So they read some, but not all speed limit signs, and especially not the really important ones that inform you that you will be going dangerously fast if you do not read and follow them. That is criminally unacceptable.
If the police are to be believed (well, one cop who studies this kind of thing), about 90% of drivers choose their speed based on road conditions. Only about 10% are religiously following the signs.
This really depends on where you live, in plenty of places the speed limit is heavily enforced and that is actually the speed people expect you to go. Driving faster than the speed limit makes you the one causing the speed differential.
It is weird to place the blame of the speed differential on the people not breaking the law, but I get the feeling it's a practical reality of US highways that everyone speeds.
I would argue that the minority of people actually observe speed limits, most people drive over the speed limit out of habit, sometimes only to overtake but a lot of drivers do it and I get a lot of road hate for driving at speed limit or below.
Sure, but what % of the drivers habitually go faster than the listed speed limit? In the parts of the US I live in, the difference between that number and 100 is imperceptible, especially on the roads with speed limits on the lower end (~25 mph).
If you look at the studies, they actually show this. There is a small percentage of drivers (something like 5-15%) that always try to drive at the speed limit, even if that is lower than the speed they would naturally drive at.
This is one of the reasons experts argue that you NEED to set the speed limit at the natural speed people will drive at; otherwise, you will have a big speed difference between the majority who drive at the comfortable, faster, speed, and the 15% who are driving slower at the speed limit. You want the two groups to drive at the same speed.
Actually, the article says “I’ve found that about 10% of drivers truly identify the speed limit sign and drive at or near that limit,”. That is what we were discussing here, not the 85/15 percentile thing. (Sorry I should have said 90% rather than 85%).
Of course the article doesn't say what those other 90% are doing. I suspect they aren't all breaking the limit - probably some are going slower than the speed limit.
The thing is that it doesn't really matter. There are only 2 options here. Either, the car should have seen the woman and taken corrective action or it was driving faster than it can see. Just because the speed limit says X doesn't mean that's the speed you should be going. Often, actual conditions require driving slower.
If 90% are speeding on a given highway / road then the speed limit is likely unreasonably low. Traffic accident which could be prevented by a speed limit typically caused by fastest 10% of the speed distribution, not by remaining 90%.
> 85% of drivers drive at or below the speed limit.
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> “I’ve found that about 10% of drivers truly identify the speed limit sign and drive at or near that limit,” says Megge. Since these are the slowest share of drivers, they don’t affect the 85th percentile speed.
If 85% of drivers drive at or below the speed limit, then why are the 10% who follow the speed limit amongst the slowest of drivers?
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