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And this is why Belgium has "Zone 30" signs (and zone 50 or zone 70 for remote industrial areas). It saves _A LOT_ of money because you don't have to keep repeating that limit at every corner. And it just takes away all doubt. You don't have to look for signs anymore, you just know it's 30 wherever you go.
@@lukearts2954 I like the idea but I do see a downside. What do you do with roads that are well suitable for 50kmh in a 30kmh zone. Sometimes you want to make a road attractive for cars to keep them out of the other roads.
@@lukearts2954 we do something similar in Auckland. The CBD is a 30kph zone, but the roads that connect to motorway on ramps are 40kph. It's not a massive difference ultimately, but it does signal that you're on your way to freedom from the 30kph tyranny... ...until you get onto the motorway, realise it's clogged with Remuera tractors (our nickname for bigger SUVs and Utes) and going even slower than the CBD streets.
The part where you say "lets not permanently disable people to save a few minutes on your commute" hit me hard. My aunt was run over in LA while riding a bike about a decade ago and is still in a vegetative state. Then a few years ago I was in a crash myself. I got rear-ended at a light by someone who didn't stop. I lost my sense of balance from it and walk with a cane. Both times, they ran off and were never held accountable. In both cases, a reduction of speed might have saved us from life-long disabilities. My aunt wouldn't be permanently brain damaged, and I wouldn't be stuck walking with a cane so I don't fall over. Things need to change, obviously a lot more than just raw speed. Your videos give me hope that people will listen soon, and start aiming for those changes.
I'm so sorry that has happened to you and your loved ones. I was ALSO in LA, and got hit by a driver who *I made eye contact with* who didn't see me at a stop sign (when you're only looking for cars, your brain can skip over other things). I got a concussion so bad, I still have memory issues to this day. Funny thing though, I was right on the street boundary between two police jurisdictions, and I sat dazed on the sidewalk until they figured out who needed to handle the accident lol
YES!! This is a sign that this channel is succeeding in it's original mission. It's a sign that this is going well. And I feel happy about it. I love walking and tramming!
I was pulled over by a cop one time for doing 35 mph in a 30 mph zone. It was down hill and I was on my bicycle. The cop said that I was impeding traffic. I asked how could be impeding traffic if I was actually speeding! He said, "People want to go faster than that!"
Having trams and buses (in a separate lane) go faster has also the positive effect, that you are overtaken if you sit in a car and might think to yourself that next time you should sit in that tram instead of your car.
I think that's why the Washington, DC Metro Orange line is popular: it goes along the highway that is likely backed up during rush hour, so it's its own advertisement.
It works so well, the new high speed train between Stuttgart and Ulm, which runs directly next to the Autobahn, was forced to build a noisebarrier between the track and the road, making it impossible for car drivers to see the ICEs zooming by with 300kmh. Ironically, the Autobahn doesnt have one, so you can listen to beautiful car noise undisturbed
Short storytime: I was once driving down the A4, southbound from Schiphol towards The Hague, parallel to the high speed railway line, and saw an ICNG on the rails going 80 while I was going 100. I commented to my passenger "They really should get that track fixed, because that's some terrible PR for the **HIGH SPEED** rail service."
I'm an american police officer, I have worked loads of car accidents, they are awful scenes. Things I have noticed: 1: SUVs/Trucks cause more injuries on other drivers. 2: Due to an economic reliance on cars, people who shouldn't drive, are driving. I went to a traffic crash once, 2 teenagers just driving down a neighborhood street in a sedan(25 MPH/40 Km/PH speed limit) A mom in an SUV runs a stop sign turns infront of them, and they crash, which resulted in both teenage boys being transported to the ER. We need to get rid of the reliance on cars in this country
Agree totally. Gettting a drivers' licence should be more like getting (and keeping) a captain's licence, a pilot's licence, a process where the goal is public safety, not getting everybody ID'd and behind the wheel while raising revenue for the state. Get the bad drivers off the road, and get their bad driver machines (SUVs and trucks) off our sity streets.
You are very correct about that one. Here in Switzerland Public Transport is good enough, that no one needs a car (privately, real utility vehicles are still needed.) So we don't have to give unsuitable people a licence. Additionally most people actually take the part about being respectful with each other, more seriously.
yes and drivers (at least men, maybe women too) do not attenuate this overconfidence until they actually get into accidents (according to Matthews & Moran 1986). Meaning that drivers rely on historical data to inform their confidence in driving ability. This is a great reason to raise the driving age to 25. If drivers do not attenuate their overconfidence until after they cause crashes, then everyone else is essentially acting as their guinea pigs. Matthews, M. L., & Moran, A. R. (1986). Age differences in male drivers’ perception of accident risk: The role of perceived driving ability. Accident Analysis & Prevention, 18(4), 299-313. doi:10.1016/0001-4575(86)90044-8
Most drivers are crappy drivers. Sit at any stop sign and watch no one stop unless there's another car coming. Sit at any traffic light and watch them all creep into the pedestrian crossing while waiting for the light to change. Watch them not signal their turns. Watch them ALL speed and then listen to those idiots argue that it's safer when everyone speeds. Most people shouldn't be allowed to operate dangerous machinery in public, just watching them for five minutes proves that and yet we do nothing about it.
Chuck Marohn also makes the point that converting nominal highways to actual highways by eliminating all the driveways and greatly reducing intersections, can more than make up for a very low speed limit inside the city, making overall trips actually faster. It's the stroad-everywhere thing, in which a roadway is multilane but with lots of driveways and intersections both inside and outside cities, that wastes so much time and space, and facilitates crashes. Slow streets in the city, paired with limited intersection highways outside, could yield safety as well as greater driver satisfaction.
Me, an American, panicking 6 minutes in realizing that 30kph is about 18mph. There actually might be riots in the streets, I casually mention lower speed limits and some people act like I said I'm sending CPS to take their kids.
Lol...German here...reminds me of the discussion to finally install overall speedlimits on our Autobahn. No matter how often you explain the benefits some people always feel as one would like to slaughter and butcher their holy cow.
There is literally not a single street in my town that has a speed limit lower than 20 mph (which is in the school zone). I think saying there'd be riots is not an exaggeration, like at all
@@agrud In some places it's not that necessary. The grand majority of downtown areas I go to are about 20-25 which is a decent enough speed for the kind of intersections and road structure we have.
In The Netherlands we dropped the speedlimit on motorways to 100 (down from 130) km/h in order to reduce emissions. The drop in accidents and fatalaties was very noticeable. As was fuel economy (less fuel used per journey), less road maintenance, and less traffic jams etc. I think the limit was only between 6 AM and 6 PM, so in the evening and at night it was 130 km/h again.
@@weerwolfproductionsunfortunately the extremely right parties who are now trying to form a government want to go back to 130 again. Prioritizing speed over safety seems to be a fascist preference
My town implemented 20 mph (32 kmh) speed limits on almost all streets and residential roads. They are entirely ignored by drivers and law enforcement.
That's why unfortunately changing speed limits isn't enough. Drivers drive as fast as they feel like they can without getting in trouble. So over time, cities need to make roadway improvements that actually encourage slower speeds, and traffic laws need to be paired with enforcement. The more regular use of speed cameras in Europe is part of why something like this is more effective than in the US.
yeah sadly law enforcement, amongst it's many problems , are constituted mainly of non-city residents ... so they're in on the drivers/suburbanites game of allowing each other to go vroom vroom and consume the maximum amount of space and resources
@@HowToTown Andrew Millison has some great videos on how to build alternating gardens into suburban streets to make the road winding, in order to slow traffic !
I've been thinking of making a parody of a famous lottery ad in our country, whose catchphrase is "lottery, who's next?". Something like a car crash in the background with the death statistics for the last month or year and the catchphrase "car crash, who's next?" under it. Maybe you could try printing flyers or something if you like the idea.
To be fair, a lot of American (specifically) roads are roads where it feels natural and safe to go 60mph and then they just slap a sticker on it that says 35mph and it feels incredibly grating and frustrating. If you want safe speeds, design roads where going 20mph feels natural.
I work at a childcare center and we have to cross the parking lot twice to get to our playground. The first crossing is very short and very few cars go through it so it's pretty safe. The other one is just past the entrance and therefore every single car that enters has to go through it. There's a stop sign on either side of the crosswalk yet we constantly deal with people rolling right through it. Even when we have a group of 15 children and 4 adults taking up literally the entire space they'll still try to roll it and squeeze around us. Like dude, you can wait an additional 15 seconds for literal toddlers to finish crossing. Some of the older kids have taken to making their own stop signs and they spend part of their time in the playground standing by the fence that's right by the one sign waving them and shouting at drivers to stop. When a 5 year old knows how to obey traffic laws better than an actual licensed driver then you know it's bad.
One thing i always notice is just how loud sirens are. Because cars are loud, but drivers don't want to hear the noise they make, they are soundproofed against the outside world. But sirens need to be heard inside cars, so they have to be extra deafeningly loud.
I'd prefer a car with a lot less sound-deadening. A part of me feels like people's attitudes towards cars and driving would change if the experience was less isolated. Cars should be loud and not entirely comfortable on the inside.
@@nyanko8972 I quote that all the time. "My hot take: car horns should be on the inside as they are on the outside." That and "dangerous high speed slip lanes!" and I'm going to try adding the newest one "go die lanes" for bike lanes where cars can easily hit you (along with "painted bicycle gutters" of course). I think that's from NJB anyway heh
@@skaldlouiscyphre2453 I wouldn't want to make a car uncomfortable, since that would just be a distraction to the driver, but I don't like how newer cars are made to shield you from the actual feel of driving. I drive a '91 Toyota, very bare-bones, no power steering or ABS or anything like that. Its perfectly comfortable in the sense that your butt won't hurt from sitting in it, but you're able to feel what's going on with the vehicle. It keeps you aware enough to know what's going on between car and road, but not like you gotta fight for your life to keep it in a straight line. Whatever the sweet-spot is between being focused but relaxed while doing a task, is how a car should be designed from the driver's pov imo. I guess my idea of comfort differs greatly from most people though... they really need their soundproof box with 20 iPhone chargers 🤔
It's very simple. Cities are for people, not for cars. Almost every time I have seen test runs where cars are limited in a street or part of a city, the people living there, the shops, everyone was happy. But everyone not living there is complaining like someone took their car away.
People rarely complain about the good aspect of change. But they will absolutely complain about the increasing costs if a utility vehicle needs come to heir place. That's the part i kind of tired about. I couldn't care less about driving slowly, but the same hypocrites demanding it, than complain about me needing more time to get there and they have to pay for that time.
Bologna in Italy introduced an extensive 30km/h limit on many of its central roads. In two weeks they had 21% less accidents, 27% less pedestrians involved in accidents, 14 less injured people and 0 deaths (compared to 1 the previous year). In just the first two weeks
So much of Italy is walk-able in a way that I haven't really found in many other places. I live in Lucca and cars are the rare exception inside the city walls. Outside my window right now is a busy intersection of pedestrians, cyclists, and people relaxing at the cafe's and restaurants. I can walk or bike all over town. Then, I can get on a train, go to other cities all over the country where I will get out and walk all over town. Never really needing a car.
Last year I wrote an Email to the mayor of Wuppertal/Germany begging for 30 km/h in two very narrow streets with dense old buildings on both sides, parked cars and pedestrians/children crossing the street between these parked cars. (Königsberger Str and Kohlenstr.) The mayor rejected it. A neighbouring wide road with mainly commercial buildings turned 30 instead, because of frequent accidents with bycicles(Vor der Beule).
As an Amsterdam (these days mostly) pedestrian I can say I LOVE the change to 30 km/hr. The road noise is noticeably less and the actual eyecontact with drivers is improved, which helps with making me feel seen and respected as a person walking. Can recommend!
And finally anyone can admire my shiny rims! Only people in crapboxes with cheap rims from the hardwarestore want higher speedlimits as they feel embarresed by their ugly looking car.
@@Kaede-Sasaki instead of a simple, cheap solution, lets come up with an expensive and risky solution. Smooth roads are not more silent. Actually they are louder. and slippery. So braking distance would be much longer
@@Kaede-Sasaki not really without loosing grip or secrific other crucial attributes. And it needs only one car with loud tires to wake you up at night. so speed limit is still the best option
My first job after getting driver license was pizza delivery, In a small town in Poland. In Poland cities are mostly limited to 50 km/h, and residential areas are limited to 30 km/h, with some exceptions in bigger cities on major roads, where the limit is 70 km/h. At first, as a new driver I was speeding all the time to get the food on time, I was young and dumb. I had one client that ordered everyday and was on the other side of town (around 5-7km from the pizza spot), and one day I decided to test how much time i gain by speeding. So i took the timer, measured the time one day while speeding, and the next day I measured time without speeding. The difference was 10 seconds. I stopped speeding after that. No matter what, something is going to stop you in the town sooner or later, it can be red lights, stop sign or give way sign, turning left, roundabout, or just pedestrian walking on the crossing(you have to give way for pedestrians on crosswalks in Poland). Speeding just don't make any sense in cities, best way to save time driving in cities is to drive dynamically by paying attention to the road and going as soon as you can go, BUT NOT FAST.
Agreed, I had t he same but on the highways. I didn't measure it as precisely as you did, but after I got one really hefty fine for 40km/u speeding (the road was empty though) I calculated what the difference was, if I could drive on average 25 km/h faster on the parts of the highway where it would be 'safe' in my experience to do so. The difference was 4 minutes on the entire trip... It's never more than a few minutes. Unless you have a trip that's 1 hour, 1,5 hour, or longer, almost exclusively on the highway, and you are able to drive faster without interruptions from other traffic. In that case... the difference might be 10 minutes or a bit more... Still, the downsides: safety, fuel consumption, danger of fines or worse. (Another thing: fuel consumption at 120 km/u is a lot more than 100 km/u - not +20%, but more like +40%!)
Nothing grinds traffic to a halt like a bad crash. Slower driving = less serious accidents. I will never understand 45 mile an hour stroads with 100 different shops with individual driveways.
@iulic9833 I mean, there are very real restrictions on that already where you can ban all cars but have exceptions for things like businesses and residents.
@iulic9833 the best thing is to have pedestrian area's/streets where only emergency vehicles are permitted. And have delivery vehicles and residents drive on slow speed streets at the back of those buildings. That way the front of the buildings and the streets those buildings are on are able to become (almost) car free.
@@ChristiaanHWA university town close to where I live is fully pedestrian. They have rules on when you are allowed to get in with a vehicle (including having to ask police for permission, even within these hours), and there is no strict speed limit, you just cannot overtake a pedestrian, at all. The only vehicles that pedestrians see when walking through it are small garbage collector thingy (think halfway between an australian Ute with a cage on the back and a golf cart), and the vehicles that are used to clean the streets and water the plants…
It is 50km per hour on our suburban residential street where kids play street hockey, basket ball, are biking and people are walking their dogs or children in strollers etc. It makes zero sense.
I, too, have had a moment where Marone has called out Not Just Bikes; he then went to another hometown and called it Witness Protection town. I was trying to get him more funding because it's in an affluent area.
Mr. Marohn is exactly right: How fast is one in a city, anyway? I live in a smallish German city and if I go by car, I have to stop several times every minute at either a traffic light, or for turning/yielding at an intersection, etc. What is laughingly referred to as the "flow of traffic" is so slow, anyway, that quite a low speed limit will not increase the average traveling time for cars, while making the city nicer and safer for everyone.
My average time going to college between cycling and driving to the other side of town differed 5 minutes on average (on a 15-20min trip). Swinging either way 5 minutes because of lucky lights or farm equipment on the road.
With higher speed limits cars do travel a distance quicker. Especially outside rush hours. I mean, if you really believe a car won't go any faster whether the speed limit is higher or lower, then why do you even care what the speed limit is?
When I was learning to drive, everyone was acting like driving on the highway was such a big, difficult thing, but I'd always had more trouble driving in town. The highway speed limit was about 100 km/h, and the highway was designed for that. But the speed limit in the parts of town that scared me most? 65 km/h. I was learning to drive on stroads, turns out, and it was terrifying.
@@Lord_zeelTo be fair, highways, or at least the ones in my area, can be scary at times, with some of the maneuvering you have to do when you have to get on a different highway, or the number of lanes changes because a lane ends or turns into an exit that you don't want, etc.
If you mess up in the city you flatten a pedestrian (and maybe go to jail for a couple of years), if you mess up on the highway you get flattened by an 18-wheeler (and you get an instant death sentence). 💀
@@vlc-cosplayer True, but there's more ways to mess up in the city, and you van also get flattened by an 18-wheeler in the city. I know, had one try to lane change without warning into an area I was occupying the other day.
You convinced me. I came in thinking that 50 was reasonable enough, and 30 is serious crawling. I'm coming out hoping my city will implement 30 someday
Hong Kong is quite car-centric even though it has great transit. Too many roads are 4-6 lanes wide, sidewalks are comparatively too narrow, and most of the noise is car noise. They're also cracking down on "jaywalking" which is essentially a lame excuse for "you're the problem because you're outside of a car".
@@tury3090 Not that I know of. NJB has mentioned them a couple of times, and RM Transit has made videos on Chinese subways. There's not too much on Chinese urbanism, although a quick look on satellite imagery and it's pretty obvious. Oversized roads everywhere.
@@mnmnrt I really hope you're joking, but if you're not: I know it can be hard for most Americans to understand, but there are places outside of the USA with safe, clean, fast, and EFFICIENT bus networks. Understand that people just want to get from A to B as quickly as possible. The majority of drivers in the USA are not "car people", and likewise the majority of bus riders are not "bus enthusiasts". People just take whatever is fastest and easiest, and sometimes in well-designed places buses can be even more enjoyable than sitting in a car. I know this because I'm speaking from experience. Why wouldn't you take the bus if it's more convenient and saves money? Although I don't blame you if you don't get it, because it can be hard to understand for people who've only lived in suburban wastelands their whole lives.
Ever since I've learned (from you) about the whole "designed for speed" thing I've started noticing how speed limits mostly don't fit the roads/environments. For example, the road between my nearest town and my village is 70 km/h for the most parts but 90% of people will do 90+ because that just feels about right and safe. On the other hand, the road through my village is 50 km/h but I find myself usually going less, about 40, because it feels appropriate for it's design and the occasional cyclist or a pedestrian (small village, no pavements). It really changed how I look at different roads I drive on, especially when I see someone speeding or going very slow.
Theres a dual carriageway that cuts through my town and for some reason after a certain roundabout it reduces down to 30 from 40, despite little difference to the road it's self which naturally gets people caught out with "oh it's a dual carriageway so it must be 40 then"
I think this was an argument for how you could just set no speed limit on a road, measure the average speed that cars travel at, then multiply by some factor, to get a sensible speed limit for that road - because drivers, on average, tend to pick close to a sensible speed on their own. I've also seen cones and temporary speed signs set up for roadworks, with no workers to be seen anywhere. The speed limit was reduced to 30k or 50k from the normal 100k, but no-one was actually complying with the reduced speed limit because there was no rationale for it to be that low.
