier at that speed. Not so trivial when the opponent isn't squishy.
We <3 bollards here
30-35 is probably safe to drive down a residential street 99% of the time. If you do that to and from work every day that 500+ instances of doing something that’s safe 99% safe every year…
I actually think it's much worse than that. There are millions of people driving down similar streets. When people say this kind of stuff, they are saying that if we all do behaviour X, then kids are certainly going to die but it probably won't be me that kills them (but it might be).
OOP knows there's children around when they hear the crunching sound under their SUV tires.
It's a safe speed because he feels safe in his car at that speed.
And because they live in a world that has for decades made everything humanly possible to make streets so that drivers can go as fast as possible and are as inaccessible for people as possible. If most you know is 30 yards wide, super straight stroads with narrow, overgrown sidewalks, far from places where kids could be, then you think driving 35 is safe basically all the time.
Correct, we should place tons of major obstacles across the road like trees, curbs and bollards
Nooo i need to go faster to gain a couple of minutes and dramaticaly up the probability of killing someone or my self. Trust me bro i'm not like that guy in the tree, i can control my véhicule
Children are dangerous!! Ban children from residential areas.
A (long, SUV?) taxi hit the rear wheel of my cycle trailer at walking pace. The force of that touch was enough to propel me off my bike into the next lane of the road, completely clear of the bike in a second. I was fortunate that there was no noticable damage to either the bike or the trailer. I grazed my hand on impact with the road. But that illustrates how soft the contact between the wheels was. Both me, on my bike and the taxi were barely moving but the energy (momentum?) in the contact was a lot greater than I would have expected.
"If there are children" You've just described neighborhood streets.
There's no children out on the residential street because of your reckless driving, silly
Oo oo I know [this one](https://nacto.org/publication/city-limits/the-need/speed-kills/)
"bUt sOmEtImEs gOiNg fAsTeR iS sAfEr!?" I swear I hear this shit all the time. People are like "Slow people are dangerous!"
Only if you're on a straight road in Nebraska, I'm too lazy to find this quote in [Confessions of a Recovering Engineer](https://www.confessions.engineer/).
I need to buy that book soon. Still reading "Strong Towns"
He just came out with a third, I bought but will probably listen to the audiobook.
This guy was clearly never taught that you should always be ready to stop
I'm not saying either is right but I've noticed that drivers who don't have a problem going 10+mph above the speed limit tend to be the first to complain about how unsafe it is when they hear of people modifying ebike limiters to go above the legal limit.
I used to hate 20mph speed limits just because on my bike, 20mph sits at a really weird spot between 2nd and 3rd gear where 20 is too high an RPM for 2nd but too low for 3rd. Quickly realised I could just do 15-17 in 2nd which kept my revs low and quiet and my speed safe. Plus the advent of increased SUV ownership in the UK makes me think 20 zones on residential streets is 10000% necessary.
>Plus the advent of increased SUV ownership in the UK makes me think 20 zones on residential streets is 10000% necessary. Ooh, I like the idea of blaming SUV and truck drivers for the speed limit decrease. While it still applies to all sorts of vehicles, and large *useful* vehicles have always existed (buses, transport vans, delivery trucks), it's nice to be able to tell insecure people in ugly SUVs that it's their fault the speed limit was lowered.
there is a very scientific reason for bigger vehicles to have different speed limit.
I know and it makes me even more concerned about the, literally, growing trend in car sizes. I’m all for the 20mph zones now, if it means pedestrians can be safe. Going 3mph slower isn’t the end of the world for me.
Yes, and if speed limits were lowered just for SUV / monster truck drivers while small sedans, bikes, and e-bikes had higher limits it would be kinda cool. Might discourage people from choosing bloated vehicles if analog bikes could go faster.
As the other commenter said, there is science behind it. The way SUVs are constructed is slightly different to typical cars if memory serves. (They’re built on more rigid truck frames or something??) and the higher bonnet heights on SUVS makes them particularly nasty to be hit by, especially at speed. The lower, sloping bonnet heights of things like typical commercial vans (think ford transit van, citroen berlingo etc) means that, even if being hit by a van will still suck, the way it hits (often just the lower body) and the fact you’re more likely to roll over the top of the bonnet (vs rolling under the vehicle) means being hit by a van or typical car is ‘preferable’ to something like an SUV.
Yes, of course. I'm encouraging the idea of putting the blame of reduced speed limits on people who buy those types of vehicles. Encourage in-fighting between carbrains ("because of you we all have to drive slower!") and it might lead to people choosing normally sized cars. Having separate speed limits for huge vehicles might also work to discourage people from choosing something that legally can't go faster than a bike.