Reminds me of small, rural roads in the UK, where you are allowed to drive fast, but you probably shouldn't. For the simple fact that it's hard not to run into a tree or down a cliff when you go fast.
Ideally roads are redesigned to encourage slower speeds, not just relabeled with different signs. Some people will obey the new speed limit, but others won't because driving faster "feels right". Traffic calming is important.
American experience: The problem with lowering speed limits on a lot of stroads isn't lowering the speed limits... it's making it feel like the speed limit is lower. It's like "why does this 6 lane road have a speed limit of 25?" Or they don't even notice the low speed limit. And I know a very good example right off a highway exit. A lot of stroads are just... too wide. Makes us complacent and drive dangerously fast.
@@davidty2006 The insurance premium will go down though with less accidents and less damage so while morally despicable it is understandable for strictly financial perspective.
30kmh should be mandatory everywhere, got hit by a car recently as he crossed a red light, and got hospitalized for 2 weeks, Got a nice dutch bike and now I hate cars
@@davidty2006 you mean like they already do to big (transport) trucks. Because I always found it unfair that everybody else was 'allowed' to break the speed limit law but transport trucks were governed.
@@davidty2006 Almost none of the 'massive trucks' you're complaining about are 40 tons. 35 tons+ requires a type B licenses, and are almost exclusively utility trucks. The street version of the Hummer EV, the heaviest they've ever offered, is only just over 5 tons. Most of the massive trucks, like the Ford 350, is only 4 tons. Most are only around 2 tons, vs the 1.5 tons for a light car. Any AWD car, like any Subaru, is already up to around 1.8 tons, ect. They're mostly just full of air, not actually much heavier than a normal car. Almost all 40 ton plus trucks are multi (3+) axle, and so do have the lower speed limits in California.
I find it baffling how people think driving faster automatically means you get to your destination faster. To a point, sure, but the number of things that slow drivers down means the gains to be made by driving faster are typically minimal - roundabouts, traffic lights, tractors, cyclists, big hills, etc. The number of times I've been overtaken only to see the driver immediately need to slam on the brakes because the traffic ahead is slow... People think in that immediate moment with little awareness of the bigger picture. Basically, most people are crap drivers.
they don't seem to realise that keeping things flowing means you get to places faster... if one slows down a vehicle that wants to turn right across traffic can go and allow vehicles behined turning left to go as well meaning more vehicles are going through the same junction and everyone gets to places.
Including you. And me. And everyone else. If everyone were required to regularly retake driver's education courses, we'd realize how much we have forgotten about the rules of the road. That knowledge refresh is really important too.
From your other video on the history of Jay Walking, it really shows that cars were invented with a selfish intent in mind. Add some 50's propaganda, some 20's propaganda, sprinkle some "you need to buy our bigger vehicles to be safer in your vehicle" in the 2010s, and it all adds up to "I want to inconvenience everyone around me and only care about myself and getting to my location."
@@konokiomomuro7632SUVs basically are monster trucks. Not that I call them SUVs, I call them jumbo cars, because they aren't sporty and they have limited utility.
cars weren't invented due to selfish intentions, but the automobile industry certainly has almost immediatly distorted that concept. Especially when Ford took the idea of Benz and automated it in the US.
Another point to lowering speed limit is enforcement. Here in Suburbia Toronto you often see the same car going 80 to 90 in a 60 zone, sees a speed camera, goes at 50 for a while and back to 80 again
We need better design speeds on our roads. They dropped so many of our speed limits to 50 or 40 and it just made the gap even worse. Check out Danforth Ave west of Kingston Rd some time. 50 kmph? Yeah, right. That's AT LEAST a 70 kmph design.
@@tristanridley1601 Roads should be fast and streets should be slow and stroads are just abominations that need redesigning. Why making the speed limit 50 if there's no driveways or intersections within a kilometer. Why making the streets capable of speeds higher than 50 if there are driveways every ten meters. Bad street and road design=dangerous and miserable for every user
Do you not have average speed cameras over there? One cam at entrance and exit and it calculates average speed so the limit is enforced for the whole stretch of road.
@@tristanridley1601 Yonge between Finch and Sheppard is just like that. Posted limit is 40, but traffic flows at 50-60 because its a wide and straight road. I'd love to see raised pedestrian crossings installed to force drivers to slow down. Getting the cops to do their jobs and enforce speed limits would be nice too.
@@tristanridley1601 This is kind of the only reason 30 km/h on major roads is bad. If a road also serves as a extra-size truck route, you can't design it down to 30 km/h. even if you manage by a insane amount of speeding traps to keep people from driving too fast, they instead will drive distracted. they human brain tends to automate and downgrade any task, which is to easy and monotonous. If the speed limit and the design match, people need to pay constant attention.
As a truck driver who drives through multiple cities on a daily basis, I've learned that the speed limit on the interstate within the city limits is irrelevant because overall, traffic never really achieves anything remotely close to the posted speed limit. Even if they do, it's only for a short while before everyone comes to a stop again. So when I'm on an interstate, driving through a city i automatically know to expect a much lower speed limit than what's posted on the signs. Therefore i put about 40-50 yards of space between me and the vehicle in front of me so as to allow traffic to freely change lanes and merge into and off of exit ramps while going along with the flow of traffic. By doing this I'm saving fuel because my speed isn't fluctuating so abruptly up down.
I was driving on my bike to school, and a trucker yelled at me to let him cross my road first. I yelled hell no. And then he flipped me the bird then I did not wait for him. We were both statuonairy, he just wanted to cut me off. Yeah, yelling at kids, flipping them the bird, is the kind of entitlement that drivers have for saving a few seconds. I was 13 and I yelled at him, "is it worth yelling a children so you can save 10 seconds?" Then he just honked. And he is a professional driver. I have been hit, i have almost been hit a dozen time. People just seem to lose their ability to drive when it snows. It is freaking scary. So after I almost got hit the same spot 3 times in one week, I chose to take a longer route that would reduce conflict points between me and the cars..... So I had to lose time, or risk my life. While that driver thought it was fine for him to demand that he should be allowed to noy yield for me while crossing my road, so he could save 10 seconds. My detour took an additional 2 minites, on a 15 minutes trip.
@@paulbeard he was a contractor, meaning own truck no company affiliation, but no I did nothing. I tossed it up to "he had a bad day and just wanted to get ahead at something" i was very mature for my age, and I still am. 😂
@@moon-moth1 he did nothing reckless, I was on the opposite side of the crossing. He just wanted me to yield for him. He did not even start his engine before he was sure what I was going to do. So in my book he is okay. I have almost been hit around 2 dozen times. And I mean almost. Feeling like somebody is going to hit you do not count. And I have been hit once, a cat cut me off in a crossing, and now I have a huge scar on my knee and my foot. Nothing happened other than the shock. Luckily it was the day before my first class at Fudan University in Shanghai and not on my actual first day. I wanted to check the route, how hard is it to remember. It was easy as hell. 😂 Turn left and keep going for 2km. Really easy. So that is my only accident. I could walk from the spot despite my bone showing and the bleeding. I got medical care within 10 minutes of the crash, and the driver did offer to take me to the hospital. I refused because I was unsure about my insurance, and I could see a pharmacy within 40m of the crash site.
"Rolling noise exceeds propulsion noise at around 30 km/h" Somehow, I don't think this applies to the jackasses who tear off their mufflers and race down the highway by my apartment at 2 am.
Yeah, in the research for this video I found a paper talking about the reasons why they believe this happens based on research into perception. It's really interesting but the details were too much of a rabbit hole to go down for this video. The study also interviewed people from different countries to ask them how long they thought the lines were, and the average answer was 0.61m, when in actuality they are 3.05m long. The link to this paper (as well as all the other papers I used for reference) is in the description, but I'll put it here, too: Shaffer, D.M., Maynor, A.B. & Roy, W.L. The visual perception of lines on the road. Perception & Psychophysics 70, 1571-1580 (2008). doi.org/10.3758/PP.70.8.1571
This! When I was a kid, I used to ask myself and my mom why the lines on the road seemed so much shorter in the car than on the sidewalk. I'm glad I'm not the only one who has noticed this!
Drivers really have this pathological desire to speed up to pass others just to wait at the upcoming and very visible red light. Love it when, like during my commute yesterday, I catch up with them at the intersection and the light for bikes turns green before the one for cars.
One thing that was kind of missed by the reasons for 30km/h on the driver side: it is a lot less stressful to drive through a city at 30km/h. I was in Cologne recently and they have 30km/h almost everywhere and I never felt as relaxed while driving. (I would have gone by train but it would have been about 100 bucks instead of the 10 I paid for gas and it only took a third of the time to get to and from there. Gotta love Deutsche Bahn being privatised and freed from the shackles of having reasonable prices and existing maintenance...)
I found a study that said even the air pollution might not be worse at 30 km/h than 50 km/h, because cars pollute the most during their acceleration phase, when they not only need to overcome resistance, but also build up that kinetic energy (the F=ma phase) and that phase is longer at higher speeds and in the city cars often sprint from traffic light to traffic light. But it also said there was a lot of uncertainty about the effects on air pollution.
So the best traffic is slow and steady. Every stop means cars have to speed up again. And if engine efficiency is worse at that speed, just design a different gearbox with a gear that run at optimal rpm at that speed.
@@jaimepujol5507 also water polution when the parts that don't make it into the air get washed away. Artificial rubber tyre surfaces being one of the big sources of plastic crap in places it shouldn't be, these days, to my understanding.
I live next to a busy city road. That is insanely loud. The psychological damage alone is a strong argument for lowering speed in cities. Somehow not many people and young people get this idea. The planet is noise polluted due to cars that it became a norm. Its sad.
I feel this. And there’s a traffic light there that’s constantly changing whether there’s pedestrians or not. When a motorcycle gets stopped at that light in the middle of the night they just rev their engine over and over for 30 seconds until it’s green again. No wonder sleep is hard to find here.
6:43 big brakes are for heat management. Tires are the limiting factor in braking. Your regular brakes produce much more force than the tires have traction. That’s why ABS is so important.
Recently there was the verdict for a driver that killed a 11 year old girl in Berlin by running a red light 25 seconds after it turned red with about 65-70kmh (25-30 over the limit). He got sentenced to 9 month of prison, but the sentence is set out by a three year probation period so his only real sentence by the court is that he is not allowed to drive for six month. The only thing that cannot come quick enough is normalizing lower speeds.
@@BlueGamingRage Did you miss that speed vs fatality graph shown in the video several times? Child would have better than even odds of surviving at 40km/h.
@moon-moth1 @jamesphillips2285 "by running a red light 25 seconds after it turned red" -> There wouldn't have been a collision to begin with if the driver didn't run a red light. I won't contest that lower speeds lead to weaker collisions, but the cause of the problem was an insanely careless driver
At school in group 7 or 8 (so 10 to 12 yrs old) we got a ruler of 21 centimeters, which represent the 21 meters it takes for a 30 km/h car to stop fully, with 14 meters for the 1 second realisation and 7 meters for actually braking and stopping the car. During driving lessons we also have a little test of 'i am going to say stop and you have to brake as hard and fast as possible' while on a deserted road. It's very insightful to know exactly how far you would go if you had to brake for something unexpected.
In the US we don't get to experience an emergency stop until an actual emergency, because we don't get any formalized driving education. I use a dashcam, and it was quite sobering to find that what felt like 5 seconds of trying to stop the car, realizing the ABS failed to engage, and maneuvering to minimize injury in what looked like was going to be an inevitable collision was only 1.8 seconds.
Noise pollution was the reason why most roads in my hometown Lünen also got a 30 km/h speedlimit. Imo, build up areas should have a 30 km/h speedlimit by default.
Problem is that many houses have been build after the road was already there. And people don't like it when they lose something compared to when they didn't had it in the first place.
@@Brent-jj6qi yeah, but that's not how it happened in many places. Two towns/cities existed. Road was build between them. Speed limit 90km/h. Next houses and businesses appeared next to the road. Speed limit lowerd to 70, then 50 and now the road has to be 30km/h because there are houses...
@@Monsoon_Enjoyer are they wrong? You can throw around big boy insults (spelled wrong from all those lead fumes) all you want, but I’m not seeing evidence
@@Monsoon_Enjoyer except you literally can’t get somewhere fast in a city with a car, it’s physically impossible to accommodate enough cars. You’d likely end up at the same average speed wether its 30 or 50km/h
@@sachadee.6104 Yeah, looking at moving around in my city, with the options of bicycle, public transport, and riding in a friend's car, the car is often the slowest option. Trams have dedicated lanes in many areas, so they aren't stopped by rush hour traffic. And on my bike I can take the one-way side roads, parks, and foot bridges and tunnels and end up not only being faster, but also with less noise around me.
@@sachadee.6104 I haven't driven in five years. My city has an eBike program where you can bike an hour a day free with a $100 year long membership. If you make under 150% of the poverty line, you can get the membership free! I'm biking 15-20km a day and also using the buses sometimes. Program is non profit with over 150 bikes available. When I was driving, the city charged $1.50 an hour for parking and it could take 20 minutes to find a spot. We need more park and rides just outside the city but the city likes the parking revenue even though it kills downtown businesses and is a very regressive tax for wage workers. Other than that, I have no opinion! Lol
Good thing trams and trolleys zooming around at 50km/h can stop within shorter distance than a motorcycle or small car. Oh wait, they can't. Well, it must mean those "trained" drivers have faster reaction times than the rest of us. Would be bad if they were also human.
@@MladenMijatov trained drivers do tend to have faster reaction times simply due to practice, and they are much much more familiar with areas of high danger since they drive the same routes day after day after day, they are also better at predicting the behaviour of other people on the road and anticipating breaking due to their greater experience. But obviously trams and trolley should also have speed limits appropriate to the road they are on, but since their movement is more predictable - since they have rails - and there is often more infrastructure like platforms, rails, and grade separation, pedestrians and cyclists are more safe around them than around car drivers.
slight correction - 2:00 tire noise exceeds engine noise on REGULAR cars at 30, but the noisiest cars are the jerkovs with the annoying exhaust systems, their engine noise is louder regardless of the speed.
Re: volumes: studies have even shown that real-world capacity (throughput) per lane is actually higher at 30 km/h than at 50 km/h (that is, more cars will be able to drive through per hour if it's busy), because cars drive closer together at lower speeds and there's less "accordion effect". So there's even a "pro car" reason for lower speeds: less congestion and better traffic efficiency.
I have one of those insurance company monitors that watches my driving. One of the side benefits is that you can quickly see what Chuck Marohn is talking about. Your 6 mile drive took 20 minutes, for example…you drove at the same speed as a reasonably fit cyclist. It really is remarkable what actual speeds are once you ignore the speedometer and do the distance/time spent math. A tram, bus, or e-bike would be just as good and better for you and the environment.
Unfortunately making my 20 min / 6 mi commute becomes a 1 hr commute by bus or a lethal proposition by bike. It's a false equivalency given the infrastructure we have in place to work with.
Got one of that too. Since then I’m just driving what is stated and it is ridiculous how stupid I feel sometimes going 30 km/h with everyone around me going 50 or more. On the other side there are areas where I just drive what is stated and the cars behind me drive it as well. Sometimes I think they just are scared that they block someone and are happy that there is some dude starting it (by the way speaking about two lane roads).
Something nice that I started to see in Germany last year are bicycle streets. Mainly smaller, residential streets where bikes have priority over cars and cars are only allowed to drive up to 30km/h. And since the signs are the bicycle lane sign on a white rectangle with Fahrradstraße written under it, people also easily understand that cars aren't the big player there. I feel like adding more of those in cities would be nice in multiple ways. 1. There is no discussion about the city lowering the speed limit since it only involves a handful of minor streets at one time, greatly reducing the amount of people complaining. You are just making sure bikes get the place in traffic they deserve. And by the time the typical complains start, the city can just point towards the already existing streets and show how they aren't a problem. 2. It makes the roads safer for anyone. I recently started biking to work when the weather is nice (otherwise it's the bus for me) and I prefer smaller side streets and bike paths next to larger streets compared to driving on larger streets. Luckily my route allows me to avoid them apart from traffic lights and other street crossings. 3. Reduced noise levels will make more people living in those streets push for the change since it makes their homes quieter and more desirable
Yep in the Netherlands they're called a "fietsstraat" (I believe 1 is shown this video) and are easily recognizable as the whole street is the pink color a normal bike lane is, and there's a sign that says cars are a guest. I think 30 is a perfectly good speed for cars in busy city centers ,the few seconds you might save by driving faster get negated at the next intersection/yield point/traffic light.
I was on a long walk friday evening and saw that on one larger street around most of the historical center now has a wide, two-way double-width bike lane that replaced a car lane. A surprise, to be sure, but a welcome one.
I think in the US they are called advisory bike lanes, a terrible name. I would like to see them as the default in my hometown, but I only know of a single one in the whole city.
Another bonus to public transit is that you get "bonus" time in your day. 1.5hrs of commute suddenly becomes semi-self time as you can spend that time on your phone or reading a book, or reading a book on your phone. On a car, you just cant do that.
1.5 hours of commute are also a telltale sign of insufficient affordable living space within our cities. No one should have to commute for more than 30 minutes (one direction) on a daily basis, if not by deliberate choice.
That is also a none honest argument. I use public transport daily but it is not extended me time at all, because other people suck with their loud music etc
The bus seats are so tight you're forced to be touched by strangers and the air is anything but fresh. You're forced to endure the journey without being able to relax or get anything done. It's slow and expensive that despite the bus being motorised a bicycle can make the journey in about the same time(this is in Sweden btw). A car more than halves commute time allowing more quality time with family. Until the infrastructure improves for public transport and bicycle infrastructure It's not serious to claim that there are as good options.
@@lonestarr1490 That is a combination of low density housing and living on one side of the city and working on the other. I need 20 minutes to our city center per tram. A friend of mine lives at the other end, another 30 minutes through. I have the luck that we both live close to the same line that goes through, but the thought of having to change line..... As example for an unnecessarily long commute: A monthly community meeting with friends is about 40° counterclockwise from me (if you consider the city a clock, with the city center as middle point). There is a bus line that goes directly to it that takes me 15 minutes. But that line doesn't drive on the weekend, and so I often have to take a different line, which increases the commute to 40 minutes. And if I were to go through the center, I'd take over an hour. If I go there by bike, It takes about 20 minutes, which is a good deal if the weather permits it. (Because I don't want to be wet from rain or sweat for the meeting)
Regarding capacity: slower speeds also disproportionately generate a higher capacity of car throughput, because the gaps between cars shorten disproportionately. Motorways/freeways have the most vehicles passing through per hour when they are crawling, by a huge amount. However, it is slower for the individual and people's perceptions frequently drive their opinions. So a 20mph road probably has a higher capacity than a 30mph road without even factoring in traffic lights.
After only a short time of driving, I've come to realise that instead of simply putting up signs that can be ignored, it makes far more sense to tailor the road width to the desired speed. On narrow roads, the max comfortable speed for the driver is much lower than a wide street with a 30kmh speed limit
ie, "Traffic calming". Change the road so that it appears (and is) more hazardous for drivers to drive at higher speeds on. Of course you can't make it too obvious overwise drivers will recognize that you're introducing artificial obstructions to their passage.
@@takatamiyagawa5688It didn't actually matter. Parts of such design can be very obvious and can still work, for example artificial curves on a straight road. On the other hand, such a design does not solve the problem completely, it's always only part of the solution.
Yep. The road connecting my neighborhood to the city has people regularly driving 50+ mph (and sometimes racing) in a 40. The road is as wide and straight as the local highway. Do I need to mention this is in front of two schools?
It’s a little bit of both. Just putting up seemingly random signs doesn’t do much on its own, but depending on how the street already looks it can be all that is needed. The problem with 50km/h streets is, other drivers expect you to go that speed, even if the street isn’t designed for it. Germany is currently still stuck on an old law stating the basic city speed is 50 and any exceptions need to have a reason. My German home state (Baden-Württemberg) introduced a measure a couple of years ago which allows 30km/h even on throughfare streets, if the street is too loud (which applies to basically all of them). Through that many towns and cities have lowered speed limits on roads, which used to be 50 without any changes to the street itself. And while these measures were initially often unpopular when introduced, after a few years everybody just got used to it and traffic slowed down. I moved to a neighbor state a couple years ago and I keep driving through towns and villages thinking to myself, why is there no 30 sign here, this street obviously is too narrow and windy too be safe at 50.
30km/h speed limit worked so well in Amsterdam because of how much work has been put into traffic calming measures. But still compliance is an issue where design speed is different from speed limit, e.g. every time I drive 30km/h on Bert Haanstrakade I get overtaken atleast once, because it was a 50km/h street before and speed bumps don’t help. Still better than Berlin where some streets got 30km/h speed limit seemingly without any prior effort put in.
@@NotJustBikes Did you read the news how Amsterdam and the other major cities want to do it, but speed camera placement is a task of the national government, which is like 'nope'. I guess that is the same thing that happened in NYC.
I think this has been the case in Wales. All 30mph became 20mph, and drivers of course have been rioting, but also it doesn't seem to have changed much due to a lack of infra and enforcement. Now, unfortunately in my opinion, there's talk of rolling it back.
@@NotJustBikes your graph at 1:07 shows that people have the exact same survival at 40 kmh as they do at 30 and that the old speed limit of 50 was barely any higher at all, in fact it isn't until you get PAST 50 that the effect you described (of an exponential decline in the rate of survivability) begins to take off, I'm all for safety but the new speed limit barely increases the survivability over the old speed limit and the exact amount of saving you get at 30 can be gained at 40 therefor the logical conclusion based on the data is that 40 kmh would be the ideal max speed limit for cars to travel in all but the most sensitive and congested of areas, making unreasonable and pointless restrictions beyond that hurts your goal of increasing safety because far more people will comply with a rational speed limit than the irrational and unnecessary one that was set here, just like everything else the government tries to regulate the more irrational and not based on facts and data a regulation is the more likely it is to encourage rebellion meaning that if it was just lowered to the proper speed of 40 most people would respect it and obey where as reducing it all the way down to the irrational and unnecessary limit of 30 motivates a lot of people to just ignore the change altogether and continue to drive at the old speed they've spent their lives already safely driving at 🚨 EDIT: please read all the replies to me and then my replies to them before replying to me, I'm tired of repeating myself for people who comment things that have already been said and responded to
I'm in Bruce County in Ontario and have seen speeds decreasing everywhere. It's been really frustrating because I could not understand any reason why that would be. Until you brought up how most people are buying bigger vehicles and that's where the calculations for new limits are coming from. Which makes sense. But at that point in the video I still wasn't entirely sold lower speeds are good. By the time you got to the point where you discuss not needing lights and stop signs, that was when I was sold. All the slowdowns made sense. I know I don't go as fast as the speed limit in most cases in city driving. It's just the infrastructure that hasn't adapted with both safe driving speed as well as reducing congestion. I'm all on board now. Reduce the speeds but there has to be major infrastructure redesign along with it to reduce stop signs and lights. Safer and better driving practices.
Car brains argument about fuel efficiency while dragging 1+ ton metal boxes around always get me. NO ONE drives 40mph (~64km/hr) for efficiency on highway. (Edit : spelling)
@@karelsvoboda3344 Depends on the car, but a general rule of thumb is whatever speed gets you between 1.5K to 2K RPM at the final gear. For most cars this is somewhere between 45 mph to 60 mph (72 - 96 kph). Also, the worse the car's aerodynamics, the slower you want to go to avoid aero drag, which starts being significant above ~50 mph.
Funny calculation which a lot of people are missing. Driving under 15 minutes on a commute means that speed limit will make even less difference overall on the total time spend behind the wheel. Going 50 instead of 30 - great you saved 1 minute ... which on average is waiting on one or two lights.
15min=.25h 50km/h *.25h =12.5km 12.5km. / 30km/h ≈0.416h=25min If the only affect was speed limit it is a 10 minute difference, not 1. Though with stops and traffic it will be significantly less. Still not sure where the 1 came from
@@45nickname When I was regularly driving my brother to the hospital: about a [8km round trip], in about 30 minutes: I worked out that my average speed was about 16km/h. This is with stroads with a speed limit of either 40 or 50km/h. Most of the extra time was wasted waiting for lights. Edit: Google thinks the [one-way] trip should have taken 8 minutes. Maybe it was a 15 minute trip. Waiting 8 minutes is only 4 2 minute light cycles.
@@45nickname The average speed in a city with 50 km/h speed limit is still much lower - depends on the traffic and congestion. In some places 10km is 30 min. In other time of the day the same road can take 12-15 minutes. On average in my experience is around that of a difference. In some cities which I've lived where the city center has 30 km/h speed limit, and you have to yield to pedestrians - the flow is better as you don't have to stop as often as in other places where you drive 50 km/h and have to cross multiple crossings and completely stop the car to once again yield to pedestrians.
I've seen this anecdotally time and time again. Some jackass tesla or suv driver starts tailgating me on a country road, and as soon as there's (technically) room to pass they speed aggressively around and slam their accelerator. Then, 3 minutes later when there's a long light, I drive up behind them and they're still waiting on the light. Same thing with traffic too. In their aggression they have gotten ahead by a grand total of...one car length. And in the city, where distances between lights are far less, that aggression will get them basically nothing. These people completely forget that lights and traffic are the biggest inhibitor on their travel time.
@@gctypo2838 I have the same experience. It's even more annoying on sunday, when most businesses are closed and there's no rush to go above speed limit.
When Amsterdam announced this, I was against. When it came to effect I struggled because some drivers would push to go faster and some drivers would go 25 on the speedo, afraid of a ticket. After about two months things settled down and now I love it. Driving is more relaxed and as a driver you're more on the same level as cyclists, which is very nice. Driving in Amsterdam where I work is now more relaxed then in Heemskerk, where I live. Remarkable.
On the efficiency debate: being slightly more efficient doesn't matter if you need to put more than double the energy into getting to move every time you need to accelerate. Also, smaller engines of course are more efficient at lower speeds, but, you know, half of all drivers die instantly if they have to drive a car with less than 2 liters of displacement
Yes, exactly - the benefits of the higher speed efficiency is only truly felt in places like a freeway. I live off a highway and the speed limit is 55mph, which should mean I am pretty efficient, but due to frequent stopping at stoplights, the difference is quite minimal compared to city driving. Maybe +1-2mpg, the kinds of gains you can see just by having more favorable driving conditions in general (e.g., warm weather versus cold). By contrast, freeway driving routinely nets me +10mpg. Anywhere that has frequent stopping is not really going to become that much more inefficient due to lowering the speed limit (but, lowering the speed limit can lend itself to road design that reduces the need to stop overall, raising efficiency!) Aside from that, electric motors are very efficient at lower speeds unlike ICEs - hence why many hybrids get fantastic mpg both in and out of city (but typically, even better in city than on freeway)! Assuming we will continue on the track of developing hybrids/EVs and slowly replace pure ICEs, the whole "more efficient at higher speed" becomes a moot point anyway.
The efficiency thing is probably the result of engine rpm. They tend to have maximum torque and hp at a certain range, usually in the upper end. And to get your small car with a small engine to 5000-6000 rpm means driving 50+ But a different gearbox would probably change that. If there were a "zeroth gear" and a "1.5th gear", optimised for maybe 15 and 30 km/h range, efficiency in slow city traffic would be no worse than the usual 50-70-100 km/h range. Plus it would give the high efficiency rpm at a speed with even less wind resistance. I even noticed that when biking, high pedal rpm is less strenuous, more flexible for speedup and -down and leaves higher gears for going fast.
@@HappyBeezerStudios usually higher load, like about 80% equates to the highest efficiency, especially at around 2500 rpm, so lower or higher rpm or lower load will all decrease efficiency. With the highest gear you get higher load at a given speed, but that gear isn't usable at 30kph, so you have to drive at an even lower load. Now this only means that you convert fuel into a given amount of energy less efficiently, it doesn't automatically mean that you'll actually use more fuel for a given distance
@@HappyBeezerStudios no, that's not how it works. Engines use fuel per rotation. So to use the least amount of fuel possible, you want to have the least amount of rotations that still allow you to provide enough energy to move. The higher the gear setting, the less rotations per distance traveled. And to go slower, you need to use a lower gear setting to prevent stalling the engine (going below the minimum rpm). So if going slower requires you to reduce the gear, you will lose efficiency.
at 6:40 you got YOUR high school physics teacher mad! bigger brakes almost never help with stopping distance since almost any disc brake can lock up the wheel, what helps is bigger tires or better weight distribution, since the braking force is limited almost exclusively by traction. bigger, better brakes are useful on the track, or on extremely heavy vehicles, where the limit becomes how much heat the brakes can absorb and dissipate and not how much traction the tires have.
Bigger tyres also don't help, friction is dependent on the weight through the surface, not the size of it. The reason performance vehicles have large tyres is to use softer, fast-wearing compounds that *do* have more friction, while making them last long enough to use for a whole race under race forces.
@@iskierka8399 that's not entirely true. while normally friction is just a product of normal force and friction coefficient, tires behave in a peculiar way, as their deformation per weight diminishes as weight increases. ruclips.net/video/CyH5xOcsXxs/видео.htmlsi=EFSsOk9OGU2TaTtc this video goes more in depth on it and explains it better than i can. that's also why heavier vehicles do brake worse, if not, adding mass would proportionally add normal force and a vehicles ability to slow down would be entirely dependant on the friction coefficient between the tires and the ground.
@@cagasbura420 Larger vehicles don't brake worse, though, at least not significantly; see Volvo (and now all other euro manufacturers) safety systems, stopping fully loaded trucks in the same distance as a car. They took more distance in the past due to the difficulty of ABS on trailers, so to avoid jacknifing the trailer brakes would be intentionally undersized, but on a modern truck the stopping distance is virtually the same; any small distance difference that *can* be observed is explained by trucks using harder tyre compounds, because they put so much weight through each tyre that they can't use a soft, high-grip rubber due to how often it'll need replacing.
Also bit of a nitpick, but for all the many problems with the proliferation of large trucks, the increased *mass* lowering pedestrian safety isn't one. The mass of a pedestrian is already at least a magnitude lower than even a small car, so the weight of the trucks increasing has a pretty much neglible impact on predestrian safety. It only really matters in vehicle-vehcle collisions where the vehicles would have otherwise been a similar mass.
@@madattaktube True, but the *size* and especially *height* of the trucks, both of which strongly correlate with the weight, do negatively correlate with pedestrian survivability, since a vehicle that an adult would roll onto instead flattens them, and a child isn't seen at all.
17:30 regarding the fuel efficiency: driving continuously at 60 km/h is more fuel efficient than driving 30. Constantly accelerating and braking, like it's done in a city is not.
So right! And to make it clear: Accelerating to 50km/h and then braking for the next intersection or traffic congestion is LESS fuel efficient than accelerating to 30km/h.
CityNerd has done a few videos about these types, too. He calls their trucks "emotional support vehicles" because of their self-esteem issues. And then he reads back some of the comments he gets from them with "soy boy" comments, etc., in his typical deadpan tone of voice. It's quite hilarious to see the reactions of these types to being called out.
@@flyguy1237 Well obviously you wouldnt have a million cars in traffic around you if they raised the speed limit and helped you get to your next red light 5 seconds faster!
At about 18:50 you glossed over an important point in the effort to bring down the speeds cars travel at: Amsterdam. The city is redesigning the roads. That's the major way to slow everything down because, as you say a lot, "Physics works better than signage."
Very true. We have a road near us with a 35 mph speed limit, but this road is long, straight, and wide, and hardly anyone drives under 40, sometimes over 50. And there are only crosswalks at traffic signals. There are two schools within 1/2 mile of each other along this road. One of those schools has to have two crossing guards at the nearest corner. The other school needs crossing guards, but doesn't have any.
I recently came back from a trip to Amsterdam and it was truly beautiful to experience a city that's so vibrant yet so quiet because you're not exposed to traffic noise
For the Brits and Americans 20km/h - 12.4mph 30km/h - 18.6mph 50km/h - 30.1mph Edit: stop arguing in the comments I was just saving you from having to open google
Serious Injury really is not talked about enough. My Dad had a serious car crash 2 years ago and is still heavily depressed. The financial impact is also often not mentioned. Even when you do survive and your injuries heal, treatment costs or loosing your job will affect you for years to come. He has racked up medical bills to a combined 2,3 million euros so far, and they want their money back from someone, so even when your not hurt, being involved or even having caused an accident all by yourself may cost you 2,3 million euros plus any compensation for the victim, who'll have to live with your mistakes for the rest of his life (which are costs that can go into the seven digits, and are not guaranteed to be covered by your insurance). So even car drivers should strive for lower speed limits, you can ruin your own life financially in a timespan that's too short for you to conceive.
The thought for transit is often "How do I get to my destination as fast as possible", and it's a lot harder to process "How does everyone get to their collective destinations at a reasonably fast, safe, average rate".
High school physics teacher here: at least I'm proud of you, Jason :)
6 месяцев назад+124
I'd actually posit a different answer to guy with sunglasses in a truck: The only reason why it's not 0 is because banning cars is much harder than lowering the speed limit
Well, that and that under many jurisdictions speed limits apply to all road traffic, including pedestrians. A speed limit of zero would see snails on the footpath violating that law in those cases. Lots of carparks put up 5 or 10 kph speed limit signs though, which is close enough.
Great episode. Your anger/frustration resonates more than ever this week. My uncle is in a trauma hospital in Toronto this week after he and his dog were hit by a car while out for a walk. The dog was killed. My uncle is on life support. Enough is enough!
I live in the Bay Area in California and doggedly obey speed limits and stop signs, and it pisses so many drivers off. Most drivers don't care or understand the meaning of "limit" in "speed limit", and will honk at me, scream, flash far lights, pass where it's illegal to pass, and so on. Bad road/city planning, coupled with a lack of enforcement of traffic laws.
@@garryferrington811I never understand this sentiment. A speed limit is a limit, meaning it is illegal to go faster. Yes the left lane is the fast lane, but that should mean you can drive at the speed limit, while the right lanes are for driving below the limit. Why do people feel they have the right to go over the limit on the left lane?
“I can drive faster because I'm an above-average driver” is unfortunately a take I've actually heard before, despite being absolutely ridiculous. Personally, I consider myself an above-average driver in part because I take great efforts to keep my speed under control (as well as to keep a long buffer distance in front of myself to give myself more time to react to changes on the road ahead of me, which I can attest has saved me from rear-ending plenty of drivers over the years and in fact has left me with exactly zero collisions in my life so far).
People think they are above average, because they prioritise different things about driving. And they drive accordingly. So someone who goes fast thinks he is above average, because he's faster than the average driver. Same for someone who drives extra safe, fuel efficient, ...
As a general rule, if you aren't trained well enough to know that you should be following the rules, and why, you Absolutely aren't trained well enough to safely Not follow them. Of course, the bar for Actually acting contrary to the rules in a safe (for given values of the word) manner is a lot higher than that, but that's another matter.
Part of being an above-average driver is choosing the correct speed for the conditions/scenario at hand. I live in a rural area, and there is a blanket speed limit of 80km/h on nearly all roads in the countryside (Ireland). However, on some parts of the road network, my chosen speed goes well below 20km/h - blind bends on single-track roads where I might (and have often) met pedestrians, cyclists, horses, and tractors. What might make me an above average driver is that I've tried to train myself to choose a good, often way lower (but also occasionally higher) than the limit, speed for the scenario. PS: I recommend an EV for rural driving on winding, narrow roads - with single-pedal driving (press to drive, lift off to regeneratively brake), you can make good, safe progress, while constantly varying your speed to keep to the "I can stop within the distance I can see to be clear" rule. I find that drivers of manual, petrol/diesel vehicles tend to get sick of constantly pedal-swapping to brake/accelerate and change gear, so start to carry too much speed into corners, because it's easier, and confirmation bias means that they get used to doing it, because it always seems to work out (until suddenly, it doesn't).
People also argue that the road has less capacity because 50kph is faster. But they forgot that a driver holds a bigger distance to the car in front at higher speeds. -> Same throughput (maybe less). It also makes driving less attractive in terms of time, making more people not drive.
This is made explicit with the "2 or 4 second rule": you are supposed to increase the distance at higher speeds because our reaction time does not really change at higher speeds. Also if I see vehicles ahead or behind bunched up: I will increase my follow distance because I am now driving for 2.
I did this calculation once. Do you know what the most efficient speed is to get as many people from point A to point B ? It's 4 km/h. So not 50, 40 or even 30. But 4. Strangely this is the speed we use for walking. Coincidence?
@@Robbedem Corridor capacity of a 3.5m personal vehicle lane (1.5 passengers on average): 2000/hour. Corridor capacity of a 3.5m walking path: 15,000/hour. Only rail has more capacity than a walking path of equivalent width.
Oddly enough slower speeds means traffic can keep moving which generally means moving faster. another reason why stop signs suck is that your required to completely stop compared to yield signs which you don't need to stop and can just slow down keep rolling and pick up speed again which is alot easier moreso with manual cars.