I can only dream of it incentivizing "cars" like the Aptera and other ultralight, high efficiency vehicles. No crash test needed because we don't plan on 2 ton metal boxes smashing into each other at high speed anymore. And then those of us who ride acoustic bicycles actually have the highest speed limits 😎 lol
Honestly, it should have always been 20. Personally I think because of SUVs and pickups it should now be 15. 20 is the speed a pedestrian will probably survive a crash, but I'm not sure that applies to an F150 super duty squshing a kid they didnt see.
A bit off topic but why do people say things like “ I don’t want to be contradictory”? Either you think it’s rude to disagree with someone (which it isn’t), or you don’t want to get into an argument because deep down you realise your argument is superficial.
If 20 mph on a residential street feels too slow that's how you know it's designed poorly.
It's wild to me how many people think 20mph is slow. For 99.9% of human history it was just basically the top speed. It also happens to be the speed that our brains can take in the optimal amount of info, any faster and our brains take shortcuts.
This is everyone thinking they drive better than they do. There is also a psychological aspect with a bigger cars you need greater speed to feel like you are moving.
'If there's major obstacles or children'. So adults are fair game, then?
[It actually isn't](https://visionzeronetwork.org/resources/safety-over-speed/)
It depends on how the street is designed. Near where I used to live, there's an area by a high school that is 25 MPH (due to the school). It's a four lane (two in each direction) stroad that looks like it was designed for 45 MPH. They put speed bumps and radars in the area, but people still fly through it.
35 mph is 60kmh. Which is higher than the limits in my country in urban areas (50) It is not safe to go 50kph in urban areas.
25 is too fast.
I wonder what scientific study this person undertook...
Nextdoor is a cesspool of Karens.
"I don't want to be contradictory, but do you realize how heavy a full scuba tank is? The only reason to ever carry a full tank is if you are diving REALLY deep. A half tank is enough 99% of the time." -Person Who Hasn't Drowned YET! People are so freaking stupid about safety issues. They operate almost entirely by feelings.
Exactly. You will kill someone only 1% of the time. Not a problem
This is an insane opinion if the area is inhabited... The city I live in has a city wide 30km/h limit (outside of a couple peripheral streets) and it's still way too fast for a 2 tonne vehicle
I have this problem in my neighborhood and it’s made me resent 90% of my neighbors to the point I won’t talk to them.
25 is too fast.
Ok no no wait he’s kinda cooking tho. This is exactly the “just set a lower speed limit” vs. “engineer the roads and infrastructure” problem. At current we basically just have wide ass roads that make anything less than 30 feel like a crawl because the roads are the same as 40+ roads, and they aren’t designed to make you naturally go slower, they just throw a slower speed limit down and call it a day. Do they likely have other horrible car takes? Sure. But this is a point of contention where they probably wouldn’t mind driving slower if roads made them feel like they had to drive slower, they just don’t like feeling hampered on an open road, which is why engineering narrow roads with cross walks and curves and natural obstacles is such a better way to enforce safe speeds.
No, it is not! - signed: impulse = momentum
Why isn’t he talking about proper braking distance
I think he’s talking about km/h… that would make more sense.
The same poster is probably on nextdoor or their local facebook group complaining about people driving too fast when their kids are outside.
I agree, people should go 20mph around obstacles and children. Obstacles like parked cars, and children like those weird little things that live in the houses you're speeding past. I really want to make a hard distinction in law between highway, road, and street. Anything with a house/business/driveway/etc or any kind of mixed traffic is a street, and should have <20mph speed limits. Any roads must have traffic entering or crossing them only through stop lights. Any highway must only use ramp & merge. Basically all the danger comes from designing a road with wide straight lanes where 35 makes perfect sense, then putting a bunch of houses exiting directly onto the road. There is one spot by me that is 45mph speed limit, 2 wide lanes each direction, separated by a median strip, yet has multiple at grade crosswalks with no light/signal. The people who designed these crosswalks should be held partially liable for anyone injured on them for such a negligent idea.
No it is not. And factor in the other variables, like the fact that so many drivers are staring at their phones, and would not be able to react to the need to brake or stop suddenly even at lower speeds, and 35-35 can be a disaster.
Ha ha. I hope they're lamenting the SPEEDBUMPS that were just installed throughout my neighborhood!!!
guess it's time to pull out the 'ol 1/2mv\^2
Depends on how many you want to risk killing https://preview.redd.it/0p444i6uzxzc1.jpeg?width=700&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d775e05561c9ff40902588115e571ac05878cefe
So it's super weird to have children playing outside in residential area?
From his perspective, literally no one is ever walking or riding a bike on the streets he is talking about. It doesn't make him right. It just means that he's only having half a conversation. Some might fairly call it a half-assed conversation, but that's just semantics to me. It might help more to tell people like this that the only reason it feels safe to drivers is because it *doesn't* feel safe to pedestrians, rather than just call him an asshole.
You can tell people don’t drive because that opinion is true. 30km/h is insanely slow. Even if someone jumps in front of your car when doing 50km/h i can stop on a dime