@armamentarmedarm1699 It does, because the braking distance increases with the power of 2. So increased speed, reduces capcity of a road. (unless people use unsafe distances) The 3 second rule for keeping distance is an approximation. (If you are going 30 km/h, you don't need 3 seconds distance.)
I live in Melbourne Australia - the main issue for me when driving is that the "city" spans dozens of kilometres, each stretch of road with its own vision of low speed limits, which are often main roads with shopping strips built up around them over the years. Other times, there is minimal development around the areas of low speed limits, or the shops and other businesses intended to generate the traffic are closed, yet the limit remains. The same thing applies to temporary speed limits for road works and any number of other issues. In many cases there is no cohesive strategy for a through-traffic route as best I can tell. In years past, it was relatively simple to drive between areas across the city when we had a lower population. Now, the travel patterns haven't changed (if anything, the quantity and distances increased), while the roads have become more congested and the limits have been dropped consierably.
Same problem in Sydney. I love the new WestConnex, but I don't like: - Lack of public transport expansion into new areas. Relative priorities! - Lack of opportunities taken to redevelop the strodes like Parramatta road into lower volume corridors. - Tolls, not the existence of them, they're a good way to discourage people from using a car: the money going to a private company, the fact we're discouraging the desired behaviour for people who do drive. - Induced demand traffic issues. If you're gonna build a new road it should be as part of a comprehensive transport plan. Why are inner city people driving to work? It's literally quicker to take a bike or transit. Oh there's not enough trams? Maybe we should buy more rolling stocks. - Safe raising of speed limits where appropriate. Hey, you designed a road with a design speed of 100km, cool, let's (and they just did) raise that road to 90km/h and reduce the surface streets to 40km/h. Cool, commuters from suburbs with limited transport options and trucks can get into work quicker and it's also safer for people outside cars. Like, you can have both!
This is a common problem in NA too. LA is notorious for being sprawling like you describe, and it has some of the worst traffic on the continent (except maybe NY). The reason for this is that the city being so sprawling and wide means everyone has to drive to get anywhere, which means more cars on the street, which means more car infrastructure (esp. large parking lots), which means things are further apart, which means more having to drive to get anywhere, and the cycle continues. And it gets even worse as the city grows, not just size but population too. It's very, very, VERY difficult to break out of this loop of bad design. Low speed limits alone won't fix traffic (though it may make it safer at times when traffic is light) - if people have no option but to be on the road, they'll be on the road. It takes viable alternatives to get people out of their cars. One of the more approachable options are bus lanes - giving public transport its own dedicated lane, as nobody will use it unless it bypasses traffic. This requires taking away a lane from drivers, which is a REALLY hard sell when traffic is already so bad.
There are some lethally bad stroads in sydney (Parra rd, king georges road & the rest of the A3). So much of their traffic comes from people avoiding tolls like people heading north/south on the A3 could use the M1 + East.dist + M2, or the M4 literally running next to Parra rd. If they made some sections of motorway free maybe some of these stroads could finally get downsized and redeveloped, especially paramatta road
@2:54: "Modern vehicles have a lot of safety features that are designed to dissipate that energy into deforming the vehicle instead of deforming the people inside..." Well, except the Cybertruck...
Guymon, Oklahoma also has this problem. People may argue a lot of people come here from out of town to work, but they come to work at the plant and never use the stroad.
It is likely that the road was there before, then a petrol station, than a cafe and a motel, and slowly a town grew around the road. The question is that this road should now either be routed around the town (which might impact local roadside businesses that define the town and provide most of the employment - although that can be mitigated), Or make crossing the road safe for everyone with pedestrian underpasses, balanced traffic lights, and such. Of course this being the land of Freedom (mostly from common sense and responsibility it seems), they have taken the third option - do nothing and just factor in the dangers of cars into their everyday life.
Speed limits, stop signs, and traffic lights are extremely lazy solutions to core problems with how a road is designed. When roads deliberately include intuitive clues to SLOW DOWN, such as vision barriers, bollards, and other hazards, drivers subconsciously get the message and pay more attention to their surroundings. If we want zero deaths and injuries on the road, we can't have half-measures.
This is the most enraged I've ever heard you speak! This car and truck shit is finally really getting to you. People don't even really think about their daily life. Have to commute to work...need a car, have to work to keep the car. Spend all your time working to keep a car. I see so many people were I live working all the time to keep their vehicles. Everyone is enslaved to the vehicle they drive and they don't even have a clue.
Pretty sure that was stock. It looks too clean and I have no idea why someone would have been filming that intersection with a perfect angle to capture that collision. (either stock or a movie). So that phone in hand was probably intentional.
Town I live in lowered the speed down to 20mph, a kid got knocked down and did survive, and wasn’t badly hurt, the driver said “ if the limit was 30mph he wouldn’t have been in the road, and I wouldn’t have hit him” he was on a zebra crossing !
welcome back to blaming things that are totally our fault on something that made the problem less bad compared to the other option this time we're blaming the 20 mph speed limit for not being 30 because we crashed into a child using a zebra crossing and we totally wouldn't have crashed into them if the speed limit was 30 mph even though we most likely would and the crash would be not insignificantly worse
There are several reasons for preferring 80s cars. Their pillars are far thinner; helping visibility. They are much lighter ;80s cars with decent fuel injection can be very fuel economic. Also makes them more lively to and fun to drive. Also makes them less of a danger to others (less kinetic energy). They let you know your driving too fast by being noisy; preventing you driving too fast. They feel much more in contact with the road; makes driving more fun again. They are unsafe; which makes you a more prudent, safer driver. I'd say: a peugeot 205 for anyone who actually needs to drive. (Lives 15 minutes from work on a bike, 25 by car)
And the GTi for those who /like/ to drive. If you're an "active driver" and you don't have fun whipping an old 80's GTi or 90's NA Miata around a country road, WITHIN the speed limit, you're not really the driver you think you are.
lower speed limits means you basically don't need cars to be so beefy, so you can shave off a bunch of weight while you're at it. Add on the engine advancements and i'd expect some wild mpg numbers.
17:35 - FYI from a car nut: this is not an issue on 90% of vehicles made within the last 5 years. Newer combustion-only cars almost all make use of 8+ speeds in their transmissions or use a CVT, allowing them to hold the engine at the most efficient RPM and load percentage even at very low speeds. Back in the 90s when most automatic transmissions had only 3 or 4 fixed ratios to work with, this was an issue and you'd have your engine sustaining an unnecessarily high RPM at 30kph. Hybrids are also growing in popularity and will basically never run the engine at low cruise speeds like 30kph unless they're charging the battery. This is basically an outdated argument, and will only become more outdated as EVs and hybrids continue to replace combustion-only vehicles.
if you ever want video of a very dangerous downtown stroad there is a 50 mph 4-lane one-way stroad in downtown Kalamazoo with a pedestrian crossing that has no indicators that goes accross a train track. it's seriously the absolute worst pedestrian crossing ive ever used but the first traffic light crossing is around 1.5 miles down the road so it is needed there. (the city was reconsidering the one-way street thing which might help a little bit)
10:40 actually, mathematically, the inflection point would be around 70km/h. The inflection point is not when the curve starts going up but when the slope starts decreasing (the second derivative is zero).
There is a mathemetical and a colloquial definition of "inflection point". I am clearly using the colloquial definition, which is synonymous with "turning point".
The not wanting to hit or potentially kill someone, is the part that always baffles me the most. Especially in some countries people apparently don't mind killing people and having to live with that for tge rest of your life? Injuring yourself by stupidity is one thing, injuring or potentially killing a child is something else.
@@PhotonBeast That. And when it happens it is not intentional but 'accidental'. Even among victims and their relatives you see this misconception! Perhaps a coping strategy. I haven't seen any video footage of victims screaming at motorists 'murderer, murderer!' except when the driver was driving insane speeds. I do hear complaints from people 20-30 years older than me that I drive 'too slow'. Not 'very responsible and correct'.
@@ReindeRRustema That's because it is accidental. At worst , it's negligent. It absolutely is not intentional. Also, you haven't seen anyone screaming 'murderer' at motorists because most motorists *are* *not* *murderers.* For a vehicular collision to be intentional, a driver would need to want to hit a person or other vehicle, would need a _mens_ _rea_ . Someone does not become a murderer by the act of getting behind the wheel. Overheated rhetoric doesn't help any cause, as fun as it can be.
@@johnpolsen I very strongly disagree that it's not intentional. It's a very active and deliberate choice to speed and take risks while driving. Even more within a busy city. It's not something that just happens without reasons. By definition these risk of hitting, injuring and potentially killing someone WILL go up. That's very simple high school math and physics.
@@johnpolsenlet's say I live in a suburban setting and just for fun decide I am going to fire a high powered rifle into the air at an angle repeatedly. Woopsy! I accidentally shot somebody and they died! It was totally an accident, how was I supposed to know they were there?! It would obviously be an intentionally dangerous action. But people speeding, not paying attention, etc are innocent of the lives they take? They chose to drive their 2 ton death machine, if they kill someone by driving it badly that's a choice on their part. Yes, there are plenty of legitimate accidents, but a lot of them can't really be called that truthfully.
As a professional truck driver that often has to be in Amsterdam for work i hardly was able to drive 50 in Amsterdam anyway, the only problem i have with the changes to 30km/h is that they made some streets switch between 30 and 50... Why not just make it all 30 🤷♂️
In my city in Serbia a boulevard road that goes through the city has a speed limit of 50 kmh, but the "green wave" is made for 60 kmh, so you either wait at almost every traffic light (there arent many luckily) or you speed and potentially get a speeding ticket.
I just want to say I'm really grateful for your channel because it opened my eyes to how dangerous and backwards American streets are. I've been slowly trying to teach people about how we can make things better and I hope that eventually, public sentiment in favor of smart, sustainable infrastructure will grow enough to make it actually happen.
Driver here in the UK. Lots of roads around me are lowering from 30mph to 20mph. I absolutely agree with it just because lower kinetic energy means less road injuries/fatalities. The problem for me is other drivers who are now stubbornly resistant to these changes and will dangerously tailgate me if I dare to follow the speed limit. I just maintain speed but it isn't nice to experience and part of the problem is a lack of enforcement.
@@liam3284 Honestly yeah. We just had a small section of road in our town center go from 30mph to 20mph and the Facebook groups have gone nuts about it being a waste of money (it's literally two signs). The thing is that section of road is often congested so I would rarely even reach that speed anyway. Plus there's lots of kids around there and it's a major bus hub so it makes perfect sense to lower it. People have been moaning about average speed cameras being placed everywhere but I've literally never had an issue because all you have to do is just not speed. It really is that simple. Funnily enough when I could cycle to work the most dangerous section with no cycle lanes happened to be that section too. Yet Mr. Audi S3 thinks he has the reaction times to be doing 40mph down there because he's the best driver on earth. I suppose we at least don't have the truck issue the US has but SUVs are everywhere now and they are even worse for the tailgating.
enforcement in britain is pretty bad. we should really start adding street parking onto these 20mph streets so cars are forced to slow down for eachother.
@@davidty2006 Funnily enough there is street parking on this road. I'm in the north in a terraced housing area which means almost no one has parking on their property. Sadly all it has done is make it more dangerous for cyclists as well as make people do dangerous parking maneuvers. Unfortunately, like all emergency services the police are stretched thin so enforcement is suffering as a result. To be fair to my council they are putting up a lot more speed cameras now so hopefully that extends to smaller towns too. We're even getting 'noise cameras' now because of ridiculously loud modded exhaust systems people are putting on their cars. It has definitely gotten worse with SUVs and I really wish we had a system like Japan where you had to have a big enough space to park your car but then we don't have the public transit system to allow people not to have a car. I think this is why there is so much kickback when 20mph zones get introduced or efforts are made to keep cars out of city centres. Public transport simply isn't good enough especially in my area. I have to have a car to get to my placements as a student.
dude I'd *love* to sit down and chat with you for even a day. It would massively help my paper I'm writing to try and convince my city government to do some reconstruction. My rough draft of this paper I turned in for an essay in my English class and it got perfect marks! Now the entire high school English department is orange pilled. In fact most the people around me now are after I found your channel like 2 months ago... whoopsie
My city isn't actually terrible, It has got a lot of protected sidewalks and... well... TWO bike paths. But of course they say to be the change you'd like to see so... I got some convincing to do.
Thanks, but you should be talking to an actual expert, not a RUclipsr. There are so many urban planners out there who know more than me and would be happy to inform you. Talk to somebody local!
@@NotJustBikes I have, I've met with a decent amount of my city council and such. And I know you are not an expert, but I think you are pretty fun. Sorry.
@@NotJustBikes I know you're not an actual expert, but being a popular RUclipsr (and this also applies to other RUclipsrs as well) is probably more relevant than being an actual urban planner (as OP was talking about convincing the hearts and minds of average people vs the implementation of good urban planning principles)
A month ago I was riding my bicycle in a mixed zoning street (with cars, bikes and pedestrian on the street). Suddenly a car drove past me and pushed me to the side, I tried circumventing him but he speeded up again and pushed me to the side. Then he lowered his window and started screaming at me that I had cut him off which I hadn’t, I merely happened to overtake him because there were obstacles meant to slow down drivers. When he was finished, he drove off with at least 50 kph in what is mostly a pedestrian and biking street (and one of if not the busiest street in the city.) I was so shocked, I thought he was going to run me over, I mean, he almost did.
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Just ban @GuyWithSunglassesInATruck
And this is why Belgium has "Zone 30" signs (and zone 50 or zone 70 for remote industrial areas). It saves _A LOT_ of money because you don't have to keep repeating that limit at every corner. And it just takes away all doubt. You don't have to look for signs anymore, you just know it's 30 wherever you go.
@@lukearts2954 I like the idea but I do see a downside. What do you do with roads that are well suitable for 50kmh in a 30kmh zone. Sometimes you want to make a road attractive for cars to keep them out of the other roads.
@@buddy1155 we simply place a 50 sign on those roads. And indeed, that method is used to funnel car traffic out of the low traffic zones.
@@lukearts2954 we do something similar in Auckland. The CBD is a 30kph zone, but the roads that connect to motorway on ramps are 40kph. It's not a massive difference ultimately, but it does signal that you're on your way to freedom from the 30kph tyranny...
...until you get onto the motorway, realise it's clogged with Remuera tractors (our nickname for bigger SUVs and Utes) and going even slower than the CBD streets.
The part where you say "lets not permanently disable people to save a few minutes on your commute" hit me hard. My aunt was run over in LA while riding a bike about a decade ago and is still in a vegetative state. Then a few years ago I was in a crash myself. I got rear-ended at a light by someone who didn't stop. I lost my sense of balance from it and walk with a cane. Both times, they ran off and were never held accountable. In both cases, a reduction of speed might have saved us from life-long disabilities. My aunt wouldn't be permanently brain damaged, and I wouldn't be stuck walking with a cane so I don't fall over. Things need to change, obviously a lot more than just raw speed. Your videos give me hope that people will listen soon, and start aiming for those changes.
I've lived in LA. Best wishes to you both, the car is especially dangerous there.
I'm so sorry that has happened to you and your loved ones. I was ALSO in LA, and got hit by a driver who *I made eye contact with* who didn't see me at a stop sign (when you're only looking for cars, your brain can skip over other things). I got a concussion so bad, I still have memory issues to this day.
Funny thing though, I was right on the street boundary between two police jurisdictions, and I sat dazed on the sidewalk until they figured out who needed to handle the accident lol
I like how we went from "that's a topic for a future video" to "watch this previous video if you want to know more".
Soon, the _Not Just Bikes_ Cinematic Universe will need its own fan wiki.
YES!! This is a sign that this channel is succeeding in it's original mission. It's a sign that this is going well. And I feel happy about it. I love walking and tramming!
“I’ve already talked about this before! I don’t understand what you’re not getting.”
Is "that's a topic for a future video" lore foreshadowing?
I was pulled over by a cop one time for doing 35 mph in a 30 mph zone. It was down hill and I was on my bicycle. The cop said that I was impeding traffic. I asked how could be impeding traffic if I was actually speeding! He said, "People want to go faster than that!"
acab, that's all there is to say.
A cop...protecting speeding...which is illegal. Nice going dude, doing the exact opposite of your job 🤦
Saying ACAB on a video about speed limits is rich.
Holy cow! That's an anecdote worthy of a Bill Hicks bit. (Though he might have the other tack...)
Well, this is something else! LOL
Having trams and buses (in a separate lane) go faster has also the positive effect, that you are overtaken if you sit in a car and might think to yourself that next time you should sit in that tram instead of your car.
I think that's why the Washington, DC Metro Orange line is popular: it goes along the highway that is likely backed up during rush hour, so it's its own advertisement.
It works so well, the new high speed train between Stuttgart and Ulm, which runs directly next to the Autobahn, was forced to build a noisebarrier between the track and the road, making it impossible for car drivers to see the ICEs zooming by with 300kmh. Ironically, the Autobahn doesnt have one, so you can listen to beautiful car noise undisturbed
Short storytime:
I was once driving down the A4, southbound from Schiphol towards The Hague, parallel to the high speed railway line, and saw an ICNG on the rails going 80 while I was going 100. I commented to my passenger "They really should get that track fixed, because that's some terrible PR for the **HIGH SPEED** rail service."
I could drive a lot faster if there were not all those people and bicycles in my way.
@@ironlynx9512 But at least i can tak a nap at 80 kmph. But yup you are correct.
I'm an american police officer, I have worked loads of car accidents, they are awful scenes.
Things I have noticed:
1: SUVs/Trucks cause more injuries on other drivers.
2: Due to an economic reliance on cars, people who shouldn't drive, are driving.
I went to a traffic crash once, 2 teenagers just driving down a neighborhood street in a sedan(25 MPH/40 Km/PH speed limit)
A mom in an SUV runs a stop sign turns infront of them, and they crash, which resulted in both teenage boys being transported to the ER.
We need to get rid of the reliance on cars in this country
Agree totally. Gettting a drivers' licence should be more like getting (and keeping) a captain's licence, a pilot's licence, a process where the goal is public safety, not getting everybody ID'd and behind the wheel while raising revenue for the state. Get the bad drivers off the road, and get their bad driver machines (SUVs and trucks) off our sity streets.
You are very correct about that one. Here in Switzerland Public Transport is good enough, that no one needs a car (privately, real utility vehicles are still needed.) So we don't have to give unsuitable people a licence. Additionally most people actually take the part about being respectful with each other, more seriously.
“Multiple studies have shown that about 80% of people think they are an above average driver”
This is probably one of my favorite stats now
Maybe they are from Lake Wobegon, where all of the children are above average.
yes and drivers (at least men, maybe women too) do not attenuate this overconfidence until they actually get into accidents (according to Matthews & Moran 1986). Meaning that drivers rely on historical data to inform their confidence in driving ability. This is a great reason to raise the driving age to 25. If drivers do not attenuate their overconfidence until after they cause crashes, then everyone else is essentially acting as their guinea pigs.
Matthews, M. L., & Moran, A. R. (1986). Age differences in male drivers’ perception of accident risk: The role of perceived driving ability. Accident Analysis & Prevention, 18(4), 299-313. doi:10.1016/0001-4575(86)90044-8
That just means that 20% are extremely bad and bring the average down
Remember 50% are women and somehow have cheaper car insurance.
I’ve never heard of an accident in my life that didn’t involve a woman lol.
Most drivers are crappy drivers. Sit at any stop sign and watch no one stop unless there's another car coming. Sit at any traffic light and watch them all creep into the pedestrian crossing while waiting for the light to change. Watch them not signal their turns. Watch them ALL speed and then listen to those idiots argue that it's safer when everyone speeds. Most people shouldn't be allowed to operate dangerous machinery in public, just watching them for five minutes proves that and yet we do nothing about it.
Wait, you don't understand, I *NEED* to get to the next traffic light 15s faster!
Chuck Marohn also makes the point that converting nominal highways to actual highways by eliminating all the driveways and greatly reducing intersections, can more than make up for a very low speed limit inside the city, making overall trips actually faster. It's the stroad-everywhere thing, in which a roadway is multilane but with lots of driveways and intersections both inside and outside cities, that wastes so much time and space, and facilitates crashes. Slow streets in the city, paired with limited intersection highways outside, could yield safety as well as greater driver satisfaction.
*to the next red traffic light 15s faster! 😂
Get a motorcycle, I just filter to the front at every light and liftoff on green. Use all of the road that the low resolution cars do not.
Personally, I just really enjoy feeling the acceleration from a dead stop to 60km/h. Is it safe? No. Is it fun? Hell yes.
wait a minute why is this comment 4 days ago when the video just came out
Me, an American, panicking 6 minutes in realizing that 30kph is about 18mph. There actually might be riots in the streets, I casually mention lower speed limits and some people act like I said I'm sending CPS to take their kids.
Lol...German here...reminds me of the discussion to finally install overall speedlimits on our Autobahn. No matter how often you explain the benefits some people always feel as one would like to slaughter and butcher their holy cow.
There is literally not a single street in my town that has a speed limit lower than 20 mph (which is in the school zone). I think saying there'd be riots is not an exaggeration, like at all
@@agrud In some places it's not that necessary. The grand majority of downtown areas I go to are about 20-25 which is a decent enough speed for the kind of intersections and road structure we have.
In The Netherlands we dropped the speedlimit on motorways to 100 (down from 130) km/h in order to reduce emissions. The drop in accidents and fatalaties was very noticeable. As was fuel economy (less fuel used per journey), less road maintenance, and less traffic jams etc. I think the limit was only between 6 AM and 6 PM, so in the evening and at night it was 130 km/h again.
@@weerwolfproductionsunfortunately the extremely right parties who are now trying to form a government want to go back to 130 again. Prioritizing speed over safety seems to be a fascist preference
My town implemented 20 mph (32 kmh) speed limits on almost all streets and residential roads. They are entirely ignored by drivers and law enforcement.
That's why unfortunately changing speed limits isn't enough. Drivers drive as fast as they feel like they can without getting in trouble. So over time, cities need to make roadway improvements that actually encourage slower speeds, and traffic laws need to be paired with enforcement. The more regular use of speed cameras in Europe is part of why something like this is more effective than in the US.
yeah sadly law enforcement, amongst it's many problems , are constituted mainly of non-city residents ... so they're in on the drivers/suburbanites game of allowing each other to go vroom vroom and consume the maximum amount of space and resources
@@HowToTown Andrew Millison has some great videos on how to build alternating gardens into suburban streets to make the road winding, in order to slow traffic !
I've been thinking of making a parody of a famous lottery ad in our country, whose catchphrase is "lottery, who's next?".
Something like a car crash in the background with the death statistics for the last month or year and the catchphrase "car crash, who's next?" under it.
Maybe you could try printing flyers or something if you like the idea.
To be fair, a lot of American (specifically) roads are roads where it feels natural and safe to go 60mph and then they just slap a sticker on it that says 35mph and it feels incredibly grating and frustrating. If you want safe speeds, design roads where going 20mph feels natural.
I work at a childcare center and we have to cross the parking lot twice to get to our playground. The first crossing is very short and very few cars go through it so it's pretty safe. The other one is just past the entrance and therefore every single car that enters has to go through it. There's a stop sign on either side of the crosswalk yet we constantly deal with people rolling right through it. Even when we have a group of 15 children and 4 adults taking up literally the entire space they'll still try to roll it and squeeze around us. Like dude, you can wait an additional 15 seconds for literal toddlers to finish crossing. Some of the older kids have taken to making their own stop signs and they spend part of their time in the playground standing by the fence that's right by the one sign waving them and shouting at drivers to stop. When a 5 year old knows how to obey traffic laws better than an actual licensed driver then you know it's bad.
One thing i always notice is just how loud sirens are. Because cars are loud, but drivers don't want to hear the noise they make, they are soundproofed against the outside world. But sirens need to be heard inside cars, so they have to be extra deafeningly loud.
I was biking in my city just today when a fire truck came through. I was plugging my ears while I waited for it to go by.
I'd prefer a car with a lot less sound-deadening. A part of me feels like people's attitudes towards cars and driving would change if the experience was less isolated. Cars should be loud and not entirely comfortable on the inside.
I liked the idea that car horns should be as loud for a driver as they are for people outside. Getting honked at as a pedestrian is painful.
@@nyanko8972 I quote that all the time. "My hot take: car horns should be on the inside as they are on the outside." That and "dangerous high speed slip lanes!" and I'm going to try adding the newest one "go die lanes" for bike lanes where cars can easily hit you (along with "painted bicycle gutters" of course). I think that's from NJB anyway heh
@@skaldlouiscyphre2453 I wouldn't want to make a car uncomfortable, since that would just be a distraction to the driver, but I don't like how newer cars are made to shield you from the actual feel of driving. I drive a '91 Toyota, very bare-bones, no power steering or ABS or anything like that. Its perfectly comfortable in the sense that your butt won't hurt from sitting in it, but you're able to feel what's going on with the vehicle. It keeps you aware enough to know what's going on between car and road, but not like you gotta fight for your life to keep it in a straight line. Whatever the sweet-spot is between being focused but relaxed while doing a task, is how a car should be designed from the driver's pov imo.
I guess my idea of comfort differs greatly from most people though... they really need their soundproof box with 20 iPhone chargers 🤔
It's very simple. Cities are for people, not for cars. Almost every time I have seen test runs where cars are limited in a street or part of a city, the people living there, the shops, everyone was happy. But everyone not living there is complaining like someone took their car away.
People rarely complain about the good aspect of change. But they will absolutely complain about the increasing costs if a utility vehicle needs come to heir place. That's the part i kind of tired about. I couldn't care less about driving slowly, but the same hypocrites demanding it, than complain about me needing more time to get there and they have to pay for that time.
Bologna in Italy introduced an extensive 30km/h limit on many of its central roads. In two weeks they had 21% less accidents, 27% less pedestrians involved in accidents, 14 less injured people and 0 deaths (compared to 1 the previous year). In just the first two weeks
including all the dumb complains, but I think we (barely) managed to prove the point
So much of Italy is walk-able in a way that I haven't really found in many other places. I live in Lucca and cars are the rare exception inside the city walls. Outside my window right now is a busy intersection of pedestrians, cyclists, and people relaxing at the cafe's and restaurants.
I can walk or bike all over town. Then, I can get on a train, go to other cities all over the country where I will get out and walk all over town. Never really needing a car.
You had 1 death every two weeks in just a single province?
Last year I wrote an Email to the mayor of Wuppertal/Germany begging for 30 km/h in two very narrow streets with dense old buildings on both sides, parked cars and pedestrians/children crossing the street between these parked cars. (Königsberger Str and Kohlenstr.) The mayor rejected it. A neighbouring wide road with mainly commercial buildings turned 30 instead, because of frequent accidents with bycicles(Vor der Beule).
New changes have a higher incidence of compliance. Give it a year and re-test. People take time to start ignoring new rules.
As an Amsterdam (these days mostly) pedestrian I can say I LOVE the change to 30 km/hr. The road noise is noticeably less and the actual eyecontact with drivers is improved, which helps with making me feel seen and respected as a person walking. Can recommend!
And finally anyone can admire my shiny rims! Only people in crapboxes with cheap rims from the hardwarestore want higher speedlimits as they feel embarresed by their ugly looking car.
Why can't they just make the roads smoother and the tires grooves varied to cut down on noise?
@@Kaede-Sasaki instead of a simple, cheap solution, lets come up with an expensive and risky solution. Smooth roads are not more silent. Actually they are louder. and slippery. So braking distance would be much longer
@@grumbazor
Granted. But what about altering the tire grooves? Would that cut down on noise too,
@@Kaede-Sasaki not really without loosing grip or secrific other crucial attributes. And it needs only one car with loud tires to wake you up at night. so speed limit is still the best option
My first job after getting driver license was pizza delivery, In a small town in Poland. In Poland cities are mostly limited to 50 km/h, and residential areas are limited to 30 km/h, with some exceptions in bigger cities on major roads, where the limit is 70 km/h. At first, as a new driver I was speeding all the time to get the food on time, I was young and dumb. I had one client that ordered everyday and was on the other side of town (around 5-7km from the pizza spot), and one day I decided to test how much time i gain by speeding. So i took the timer, measured the time one day while speeding, and the next day I measured time without speeding. The difference was 10 seconds. I stopped speeding after that. No matter what, something is going to stop you in the town sooner or later, it can be red lights, stop sign or give way sign, turning left, roundabout, or just pedestrian walking on the crossing(you have to give way for pedestrians on crosswalks in Poland). Speeding just don't make any sense in cities, best way to save time driving in cities is to drive dynamically by paying attention to the road and going as soon as you can go, BUT NOT FAST.
Agreed, I had t he same but on the highways. I didn't measure it as precisely as you did, but after I got one really hefty fine for 40km/u speeding (the road was empty though) I calculated what the difference was, if I could drive on average 25 km/h faster on the parts of the highway where it would be 'safe' in my experience to do so. The difference was 4 minutes on the entire trip...
It's never more than a few minutes. Unless you have a trip that's 1 hour, 1,5 hour, or longer, almost exclusively on the highway, and you are able to drive faster without interruptions from other traffic. In that case... the difference might be 10 minutes or a bit more...
Still, the downsides: safety, fuel consumption, danger of fines or worse. (Another thing: fuel consumption at 120 km/u is a lot more than 100 km/u - not +20%, but more like +40%!)
Nothing grinds traffic to a halt like a bad crash. Slower driving = less serious accidents. I will never understand 45 mile an hour stroads with 100 different shops with individual driveways.
It's driving through live advertisements without the ability to skip 😂
you missed the correct answer to the "let's set it at 0" argument: YES there are streets where it should be 0, it's called a pedestrian area
@iulic9833 Yeah, this is great. You can do this by making cars the guests of these roads.
@iulic9833 I mean, there are very real restrictions on that already where you can ban all cars but have exceptions for things like businesses and residents.
@iulic9833 the best thing is to have pedestrian area's/streets where only emergency vehicles are permitted.
And have delivery vehicles and residents drive on slow speed streets at the back of those buildings.
That way the front of the buildings and the streets those buildings are on are able to become (almost) car free.
Yeah my reaction to that was: "yes, I agree"
@@ChristiaanHWA university town close to where I live is fully pedestrian. They have rules on when you are allowed to get in with a vehicle (including having to ask police for permission, even within these hours), and there is no strict speed limit, you just cannot overtake a pedestrian, at all.
The only vehicles that pedestrians see when walking through it are small garbage collector thingy (think halfway between an australian Ute with a cage on the back and a golf cart), and the vehicles that are used to clean the streets and water the plants…
It is 50km per hour on our suburban residential street where kids play street hockey, basket ball, are biking and people are walking their dogs or children in strollers etc. It makes zero sense.
The shout out to Not Just Bikes really confused me for a second.
I shall now go and touch some grass.
Ive heard of that guy, who is he?!
Just remember to touch it far away from stroads 🙂
Make sure you don't get run over by a tram in the process.
@@Zalis116 you know, most if not all tram lines don't go over grass
I, too, have had a moment where Marone has called out Not Just Bikes; he then went to another hometown and called it Witness Protection town. I was trying to get him more funding because it's in an affluent area.
Mr. Marohn is exactly right: How fast is one in a city, anyway?
I live in a smallish German city and if I go by car, I have to stop several times every minute at either a traffic light, or for turning/yielding at an intersection, etc.
What is laughingly referred to as the "flow of traffic" is so slow, anyway, that quite a low speed limit will not increase the average traveling time for cars, while making the city nicer and safer for everyone.
My average time going to college between cycling and driving to the other side of town differed 5 minutes on average (on a 15-20min trip). Swinging either way 5 minutes because of lucky lights or farm equipment on the road.
Every time the "tollway" congests, the speed tends to naturally drop to 40kph.
They're programming it on purpose like that so to discourage people from using cars. It's an age old debate in Germany.
With higher speed limits cars do travel a distance quicker. Especially outside rush hours. I mean, if you really believe a car won't go any faster whether the speed limit is higher or lower, then why do you even care what the speed limit is?
@@rizka7945 Maybe you want to watch the video first :)
When I was learning to drive, everyone was acting like driving on the highway was such a big, difficult thing, but I'd always had more trouble driving in town. The highway speed limit was about 100 km/h, and the highway was designed for that. But the speed limit in the parts of town that scared me most? 65 km/h. I was learning to drive on stroads, turns out, and it was terrifying.
I know right? Highways are no sweat, it's stroads and poorly maintained side streets that stress me out.
Yes 🙌🏼
@@Lord_zeelTo be fair, highways, or at least the ones in my area, can be scary at times, with some of the maneuvering you have to do when you have to get on a different highway, or the number of lanes changes because a lane ends or turns into an exit that you don't want, etc.
If you mess up in the city you flatten a pedestrian (and maybe go to jail for a couple of years), if you mess up on the highway you get flattened by an 18-wheeler (and you get an instant death sentence). 💀
@@vlc-cosplayer True, but there's more ways to mess up in the city, and you van also get flattened by an 18-wheeler in the city. I know, had one try to lane change without warning into an area I was occupying the other day.
"Well if 30 mph is safer, why not make it 0 mph?"
I agree. All cars should do 0 mph in a city centre. I'm glad we had this discussion.
kmh
@@Yuary yes, 0 mph is the same as 0 kmh. Great job on that math!
*personal cars.
We still need streetcars, train cars, store trucks, garbage trucks, ambulances etc.
@@jwhite5008 also people moving house, disabled people, repairmen, deliveries, you know, personal cars.
@@Vondo4 Meant on the 30mph in his comment
GuyWithSunglassesInATruck has a point, if we go to 0 we can have no cars. I've love that in the city centre!
You convinced me. I came in thinking that 50 was reasonable enough, and 30 is serious crawling. I'm coming out hoping my city will implement 30 someday
My ears never enjoy my local bus stop in Hong Kong, it’s sandwiched between a 100km/h highway and a 50 km/h road.
Hong Kong is quite car-centric even though it has great transit. Too many roads are 4-6 lanes wide, sidewalks are comparatively too narrow, and most of the noise is car noise. They're also cracking down on "jaywalking" which is essentially a lame excuse for "you're the problem because you're outside of a car".
People in my city travel over 120 km/h on freeways and often 80km/h on roads.
@@handlingitwell Are there videos like these that are China focused? Would love to see what their transit and urban infrastructure is like
@@tury3090 Not that I know of. NJB has mentioned them a couple of times, and RM Transit has made videos on Chinese subways. There's not too much on Chinese urbanism, although a quick look on satellite imagery and it's pretty obvious. Oversized roads everywhere.
@@mnmnrt I really hope you're joking, but if you're not:
I know it can be hard for most Americans to understand, but there are places outside of the USA with safe, clean, fast, and EFFICIENT bus networks. Understand that people just want to get from A to B as quickly as possible. The majority of drivers in the USA are not "car people", and likewise the majority of bus riders are not "bus enthusiasts". People just take whatever is fastest and easiest, and sometimes in well-designed places buses can be even more enjoyable than sitting in a car. I know this because I'm speaking from experience. Why wouldn't you take the bus if it's more convenient and saves money?
Although I don't blame you if you don't get it, because it can be hard to understand for people who've only lived in suburban wastelands their whole lives.
Ever since I've learned (from you) about the whole "designed for speed" thing I've started noticing how speed limits mostly don't fit the roads/environments. For example, the road between my nearest town and my village is 70 km/h for the most parts but 90% of people will do 90+ because that just feels about right and safe. On the other hand, the road through my village is 50 km/h but I find myself usually going less, about 40, because it feels appropriate for it's design and the occasional cyclist or a pedestrian (small village, no pavements). It really changed how I look at different roads I drive on, especially when I see someone speeding or going very slow.
Theres a dual carriageway that cuts through my town and for some reason after a certain roundabout it reduces down to 30 from 40, despite little difference to the road it's self which naturally gets people caught out with "oh it's a dual carriageway so it must be 40 then"
I think this was an argument for how you could just set no speed limit on a road, measure the average speed that cars travel at, then multiply by some factor, to get a sensible speed limit for that road - because drivers, on average, tend to pick close to a sensible speed on their own.
I've also seen cones and temporary speed signs set up for roadworks, with no workers to be seen anywhere. The speed limit was reduced to 30k or 50k from the normal 100k, but no-one was actually complying with the reduced speed limit because there was no rationale for it to be that low.
Reminds me of small, rural roads in the UK, where you are allowed to drive fast, but you probably shouldn't. For the simple fact that it's hard not to run into a tree or down a cliff when you go fast.
Ideally roads are redesigned to encourage slower speeds, not just relabeled with different signs. Some people will obey the new speed limit, but others won't because driving faster "feels right". Traffic calming is important.
American experience: The problem with lowering speed limits on a lot of stroads isn't lowering the speed limits... it's making it feel like the speed limit is lower. It's like "why does this 6 lane road have a speed limit of 25?" Or they don't even notice the low speed limit. And I know a very good example right off a highway exit. A lot of stroads are just... too wide. Makes us complacent and drive dangerously fast.
How creepy is it that car insurance companies actively oppose lowering speed limits?
which is weird since they get to keep your money for longer...
@@davidty2006 They can increase their prices becuse of increased risk.
@@davidty2006 The insurance premium will go down though with less accidents and less damage so while morally despicable it is understandable for strictly financial perspective.
30kmh should be mandatory everywhere, got hit by a car recently as he crossed a red light, and got hospitalized for 2 weeks, Got a nice dutch bike and now I hate cars
I assume it's to make driving the preferred method of travel. If it's too slow, they might ditch the car entirely and, god forbid, use public transit.
I bet fewer people would buy huge trucks if we require them to drive slower than small cars.
Slap speed limiters onto the things like 40 ton trucks and vans have.
that'll solve many issues.
@@davidty2006 you mean like they already do to big (transport) trucks. Because I always found it unfair that everybody else was 'allowed' to break the speed limit law but transport trucks were governed.
@@sachadee.6104 Yes
throw in speed and dv/dt limiters!
@@davidty2006 Almost none of the 'massive trucks' you're complaining about are 40 tons. 35 tons+ requires a type B licenses, and are almost exclusively utility trucks. The street version of the Hummer EV, the heaviest they've ever offered, is only just over 5 tons. Most of the massive trucks, like the Ford 350, is only 4 tons. Most are only around 2 tons, vs the 1.5 tons for a light car. Any AWD car, like any Subaru, is already up to around 1.8 tons, ect. They're mostly just full of air, not actually much heavier than a normal car.
Almost all 40 ton plus trucks are multi (3+) axle, and so do have the lower speed limits in California.
I find it baffling how people think driving faster automatically means you get to your destination faster. To a point, sure, but the number of things that slow drivers down means the gains to be made by driving faster are typically minimal - roundabouts, traffic lights, tractors, cyclists, big hills, etc. The number of times I've been overtaken only to see the driver immediately need to slam on the brakes because the traffic ahead is slow... People think in that immediate moment with little awareness of the bigger picture. Basically, most people are crap drivers.
they don't seem to realise that keeping things flowing means you get to places faster...
if one slows down a vehicle that wants to turn right across traffic can go and allow vehicles behined turning left to go as well meaning more vehicles are going through the same junction and everyone gets to places.
The only real gain from this is visible on the gas bill eventually.
@@mnmnrtAre you saying that because you get arrested too often for running over people
In most cases trying to drive faster than traffic will allow is nothing but a waste of fuel.
Including you. And me. And everyone else. If everyone were required to regularly retake driver's education courses, we'd realize how much we have forgotten about the rules of the road. That knowledge refresh is really important too.
From your other video on the history of Jay Walking, it really shows that cars were invented with a selfish intent in mind. Add some 50's propaganda, some 20's propaganda, sprinkle some "you need to buy our bigger vehicles to be safer in your vehicle" in the 2010s, and it all adds up to "I want to inconvenience everyone around me and only care about myself and getting to my location."
And thus we reached the pinnacle: monster truck.
At its core, the car centric infrastructure and mentality is just pro-sociopath.
@@konokiomomuro7632SUVs basically are monster trucks. Not that I call them SUVs, I call them jumbo cars, because they aren't sporty and they have limited utility.
Road hugging weight 😁.
cars weren't invented due to selfish intentions, but the automobile industry certainly has almost immediatly distorted that concept. Especially when Ford took the idea of Benz and automated it in the US.
Another point to lowering speed limit is enforcement. Here in Suburbia Toronto you often see the same car going 80 to 90 in a 60 zone, sees a speed camera, goes at 50 for a while and back to 80 again
We need better design speeds on our roads. They dropped so many of our speed limits to 50 or 40 and it just made the gap even worse. Check out Danforth Ave west of Kingston Rd some time. 50 kmph? Yeah, right. That's AT LEAST a 70 kmph design.
@@tristanridley1601 Roads should be fast and streets should be slow and stroads are just abominations that need redesigning. Why making the speed limit 50 if there's no driveways or intersections within a kilometer. Why making the streets capable of speeds higher than 50 if there are driveways every ten meters. Bad street and road design=dangerous and miserable for every user
Do you not have average speed cameras over there? One cam at entrance and exit and it calculates average speed so the limit is enforced for the whole stretch of road.
@@tristanridley1601 Yonge between Finch and Sheppard is just like that. Posted limit is 40, but traffic flows at 50-60 because its a wide and straight road. I'd love to see raised pedestrian crossings installed to force drivers to slow down. Getting the cops to do their jobs and enforce speed limits would be nice too.
@@tristanridley1601 This is kind of the only reason 30 km/h on major roads is bad. If a road also serves as a extra-size truck route, you can't design it down to 30 km/h. even if you manage by a insane amount of speeding traps to keep people from driving too fast, they instead will drive distracted. they human brain tends to automate and downgrade any task, which is to easy and monotonous. If the speed limit and the design match, people need to pay constant attention.
As a truck driver who drives through multiple cities on a daily basis, I've learned that the speed limit on the interstate within the city limits is irrelevant because overall, traffic never really achieves anything remotely close to the posted speed limit. Even if they do, it's only for a short while before everyone comes to a stop again. So when I'm on an interstate, driving through a city i automatically know to expect a much lower speed limit than what's posted on the signs. Therefore i put about 40-50 yards of space between me and the vehicle in front of me so as to allow traffic to freely change lanes and merge into and off of exit ramps while going along with the flow of traffic. By doing this I'm saving fuel because my speed isn't fluctuating so abruptly up down.
I was driving on my bike to school, and a trucker yelled at me to let him cross my road first. I yelled hell no. And then he flipped me the bird then I did not wait for him. We were both statuonairy, he just wanted to cut me off. Yeah, yelling at kids, flipping them the bird, is the kind of entitlement that drivers have for saving a few seconds. I was 13 and I yelled at him, "is it worth yelling a children so you can save 10 seconds?" Then he just honked. And he is a professional driver.
I have been hit, i have almost been hit a dozen time. People just seem to lose their ability to drive when it snows. It is freaking scary. So after I almost got hit the same spot 3 times in one week, I chose to take a longer route that would reduce conflict points between me and the cars..... So I had to lose time, or risk my life. While that driver thought it was fine for him to demand that he should be allowed to noy yield for me while crossing my road, so he could save 10 seconds. My detour took an additional 2 minites, on a 15 minutes trip.
No one with a brain would let them go first because they're so freaking slow.
I hope you reported his behavior to whoever owns the company. He is not exactly a great brand ambassador.
@@paulbeard he was a contractor, meaning own truck no company affiliation, but no I did nothing. I tossed it up to "he had a bad day and just wanted to get ahead at something" i was very mature for my age, and I still am. 😂
Studies have shown that a lot of drivers literally do not see bikers. They just filter them out like they aren't even there. Crazy stuff.
@@moon-moth1 he did nothing reckless, I was on the opposite side of the crossing. He just wanted me to yield for him. He did not even start his engine before he was sure what I was going to do. So in my book he is okay. I have almost been hit around 2 dozen times. And I mean almost. Feeling like somebody is going to hit you do not count. And I have been hit once, a cat cut me off in a crossing, and now I have a huge scar on my knee and my foot. Nothing happened other than the shock. Luckily it was the day before my first class at Fudan University in Shanghai and not on my actual first day. I wanted to check the route, how hard is it to remember. It was easy as hell. 😂 Turn left and keep going for 2km. Really easy. So that is my only accident. I could walk from the spot despite my bone showing and the bleeding. I got medical care within 10 minutes of the crash, and the driver did offer to take me to the hospital. I refused because I was unsure about my insurance, and I could see a pharmacy within 40m of the crash site.
Im so glad your not wishy washy about the people who defend faster speedlimits. Most would want to placate anyone, but Thank you, THANK YOU
"Rolling noise exceeds propulsion noise at around 30 km/h"
Somehow, I don't think this applies to the jackasses who tear off their mufflers and race down the highway by my apartment at 2 am.
Your point about how long the stripes on the highway actually are was an eye-opener to me.
Yeah, in the research for this video I found a paper talking about the reasons why they believe this happens based on research into perception. It's really interesting but the details were too much of a rabbit hole to go down for this video.
The study also interviewed people from different countries to ask them how long they thought the lines were, and the average answer was 0.61m, when in actuality they are 3.05m long.
The link to this paper (as well as all the other papers I used for reference) is in the description, but I'll put it here, too:
Shaffer, D.M., Maynor, A.B. & Roy, W.L. The visual perception of lines on the road.
Perception & Psychophysics 70, 1571-1580 (2008).
doi.org/10.3758/PP.70.8.1571
This! When I was a kid, I used to ask myself and my mom why the lines on the road seemed so much shorter in the car than on the sidewalk.
I'm glad I'm not the only one who has noticed this!
Another interesting point is to learn how large the traffic lights actually are. Technology Connections has an old video about that, to pick one.
Same, i would have guess something between a meter and 1.5 meters but even that is way to short.
Love seeing some cognitive psychology in the mix
Drivers really have this pathological desire to speed up to pass others just to wait at the upcoming and very visible red light. Love it when, like during my commute yesterday, I catch up with them at the intersection and the light for bikes turns green before the one for cars.
One thing that was kind of missed by the reasons for 30km/h on the driver side: it is a lot less stressful to drive through a city at 30km/h.
I was in Cologne recently and they have 30km/h almost everywhere and I never felt as relaxed while driving. (I would have gone by train but it would have been about 100 bucks instead of the 10 I paid for gas and it only took a third of the time to get to and from there. Gotta love Deutsche Bahn being privatised and freed from the shackles of having reasonable prices and existing maintenance...)
I found a study that said even the air pollution might not be worse at 30 km/h than 50 km/h, because cars pollute the most during their acceleration phase, when they not only need to overcome resistance, but also build up that kinetic energy (the F=ma phase) and that phase is longer at higher speeds and in the city cars often sprint from traffic light to traffic light. But it also said there was a lot of uncertainty about the effects on air pollution.
So the best traffic is slow and steady. Every stop means cars have to speed up again.
And if engine efficiency is worse at that speed, just design a different gearbox with a gear that run at optimal rpm at that speed.
Noise pollution at 50 kmh is about double than 30 kmh.
And apparently tire wear produces much more air pollution of fine particles than we think
@@jaimepujol5507 also water polution when the parts that don't make it into the air get washed away. Artificial rubber tyre surfaces being one of the big sources of plastic crap in places it shouldn't be, these days, to my understanding.
@@laurencefraser Ah yes, that's another one. It's funny to think that rainwater is a pollutant, because it washes away all our crap
I live next to a busy city road. That is insanely loud. The psychological damage alone is a strong argument for lowering speed in cities. Somehow not many people and young people get this idea. The planet is noise polluted due to cars that it became a norm. Its sad.
Yes, it even makes birds more agressive, and reduces their ability to signal predators.
"The planet is noise polluted"
I think that's a very philosophical statement that could apply to a lot of things.
One of the reasons for us to move as there is no way we could sleep with open windows with cars rushing over cobblestone at 50kph
@@jurgenpeters1373 Cars, trucks and motorcycles are causing noise pollution everywhere, Not only in cities.
I feel this. And there’s a traffic light there that’s constantly changing whether there’s pedestrians or not. When a motorcycle gets stopped at that light in the middle of the night they just rev their engine over and over for 30 seconds until it’s green again. No wonder sleep is hard to find here.
As a motorcyclist, I wasn't familiar with "SMIDSY'.
I am all too familiar with "FY, not my problem if you get hurt, your fault for not driving a car".
6:43 big brakes are for heat management. Tires are the limiting factor in braking. Your regular brakes produce much more force than the tires have traction. That’s why ABS is so important.
Recently there was the verdict for a driver that killed a 11 year old girl in Berlin by running a red light 25 seconds after it turned red with about 65-70kmh (25-30 over the limit). He got sentenced to 9 month of prison, but the sentence is set out by a three year probation period so his only real sentence by the court is that he is not allowed to drive for six month.
The only thing that cannot come quick enough is normalizing lower speeds.
Your conclusion is flawed. The main issue in that case is running a red light
@@BlueGamingRage Did you miss that speed vs fatality graph shown in the video several times?
Child would have better than even odds of surviving at 40km/h.
@moon-moth1 @jamesphillips2285
"by running a red light 25 seconds after it turned red" -> There wouldn't have been a collision to begin with if the driver didn't run a red light. I won't contest that lower speeds lead to weaker collisions, but the cause of the problem was an insanely careless driver
@@mr65136 'small minority'... that's a location issue, because around here? that 'small minority'? 90+% of drivers.
@@BlueGamingRage lower speeds also substantially reduce instances of running red lights and similar.
At school in group 7 or 8 (so 10 to 12 yrs old) we got a ruler of 21 centimeters, which represent the 21 meters it takes for a 30 km/h car to stop fully, with 14 meters for the 1 second realisation and 7 meters for actually braking and stopping the car. During driving lessons we also have a little test of 'i am going to say stop and you have to brake as hard and fast as possible' while on a deserted road. It's very insightful to know exactly how far you would go if you had to brake for something unexpected.
In the US we don't get to experience an emergency stop until an actual emergency, because we don't get any formalized driving education. I use a dashcam, and it was quite sobering to find that what felt like 5 seconds of trying to stop the car, realizing the ABS failed to engage, and maneuvering to minimize injury in what looked like was going to be an inevitable collision was only 1.8 seconds.
Noise pollution was the reason why most roads in my hometown Lünen also got a 30 km/h speedlimit. Imo, build up areas should have a 30 km/h speedlimit by default.
Problem is that many houses have been build after the road was already there.
And people don't like it when they lose something compared to when they didn't had it in the first place.
@@Robbedemany road where houses can be built should be 30
@@Brent-jj6qi yeah, but that's not how it happened in many places.
Two towns/cities existed. Road was build between them. Speed limit 90km/h.
Next houses and businesses appeared next to the road. Speed limit lowerd to 70, then 50 and now the road has to be 30km/h because there are houses...
@@Monsoon_Enjoyer are they wrong? You can throw around big boy insults (spelled wrong from all those lead fumes) all you want, but I’m not seeing evidence
@@Monsoon_Enjoyer except you literally can’t get somewhere fast in a city with a car, it’s physically impossible to accommodate enough cars. You’d likely end up at the same average speed wether its 30 or 50km/h
30km? Geez, at that kind of speed it would be faster to take a bus or a bii..
Ah, I see what you did there.
actually within the city if you only go within the city; it has always been faster to take your bicycle. 😉
@@sachadee.6104 Yeah, looking at moving around in my city, with the options of bicycle, public transport, and riding in a friend's car, the car is often the slowest option.
Trams have dedicated lanes in many areas, so they aren't stopped by rush hour traffic. And on my bike I can take the one-way side roads, parks, and foot bridges and tunnels and end up not only being faster, but also with less noise around me.
@@sachadee.6104 I haven't driven in five years. My city has an eBike program where you can bike an hour a day free with a $100 year long membership. If you make under 150% of the poverty line, you can get the membership free! I'm biking 15-20km a day and also using the buses sometimes. Program is non profit with over 150 bikes available.
When I was driving, the city charged $1.50 an hour for parking and it could take 20 minutes to find a spot. We need more park and rides just outside the city but the city likes the parking revenue even though it kills downtown businesses and is a very regressive tax for wage workers.
Other than that, I have no opinion! Lol
Good thing trams and trolleys zooming around at 50km/h can stop within shorter distance than a motorcycle or small car. Oh wait, they can't. Well, it must mean those "trained" drivers have faster reaction times than the rest of us. Would be bad if they were also human.
@@MladenMijatov trained drivers do tend to have faster reaction times simply due to practice, and they are much much more familiar with areas of high danger since they drive the same routes day after day after day, they are also better at predicting the behaviour of other people on the road and anticipating breaking due to their greater experience. But obviously trams and trolley should also have speed limits appropriate to the road they are on, but since their movement is more predictable - since they have rails - and there is often more infrastructure like platforms, rails, and grade separation, pedestrians and cyclists are more safe around them than around car drivers.
slight correction - 2:00 tire noise exceeds engine noise on REGULAR cars at 30, but the noisiest cars are the jerkovs with the annoying exhaust systems, their engine noise is louder regardless of the speed.
Re: volumes: studies have even shown that real-world capacity (throughput) per lane is actually higher at 30 km/h than at 50 km/h (that is, more cars will be able to drive through per hour if it's busy), because cars drive closer together at lower speeds and there's less "accordion effect". So there's even a "pro car" reason for lower speeds: less congestion and better traffic efficiency.
Yep, at 30 km/h there are also fewer crashes, which slow down the traffic sometimes for hours.
Would love to cite this, do you have a source I could use?
"cars drive closer together at lower speeds" Sounds like an accident waiting to happen...
@@xenon53827 A less fatal one tho
@@xenon53827 i cant tell if youre joking lol
I have one of those insurance company monitors that watches my driving. One of the side benefits is that you can quickly see what Chuck Marohn is talking about. Your 6 mile drive took 20 minutes, for example…you drove at the same speed as a reasonably fit cyclist. It really is remarkable what actual speeds are once you ignore the speedometer and do the distance/time spent math. A tram, bus, or e-bike would be just as good and better for you and the environment.
Unfortunately making my 20 min / 6 mi commute becomes a 1 hr commute by bus or a lethal proposition by bike. It's a false equivalency given the infrastructure we have in place to work with.
I'm all for having more data, but it will be a cold day in hell before I give it to my insurance company.
Got one of that too. Since then I’m just driving what is stated and it is ridiculous how stupid I feel sometimes going 30 km/h with everyone around me going 50 or more.
On the other side there are areas where I just drive what is stated and the cars behind me drive it as well. Sometimes I think they just are scared that they block someone and are happy that there is some dude starting it (by the way speaking about two lane roads).
If we allowed denser development we wouldn't need to travel so far to get where we need to go. So slower roads would get us there faster.
Something nice that I started to see in Germany last year are bicycle streets. Mainly smaller, residential streets where bikes have priority over cars and cars are only allowed to drive up to 30km/h. And since the signs are the bicycle lane sign on a white rectangle with Fahrradstraße written under it, people also easily understand that cars aren't the big player there. I feel like adding more of those in cities would be nice in multiple ways.
1. There is no discussion about the city lowering the speed limit since it only involves a handful of minor streets at one time, greatly reducing the amount of people complaining. You are just making sure bikes get the place in traffic they deserve. And by the time the typical complains start, the city can just point towards the already existing streets and show how they aren't a problem.
2. It makes the roads safer for anyone. I recently started biking to work when the weather is nice (otherwise it's the bus for me) and I prefer smaller side streets and bike paths next to larger streets compared to driving on larger streets. Luckily my route allows me to avoid them apart from traffic lights and other street crossings.
3. Reduced noise levels will make more people living in those streets push for the change since it makes their homes quieter and more desirable
Yep in the Netherlands they're called a "fietsstraat" (I believe 1 is shown this video) and are easily recognizable as the whole street is the pink color a normal bike lane is, and there's a sign that says cars are a guest.
I think 30 is a perfectly good speed for cars in busy city centers ,the few seconds you might save by driving faster get negated at the next intersection/yield point/traffic light.
I was on a long walk friday evening and saw that on one larger street around most of the historical center now has a wide, two-way double-width bike lane that replaced a car lane. A surprise, to be sure, but a welcome one.
I think in the US they are called advisory bike lanes, a terrible name. I would like to see them as the default in my hometown, but I only know of a single one in the whole city.
Another bonus to public transit is that you get "bonus" time in your day. 1.5hrs of commute suddenly becomes semi-self time as you can spend that time on your phone or reading a book, or reading a book on your phone. On a car, you just cant do that.
1.5 hours of commute are also a telltale sign of insufficient affordable living space within our cities. No one should have to commute for more than 30 minutes (one direction) on a daily basis, if not by deliberate choice.
Tell that to an american. I'm from europe myself but i saw some strange thing in california when i was stuck in traffick.
That is also a none honest argument. I use public transport daily but it is not extended me time at all, because other people suck with their loud music etc
The bus seats are so tight you're forced to be touched by strangers and the air is anything but fresh. You're forced to endure the journey without being able to relax or get anything done. It's slow and expensive that despite the bus being motorised a bicycle can make the journey in about the same time(this is in Sweden btw).
A car more than halves commute time allowing more quality time with family. Until the infrastructure improves for public transport and bicycle infrastructure It's not serious to claim that there are as good options.
@@lonestarr1490 That is a combination of low density housing and living on one side of the city and working on the other.
I need 20 minutes to our city center per tram. A friend of mine lives at the other end, another 30 minutes through. I have the luck that we both live close to the same line that goes through, but the thought of having to change line.....
As example for an unnecessarily long commute: A monthly community meeting with friends is about 40° counterclockwise from me (if you consider the city a clock, with the city center as middle point). There is a bus line that goes directly to it that takes me 15 minutes. But that line doesn't drive on the weekend, and so I often have to take a different line, which increases the commute to 40 minutes. And if I were to go through the center, I'd take over an hour.
If I go there by bike, It takes about 20 minutes, which is a good deal if the weather permits it. (Because I don't want to be wet from rain or sweat for the meeting)
Regarding capacity: slower speeds also disproportionately generate a higher capacity of car throughput, because the gaps between cars shorten disproportionately. Motorways/freeways have the most vehicles passing through per hour when they are crawling, by a huge amount. However, it is slower for the individual and people's perceptions frequently drive their opinions.
So a 20mph road probably has a higher capacity than a 30mph road without even factoring in traffic lights.
After only a short time of driving, I've come to realise that instead of simply putting up signs that can be ignored, it makes far more sense to tailor the road width to the desired speed. On narrow roads, the max comfortable speed for the driver is much lower than a wide street with a 30kmh speed limit
ie, "Traffic calming". Change the road so that it appears (and is) more hazardous for drivers to drive at higher speeds on. Of course you can't make it too obvious overwise drivers will recognize that you're introducing artificial obstructions to their passage.
@@takatamiyagawa5688It didn't actually matter. Parts of such design can be very obvious and can still work, for example artificial curves on a straight road.
On the other hand, such a design does not solve the problem completely, it's always only part of the solution.
Yep. The road connecting my neighborhood to the city has people regularly driving 50+ mph (and sometimes racing) in a 40. The road is as wide and straight as the local highway. Do I need to mention this is in front of two schools?
It’s a little bit of both. Just putting up seemingly random signs doesn’t do much on its own, but depending on how the street already looks it can be all that is needed. The problem with 50km/h streets is, other drivers expect you to go that speed, even if the street isn’t designed for it.
Germany is currently still stuck on an old law stating the basic city speed is 50 and any exceptions need to have a reason. My German home state (Baden-Württemberg) introduced a measure a couple of years ago which allows 30km/h even on throughfare streets, if the street is too loud (which applies to basically all of them). Through that many towns and cities have lowered speed limits on roads, which used to be 50 without any changes to the street itself. And while these measures were initially often unpopular when introduced, after a few years everybody just got used to it and traffic slowed down. I moved to a neighbor state a couple years ago and I keep driving through towns and villages thinking to myself, why is there no 30 sign here, this street obviously is too narrow and windy too be safe at 50.
@@svr5423 that is wher eyou make the cycling not part of the main road
30km/h speed limit worked so well in Amsterdam because of how much work has been put into traffic calming measures. But still compliance is an issue where design speed is different from speed limit, e.g. every time I drive 30km/h on Bert Haanstrakade I get overtaken atleast once, because it was a 50km/h street before and speed bumps don’t help.
Still better than Berlin where some streets got 30km/h speed limit seemingly without any prior effort put in.
Use average speed cameras until the road can be redesigned and the problem disappears.
@@NotJustBikes Did you read the news how Amsterdam and the other major cities want to do it, but speed camera placement is a task of the national government, which is like 'nope'. I guess that is the same thing that happened in NYC.
You obviously have never heard of Czech republic and Poland. Everyone drives like it's a mix of GTA and Need For Speed at the same time.
I think this has been the case in Wales. All 30mph became 20mph, and drivers of course have been rioting, but also it doesn't seem to have changed much due to a lack of infra and enforcement. Now, unfortunately in my opinion, there's talk of rolling it back.
@@NotJustBikes your graph at 1:07 shows that people have the exact same survival at 40 kmh as they do at 30 and that the old speed limit of 50 was barely any higher at all, in fact it isn't until you get PAST 50 that the effect you described (of an exponential decline in the rate of survivability) begins to take off, I'm all for safety but the new speed limit barely increases the survivability over the old speed limit and the exact amount of saving you get at 30 can be gained at 40 therefor the logical conclusion based on the data is that 40 kmh would be the ideal max speed limit for cars to travel in all but the most sensitive and congested of areas, making unreasonable and pointless restrictions beyond that hurts your goal of increasing safety because far more people will comply with a rational speed limit than the irrational and unnecessary one that was set here, just like everything else the government tries to regulate the more irrational and not based on facts and data a regulation is the more likely it is to encourage rebellion meaning that if it was just lowered to the proper speed of 40 most people would respect it and obey where as reducing it all the way down to the irrational and unnecessary limit of 30 motivates a lot of people to just ignore the change altogether and continue to drive at the old speed they've spent their lives already safely driving at
🚨 EDIT: please read all the replies to me and then my replies to them before replying to me, I'm tired of repeating myself for people who comment things that have already been said and responded to
I'm in Bruce County in Ontario and have seen speeds decreasing everywhere. It's been really frustrating because I could not understand any reason why that would be. Until you brought up how most people are buying bigger vehicles and that's where the calculations for new limits are coming from. Which makes sense.
But at that point in the video I still wasn't entirely sold lower speeds are good. By the time you got to the point where you discuss not needing lights and stop signs, that was when I was sold.
All the slowdowns made sense. I know I don't go as fast as the speed limit in most cases in city driving. It's just the infrastructure that hasn't adapted with both safe driving speed as well as reducing congestion.
I'm all on board now. Reduce the speeds but there has to be major infrastructure redesign along with it to reduce stop signs and lights. Safer and better driving practices.
Car brains argument about fuel efficiency while dragging 1+ ton metal boxes around always get me. NO ONE drives 40mph (~64km/hr) for efficiency on highway. (Edit : spelling)
The most efficient speed on highway is about 105 km/h usually.
@@karelsvoboda3344 Depends on the car, but a general rule of thumb is whatever speed gets you between 1.5K to 2K RPM at the final gear. For most cars this is somewhere between 45 mph to 60 mph (72 - 96 kph). Also, the worse the car's aerodynamics, the slower you want to go to avoid aero drag, which starts being significant above ~50 mph.
Funny calculation which a lot of people are missing.
Driving under 15 minutes on a commute means that speed limit will make even less difference overall on the total time spend behind the wheel.
Going 50 instead of 30 - great you saved 1 minute ... which on average is waiting on one or two lights.
15min=.25h
50km/h *.25h =12.5km
12.5km. / 30km/h
≈0.416h=25min
If the only affect was speed limit it is a 10 minute difference, not 1.
Though with stops and traffic it will be significantly less.
Still not sure where the 1 came from
@@45nickname When I was regularly driving my brother to the hospital: about a [8km round trip], in about 30 minutes: I worked out that my average speed was about 16km/h. This is with stroads with a speed limit of either 40 or 50km/h. Most of the extra time was wasted waiting for lights.
Edit: Google thinks the [one-way] trip should have taken 8 minutes. Maybe it was a 15 minute trip. Waiting 8 minutes is only 4 2 minute light cycles.
@@45nickname The average speed in a city with 50 km/h speed limit is still much lower - depends on the traffic and congestion. In some places 10km is 30 min. In other time of the day the same road can take 12-15 minutes.
On average in my experience is around that of a difference. In some cities which I've lived where the city center has 30 km/h speed limit, and you have to yield to pedestrians - the flow is better as you don't have to stop as often as in other places where you drive 50 km/h and have to cross multiple crossings and completely stop the car to once again yield to pedestrians.
I've seen this anecdotally time and time again. Some jackass tesla or suv driver starts tailgating me on a country road, and as soon as there's (technically) room to pass they speed aggressively around and slam their accelerator. Then, 3 minutes later when there's a long light, I drive up behind them and they're still waiting on the light. Same thing with traffic too. In their aggression they have gotten ahead by a grand total of...one car length.
And in the city, where distances between lights are far less, that aggression will get them basically nothing. These people completely forget that lights and traffic are the biggest inhibitor on their travel time.
@@gctypo2838 I have the same experience. It's even more annoying on sunday, when most businesses are closed and there's no rush to go above speed limit.
When Amsterdam announced this, I was against. When it came to effect I struggled because some drivers would push to go faster and some drivers would go 25 on the speedo, afraid of a ticket. After about two months things settled down and now I love it. Driving is more relaxed and as a driver you're more on the same level as cyclists, which is very nice. Driving in Amsterdam where I work is now more relaxed then in Heemskerk, where I live. Remarkable.
On the efficiency debate: being slightly more efficient doesn't matter if you need to put more than double the energy into getting to move every time you need to accelerate. Also, smaller engines of course are more efficient at lower speeds, but, you know, half of all drivers die instantly if they have to drive a car with less than 2 liters of displacement
I like to think of "static losses", a big engine is losing 15kW just turning over.
Yes, exactly - the benefits of the higher speed efficiency is only truly felt in places like a freeway. I live off a highway and the speed limit is 55mph, which should mean I am pretty efficient, but due to frequent stopping at stoplights, the difference is quite minimal compared to city driving. Maybe +1-2mpg, the kinds of gains you can see just by having more favorable driving conditions in general (e.g., warm weather versus cold). By contrast, freeway driving routinely nets me +10mpg. Anywhere that has frequent stopping is not really going to become that much more inefficient due to lowering the speed limit (but, lowering the speed limit can lend itself to road design that reduces the need to stop overall, raising efficiency!)
Aside from that, electric motors are very efficient at lower speeds unlike ICEs - hence why many hybrids get fantastic mpg both in and out of city (but typically, even better in city than on freeway)! Assuming we will continue on the track of developing hybrids/EVs and slowly replace pure ICEs, the whole "more efficient at higher speed" becomes a moot point anyway.
The efficiency thing is probably the result of engine rpm. They tend to have maximum torque and hp at a certain range, usually in the upper end. And to get your small car with a small engine to 5000-6000 rpm means driving 50+
But a different gearbox would probably change that. If there were a "zeroth gear" and a "1.5th gear", optimised for maybe 15 and 30 km/h range, efficiency in slow city traffic would be no worse than the usual 50-70-100 km/h range. Plus it would give the high efficiency rpm at a speed with even less wind resistance.
I even noticed that when biking, high pedal rpm is less strenuous, more flexible for speedup and -down and leaves higher gears for going fast.
@@HappyBeezerStudios usually higher load, like about 80% equates to the highest efficiency, especially at around 2500 rpm, so lower or higher rpm or lower load will all decrease efficiency. With the highest gear you get higher load at a given speed, but that gear isn't usable at 30kph, so you have to drive at an even lower load. Now this only means that you convert fuel into a given amount of energy less efficiently, it doesn't automatically mean that you'll actually use more fuel for a given distance
@@HappyBeezerStudios no, that's not how it works.
Engines use fuel per rotation. So to use the least amount of fuel possible, you want to have the least amount of rotations that still allow you to provide enough energy to move.
The higher the gear setting, the less rotations per distance traveled.
And to go slower, you need to use a lower gear setting to prevent stalling the engine (going below the minimum rpm).
So if going slower requires you to reduce the gear, you will lose efficiency.
at 6:40 you got YOUR high school physics teacher mad! bigger brakes almost never help with stopping distance since almost any disc brake can lock up the wheel, what helps is bigger tires or better weight distribution, since the braking force is limited almost exclusively by traction. bigger, better brakes are useful on the track, or on extremely heavy vehicles, where the limit becomes how much heat the brakes can absorb and dissipate and not how much traction the tires have.
Bigger tyres also don't help, friction is dependent on the weight through the surface, not the size of it. The reason performance vehicles have large tyres is to use softer, fast-wearing compounds that *do* have more friction, while making them last long enough to use for a whole race under race forces.
@@iskierka8399 that's not entirely true. while normally friction is just a product of normal force and friction coefficient, tires behave in a peculiar way, as their deformation per weight diminishes as weight increases. ruclips.net/video/CyH5xOcsXxs/видео.htmlsi=EFSsOk9OGU2TaTtc
this video goes more in depth on it and explains it better than i can. that's also why heavier vehicles do brake worse, if not, adding mass would proportionally add normal force and a vehicles ability to slow down would be entirely dependant on the friction coefficient between the tires and the ground.
@@cagasbura420 Larger vehicles don't brake worse, though, at least not significantly; see Volvo (and now all other euro manufacturers) safety systems, stopping fully loaded trucks in the same distance as a car.
They took more distance in the past due to the difficulty of ABS on trailers, so to avoid jacknifing the trailer brakes would be intentionally undersized, but on a modern truck the stopping distance is virtually the same; any small distance difference that *can* be observed is explained by trucks using harder tyre compounds, because they put so much weight through each tyre that they can't use a soft, high-grip rubber due to how often it'll need replacing.
Also bit of a nitpick, but for all the many problems with the proliferation of large trucks, the increased *mass* lowering pedestrian safety isn't one. The mass of a pedestrian is already at least a magnitude lower than even a small car, so the weight of the trucks increasing has a pretty much neglible impact on predestrian safety. It only really matters in vehicle-vehcle collisions where the vehicles would have otherwise been a similar mass.
@@madattaktube True, but the *size* and especially *height* of the trucks, both of which strongly correlate with the weight, do negatively correlate with pedestrian survivability, since a vehicle that an adult would roll onto instead flattens them, and a child isn't seen at all.
17:30 regarding the fuel efficiency:
driving continuously at 60 km/h is more fuel efficient than driving 30.
Constantly accelerating and braking, like it's done in a city is not.
So right!
And to make it clear: Accelerating to 50km/h and then braking for the next intersection or traffic congestion is LESS fuel efficient than accelerating to 30km/h.
I can tell that Not Just Bikes is getting fed up with the Sunglasses-In-A-truck crowd
CityNerd has done a few videos about these types, too. He calls their trucks "emotional support vehicles" because of their self-esteem issues. And then he reads back some of the comments he gets from them with "soy boy" comments, etc., in his typical deadpan tone of voice. It's quite hilarious to see the reactions of these types to being called out.
Clearly he hates us free thinkers. Gosh the million cars in traffic around me on my daily commute are so annoying. /s
@@flyguy1237 Well obviously you wouldnt have a million cars in traffic around you if they raised the speed limit and helped you get to your next red light 5 seconds faster!
@@SuperSox97 and while we're on it, let's also add a few lanes because that will surely make traffic go faster!!
At about 18:50 you glossed over an important point in the effort to bring down the speeds cars travel at: Amsterdam. The city is redesigning the roads. That's the major way to slow everything down because, as you say a lot, "Physics works better than signage."
Very true. We have a road near us with a 35 mph speed limit, but this road is long, straight, and wide, and hardly anyone drives under 40, sometimes over 50. And there are only crosswalks at traffic signals. There are two schools within 1/2 mile of each other along this road. One of those schools has to have two crossing guards at the nearest corner. The other school needs crossing guards, but doesn't have any.
I recently came back from a trip to Amsterdam and it was truly beautiful to experience a city that's so vibrant yet so quiet because you're not exposed to traffic noise
For the Brits and Americans
20km/h - 12.4mph
30km/h - 18.6mph
50km/h - 30.1mph
Edit: stop arguing in the comments I was just saving you from having to open google
or 20mph and 30mph respectively to keep things simple.
Oh might as well mention 15km/h is around 10mph.
That is why kilometer is metric is better than mph. nere see a car speed display that can do .4 .1 .6
@@the_real_Wieniet that's, why Fahrenheit is better than Celcius.
Brits know the difference between km and mph, it’s just Americans that need to know it 😂
@@zwatotem what???
Serious Injury really is not talked about enough. My Dad had a serious car crash 2 years ago and is still heavily depressed. The financial impact is also often not mentioned. Even when you do survive and your injuries heal, treatment costs or loosing your job will affect you for years to come. He has racked up medical bills to a combined 2,3 million euros so far, and they want their money back from someone, so even when your not hurt, being involved or even having caused an accident all by yourself may cost you 2,3 million euros plus any compensation for the victim, who'll have to live with your mistakes for the rest of his life (which are costs that can go into the seven digits, and are not guaranteed to be covered by your insurance).
So even car drivers should strive for lower speed limits, you can ruin your own life financially in a timespan that's too short for you to conceive.
Was the crash at 50kph? I doubt it. Either way, the civilized thing is to require both medical insurance and civil liability insurance.
The thought for transit is often "How do I get to my destination as fast as possible", and it's a lot harder to process "How does everyone get to their collective destinations at a reasonably fast, safe, average rate".
High school physics teacher here: at least I'm proud of you, Jason :)
I'd actually posit a different answer to guy with sunglasses in a truck: The only reason why it's not 0 is because banning cars is much harder than lowering the speed limit
Well, that and that under many jurisdictions speed limits apply to all road traffic, including pedestrians. A speed limit of zero would see snails on the footpath violating that law in those cases.
Lots of carparks put up 5 or 10 kph speed limit signs though, which is close enough.
@@laurencefraserwhy don’t they just change that law then bruh
@@mnmnrt all it takes to turn a car into an oversized door stopper is some slashed tires lmao
Great episode. Your anger/frustration resonates more than ever this week. My uncle is in a trauma hospital in Toronto this week after he and his dog were hit by a car while out for a walk. The dog was killed. My uncle is on life support. Enough is enough!
I live in the Bay Area in California and doggedly obey speed limits and stop signs, and it pisses so many drivers off. Most drivers don't care or understand the meaning of "limit" in "speed limit", and will honk at me, scream, flash far lights, pass where it's illegal to pass, and so on. Bad road/city planning, coupled with a lack of enforcement of traffic laws.
I'll bet you're doing the speed limit in the far left lane of the freeway.
@@garryferrington811I never understand this sentiment. A speed limit is a limit, meaning it is illegal to go faster. Yes the left lane is the fast lane, but that should mean you can drive at the speed limit, while the right lanes are for driving below the limit. Why do people feel they have the right to go over the limit on the left lane?
@@RosesAndIvy becuase mostly where im at, its not enforced, i see police cruisers going at least 10 over and i can follow behind them without incident
“I can drive faster because I'm an above-average driver” is unfortunately a take I've actually heard before, despite being absolutely ridiculous. Personally, I consider myself an above-average driver in part because I take great efforts to keep my speed under control (as well as to keep a long buffer distance in front of myself to give myself more time to react to changes on the road ahead of me, which I can attest has saved me from rear-ending plenty of drivers over the years and in fact has left me with exactly zero collisions in my life so far).
People think they are above average, because they prioritise different things about driving.
And they drive accordingly.
So someone who goes fast thinks he is above average, because he's faster than the average driver.
Same for someone who drives extra safe, fuel efficient, ...
As a general rule, if you aren't trained well enough to know that you should be following the rules, and why, you Absolutely aren't trained well enough to safely Not follow them. Of course, the bar for Actually acting contrary to the rules in a safe (for given values of the word) manner is a lot higher than that, but that's another matter.
I consider myself above average too. I don't think I'm all that good, I just think that nearly everyone else is really bad.
Even if you are the best driver, the other people driving are not.
Part of being an above-average driver is choosing the correct speed for the conditions/scenario at hand. I live in a rural area, and there is a blanket speed limit of 80km/h on nearly all roads in the countryside (Ireland). However, on some parts of the road network, my chosen speed goes well below 20km/h - blind bends on single-track roads where I might (and have often) met pedestrians, cyclists, horses, and tractors. What might make me an above average driver is that I've tried to train myself to choose a good, often way lower (but also occasionally higher) than the limit, speed for the scenario.
PS: I recommend an EV for rural driving on winding, narrow roads - with single-pedal driving (press to drive, lift off to regeneratively brake), you can make good, safe progress, while constantly varying your speed to keep to the "I can stop within the distance I can see to be clear" rule. I find that drivers of manual, petrol/diesel vehicles tend to get sick of constantly pedal-swapping to brake/accelerate and change gear, so start to carry too much speed into corners, because it's easier, and confirmation bias means that they get used to doing it, because it always seems to work out (until suddenly, it doesn't).
15:52 i can’t imagine how much frustration One Direction must experience from having to wait at every single intersection like that!
People also argue that the road has less capacity because 50kph is faster.
But they forgot that a driver holds a bigger distance to the car in front at higher speeds. -> Same throughput (maybe less).
It also makes driving less attractive in terms of time, making more people not drive.
This is made explicit with the "2 or 4 second rule": you are supposed to increase the distance at higher speeds because our reaction time does not really change at higher speeds. Also if I see vehicles ahead or behind bunched up: I will increase my follow distance because I am now driving for 2.
I did this calculation once.
Do you know what the most efficient speed is to get as many people from point A to point B ?
It's 4 km/h.
So not 50, 40 or even 30. But 4.
Strangely this is the speed we use for walking. Coincidence?
@@Robbedem Corridor capacity of a 3.5m personal vehicle lane (1.5 passengers on average): 2000/hour.
Corridor capacity of a 3.5m walking path: 15,000/hour.
Only rail has more capacity than a walking path of equivalent width.
Oddly enough slower speeds means traffic can keep moving which generally means moving faster.
another reason why stop signs suck is that your required to completely stop compared to yield signs which you don't need to stop and can just slow down keep rolling and pick up speed again which is alot easier moreso with manual cars.
@armamentarmedarm1699 It does, because the braking distance increases with the power of 2. So increased speed, reduces capcity of a road. (unless people use unsafe distances)
The 3 second rule for keeping distance is an approximation. (If you are going 30 km/h, you don't need 3 seconds distance.)
I live in Melbourne Australia - the main issue for me when driving is that the "city" spans dozens of kilometres, each stretch of road with its own vision of low speed limits, which are often main roads with shopping strips built up around them over the years. Other times, there is minimal development around the areas of low speed limits, or the shops and other businesses intended to generate the traffic are closed, yet the limit remains. The same thing applies to temporary speed limits for road works and any number of other issues.
In many cases there is no cohesive strategy for a through-traffic route as best I can tell. In years past, it was relatively simple to drive between areas across the city when we had a lower population. Now, the travel patterns haven't changed (if anything, the quantity and distances increased), while the roads have become more congested and the limits have been dropped consierably.
Same problem in Sydney. I love the new WestConnex, but I don't like:
- Lack of public transport expansion into new areas. Relative priorities!
- Lack of opportunities taken to redevelop the strodes like Parramatta road into lower volume corridors.
- Tolls, not the existence of them, they're a good way to discourage people from using a car: the money going to a private company, the fact we're discouraging the desired behaviour for people who do drive.
- Induced demand traffic issues. If you're gonna build a new road it should be as part of a comprehensive transport plan. Why are inner city people driving to work? It's literally quicker to take a bike or transit. Oh there's not enough trams? Maybe we should buy more rolling stocks.
- Safe raising of speed limits where appropriate. Hey, you designed a road with a design speed of 100km, cool, let's (and they just did) raise that road to 90km/h and reduce the surface streets to 40km/h. Cool, commuters from suburbs with limited transport options and trucks can get into work quicker and it's also safer for people outside cars. Like, you can have both!
This is a common problem in NA too. LA is notorious for being sprawling like you describe, and it has some of the worst traffic on the continent (except maybe NY).
The reason for this is that the city being so sprawling and wide means everyone has to drive to get anywhere, which means more cars on the street, which means more car infrastructure (esp. large parking lots), which means things are further apart, which means more having to drive to get anywhere, and the cycle continues. And it gets even worse as the city grows, not just size but population too.
It's very, very, VERY difficult to break out of this loop of bad design. Low speed limits alone won't fix traffic (though it may make it safer at times when traffic is light) - if people have no option but to be on the road, they'll be on the road. It takes viable alternatives to get people out of their cars. One of the more approachable options are bus lanes - giving public transport its own dedicated lane, as nobody will use it unless it bypasses traffic. This requires taking away a lane from drivers, which is a REALLY hard sell when traffic is already so bad.
There are some lethally bad stroads in sydney (Parra rd, king georges road & the rest of the A3). So much of their traffic comes from people avoiding tolls like people heading north/south on the A3 could use the M1 + East.dist + M2, or the M4 literally running next to Parra rd. If they made some sections of motorway free maybe some of these stroads could finally get downsized and redeveloped, especially paramatta road
@2:54: "Modern vehicles have a lot of safety features that are designed to dissipate that energy into deforming the vehicle instead of deforming the people inside..."
Well, except the Cybertruck...
Like driving a crumpled dumpster
13:21 It is truly mind boggling to see such a busy stroad in a town of only 15.000 people.
You have to take into account that this 15.000 people town is probably just as sprawled out as a 150.000 people town in Europe.
Guymon, Oklahoma also has this problem. People may argue a lot of people come here from out of town to work, but they come to work at the plant and never use the stroad.
Not to me. Even less so if some through road goes down the main street.
There are a lot of towns like that where there is a state or US highway that run through town.
It is likely that the road was there before, then a petrol station, than a cafe and a motel, and slowly a town grew around the road.
The question is that this road should now either be routed around the town (which might impact local roadside businesses that define the town and provide most of the employment - although that can be mitigated),
Or make crossing the road safe for everyone with pedestrian underpasses, balanced traffic lights, and such.
Of course this being the land of Freedom (mostly from common sense and responsibility it seems), they have taken the third option - do nothing and just factor in the dangers of cars into their everyday life.
Speed limits, stop signs, and traffic lights are extremely lazy solutions to core problems with how a road is designed. When roads deliberately include intuitive clues to SLOW DOWN, such as vision barriers, bollards, and other hazards, drivers subconsciously get the message and pay more attention to their surroundings. If we want zero deaths and injuries on the road, we can't have half-measures.
This is the most enraged I've ever heard you speak! This car and truck shit is finally really getting to you. People don't even really think about their daily life. Have to commute to work...need a car, have to work to keep the car. Spend all your time working to keep a car. I see so many people were I live working all the time to keep their vehicles. Everyone is enslaved to the vehicle they drive and they don't even have a clue.
I love that in the footage you used of the crash at 3:21, the driver of the silver car was holding a phone in his left hand
I was looking for that comment. There's not just one, but TWO idiots in that clip!
Pretty sure that was stock. It looks too clean and I have no idea why someone would have been filming that intersection with a perfect angle to capture that collision. (either stock or a movie). So that phone in hand was probably intentional.
Town I live in lowered the speed down to 20mph, a kid got knocked down and did survive, and wasn’t badly hurt, the driver said “ if the limit was 30mph he wouldn’t have been in the road, and I wouldn’t have hit him” he was on a zebra crossing !
That’s quite a stretch of logic from that driver 😅
welcome back to blaming things that are totally our fault on something that made the problem less bad compared to the other option this time we're blaming the 20 mph speed limit for not being 30 because we crashed into a child using a zebra crossing and we totally wouldn't have crashed into them if the speed limit was 30 mph even though we most likely would and the crash would be not insignificantly worse
There are several reasons for preferring 80s cars. Their pillars are far thinner; helping visibility. They are much lighter ;80s cars with decent fuel injection can be very fuel economic. Also makes them more lively to and fun to drive. Also makes them less of a danger to others (less kinetic energy). They let you know your driving too fast by being noisy; preventing you driving too fast. They feel much more in contact with the road; makes driving more fun again. They are unsafe; which makes you a more prudent, safer driver.
I'd say: a peugeot 205 for anyone who actually needs to drive.
(Lives 15 minutes from work on a bike, 25 by car)
And the GTi for those who /like/ to drive. If you're an "active driver" and you don't have fun whipping an old 80's GTi or 90's NA Miata around a country road, WITHIN the speed limit, you're not really the driver you think you are.
lower speed limits means you basically don't need cars to be so beefy, so you can shave off a bunch of weight while you're at it. Add on the engine advancements and i'd expect some wild mpg numbers.
6:10 And here I was thinking you wouldn't know that niche channel...
Also, yeah, their videos are amazing.
17:35 - FYI from a car nut: this is not an issue on 90% of vehicles made within the last 5 years. Newer combustion-only cars almost all make use of 8+ speeds in their transmissions or use a CVT, allowing them to hold the engine at the most efficient RPM and load percentage even at very low speeds. Back in the 90s when most automatic transmissions had only 3 or 4 fixed ratios to work with, this was an issue and you'd have your engine sustaining an unnecessarily high RPM at 30kph.
Hybrids are also growing in popularity and will basically never run the engine at low cruise speeds like 30kph unless they're charging the battery. This is basically an outdated argument, and will only become more outdated as EVs and hybrids continue to replace combustion-only vehicles.
if you ever want video of a very dangerous downtown stroad there is a 50 mph 4-lane one-way stroad in downtown Kalamazoo with a pedestrian crossing that has no indicators that goes accross a train track. it's seriously the absolute worst pedestrian crossing ive ever used but the first traffic light crossing is around 1.5 miles down the road so it is needed there. (the city was reconsidering the one-way street thing which might help a little bit)
10:40 actually, mathematically, the inflection point would be around 70km/h. The inflection point is not when the curve starts going up but when the slope starts decreasing (the second derivative is zero).
What would call the point he was referring to?
I feel like a log scale on the y axis would have been useful
Getting both the highschool physics AND math teachers mad!
There is a mathemetical and a colloquial definition of "inflection point". I am clearly using the colloquial definition, which is synonymous with "turning point".
yup, pretty sure he is using "inflection" in the general sense of the word, not in the differential calculus/geometry sense of "inflection point".
@@NotJustBikes perhaps that colloquial term is not as universal as it may seem
Now we are adding a potentially mad English teacher to the mix
The not wanting to hit or potentially kill someone, is the part that always baffles me the most. Especially in some countries people apparently don't mind killing people and having to live with that for tge rest of your life?
Injuring yourself by stupidity is one thing, injuring or potentially killing a child is something else.
I think part of the fallacy is that since people think they're above average drivers, they won't be the one hitting people.
@@PhotonBeast That. And when it happens it is not intentional but 'accidental'. Even among victims and their relatives you see this misconception! Perhaps a coping strategy. I haven't seen any video footage of victims screaming at motorists 'murderer, murderer!' except when the driver was driving insane speeds. I do hear complaints from people 20-30 years older than me that I drive 'too slow'. Not 'very responsible and correct'.
@@ReindeRRustema That's because it is accidental. At worst , it's negligent. It absolutely is not intentional. Also, you haven't seen anyone screaming 'murderer' at motorists because most motorists *are* *not* *murderers.* For a vehicular collision to be intentional, a driver would need to want to hit a person or other vehicle, would need a _mens_ _rea_ . Someone does not become a murderer by the act of getting behind the wheel.
Overheated rhetoric doesn't help any cause, as fun as it can be.
@@johnpolsen I very strongly disagree that it's not intentional. It's a very active and deliberate choice to speed and take risks while driving. Even more within a busy city.
It's not something that just happens without reasons.
By definition these risk of hitting, injuring and potentially killing someone WILL go up.
That's very simple high school math and physics.
@@johnpolsenlet's say I live in a suburban setting and just for fun decide I am going to fire a high powered rifle into the air at an angle repeatedly. Woopsy! I accidentally shot somebody and they died! It was totally an accident, how was I supposed to know they were there?! It would obviously be an intentionally dangerous action. But people speeding, not paying attention, etc are innocent of the lives they take? They chose to drive their 2 ton death machine, if they kill someone by driving it badly that's a choice on their part. Yes, there are plenty of legitimate accidents, but a lot of them can't really be called that truthfully.
As a professional truck driver that often has to be in Amsterdam for work i hardly was able to drive 50 in Amsterdam anyway, the only problem i have with the changes to 30km/h is that they made some streets switch between 30 and 50... Why not just make it all 30 🤷♂️
Nailed it!
And I completely agree with you, Not Just Bikes is a great channel, I've watched his videos multiple times.
In my city in Serbia a boulevard road that goes through the city has a speed limit of 50 kmh, but the "green wave" is made for 60 kmh, so you either wait at almost every traffic light (there arent many luckily) or you speed and potentially get a speeding ticket.
I just want to say I'm really grateful for your channel because it opened my eyes to how dangerous and backwards American streets are. I've been slowly trying to teach people about how we can make things better and I hope that eventually, public sentiment in favor of smart, sustainable infrastructure will grow enough to make it actually happen.
It's an uphill battle, but younger people may help get it going.
I love you're increasing the use of your great humor! More please!
Driver here in the UK. Lots of roads around me are lowering from 30mph to 20mph. I absolutely agree with it just because lower kinetic energy means less road injuries/fatalities. The problem for me is other drivers who are now stubbornly resistant to these changes and will dangerously tailgate me if I dare to follow the speed limit. I just maintain speed but it isn't nice to experience and part of the problem is a lack of enforcement.
School bullies who never grew up. The police need to crack down on it.
@@liam3284 Honestly yeah. We just had a small section of road in our town center go from 30mph to 20mph and the Facebook groups have gone nuts about it being a waste of money (it's literally two signs). The thing is that section of road is often congested so I would rarely even reach that speed anyway. Plus there's lots of kids around there and it's a major bus hub so it makes perfect sense to lower it. People have been moaning about average speed cameras being placed everywhere but I've literally never had an issue because all you have to do is just not speed. It really is that simple.
Funnily enough when I could cycle to work the most dangerous section with no cycle lanes happened to be that section too. Yet Mr. Audi S3 thinks he has the reaction times to be doing 40mph down there because he's the best driver on earth. I suppose we at least don't have the truck issue the US has but SUVs are everywhere now and they are even worse for the tailgating.
enforcement in britain is pretty bad.
we should really start adding street parking onto these 20mph streets so cars are forced to slow down for eachother.
@@davidty2006 Funnily enough there is street parking on this road. I'm in the north in a terraced housing area which means almost no one has parking on their property. Sadly all it has done is make it more dangerous for cyclists as well as make people do dangerous parking maneuvers. Unfortunately, like all emergency services the police are stretched thin so enforcement is suffering as a result. To be fair to my council they are putting up a lot more speed cameras now so hopefully that extends to smaller towns too. We're even getting 'noise cameras' now because of ridiculously loud modded exhaust systems people are putting on their cars.
It has definitely gotten worse with SUVs and I really wish we had a system like Japan where you had to have a big enough space to park your car but then we don't have the public transit system to allow people not to have a car. I think this is why there is so much kickback when 20mph zones get introduced or efforts are made to keep cars out of city centres. Public transport simply isn't good enough especially in my area. I have to have a car to get to my placements as a student.
18:00 i think they care more about the gas prices than pollution
dude I'd *love* to sit down and chat with you for even a day. It would massively help my paper I'm writing to try and convince my city government to do some reconstruction.
My rough draft of this paper I turned in for an essay in my English class and it got perfect marks! Now the entire high school English department is orange pilled. In fact most the people around me now are after I found your channel like 2 months ago... whoopsie
My city isn't actually terrible, It has got a lot of protected sidewalks and... well... TWO bike paths. But of course they say to be the change you'd like to see so... I got some convincing to do.
Thanks, but you should be talking to an actual expert, not a RUclipsr. There are so many urban planners out there who know more than me and would be happy to inform you. Talk to somebody local!
@@NotJustBikes I have, I've met with a decent amount of my city council and such.
And I know you are not an expert, but I think you are pretty fun. Sorry.
@@NotJustBikes I know you're not an actual expert, but being a popular RUclipsr (and this also applies to other RUclipsrs as well) is probably more relevant than being an actual urban planner (as OP was talking about convincing the hearts and minds of average people vs the implementation of good urban planning principles)
This man really can only say truths
no no, u don't understand. if car don't go fast, the world ends
A month ago I was riding my bicycle in a mixed zoning street (with cars, bikes and pedestrian on the street). Suddenly a car drove past me and pushed me to the side, I tried circumventing him but he speeded up again and pushed me to the side. Then he lowered his window and started screaming at me that I had cut him off which I hadn’t, I merely happened to overtake him because there were obstacles meant to slow down drivers. When he was finished, he drove off with at least 50 kph in what is mostly a pedestrian and biking street (and one of if not the busiest street in the city.) I was so shocked, I thought he was going to run me over, I mean, he almost did.