By the way in cities average speed is very low. For instance in London the average speed within a mile of the city center dropped 1.22mph from an average of 6.35mph in 2016 to just 5.13mph in 2017.
https://fleetworld.co.uk/average-driving-speeds-plummet-in-u....
Where did you get that?
The reality is that if you are scared to drive or unfocused in a city like Rome or Milan, you are a menace even at very low speed.
At 10 km/h a car kills a pedestrian.
At 15 km/h without safety bells if you hit a wall you're thrown out from the windshield.
Slow drivers need to learn how to drive safely without pretending that their insecurities become everyoneś problem.
Especially in large cities where there are a pletora of alternative ways to move around.
> That's really the root of the safety problem that is big powerful cars.
It is not.
In Rome, where there are around 27 thousands car crashes every year, the number one cause of accidents is distraction.
Most of them happen at low speed.
The second is driving under the influence.
The third is road conditions.
Last comes speeding.
Driving under pressure because you don't feel confident behind the wheel is like DUI, you make mistakes and cause crashes.
Too many people obtain the driving license without having the necessary skills to handle the traffic flow of a large city.
Most people don't respect the strict speed limits in Europe. As long as there's no radar and no heavy traffic around I can guarantee cars will go faster than 50km/h.
Every major vehicle manufacturers is working on self-driving. So just how difficult would it be for them to make cars now as an intermediate step that actually obeyed the speed laws?
In the UK, The National Police Chiefs Council stated that speeding is believed to be a significant factor in 17 fatalities and 126 serious injuries on the country's roads each month. Globally ...
I don't know how many people the vehicle makers should be allowed to kill and maim because of a speeding problem that is entirely technically preventable. But at the moment it feels like they are getting away with something that is uncomfortably close to murder.
Secondly, there's a more fundamental issue. Most people are not going to be ok with the lawmaker exerting that level of control over their cars, because it's 1984-y.
Just because something kills people doesn't mean it always has to be completely stopped and eradicated. People die from eating too much junk food, should we forbid it? People die to stairs, are you going to legally force constructions to pad any staircases with cushions? People ruin their lives due to alcohol. People drown in pools. Kids get injured on playgrounds - think of the children.
There's a line where you need to leave things up to individuals, even if some of them are going to fuck up, because otherwise you end up creating a draconian state, which is way worse than any possible outcome created by people misusing their agency. Trying to enforce speed limits this hard is way over that line.
I don’t think it’s unreasonable to try and reduce speeds. Speed kills, and that’s a fact. A lot of the killing is externalized as well.
I’ve said it before, but people who drive public streets like a track should either get themselves to a track, or internalize their risk-taking by buying a motorcycle. As a motorcyclist, I’m very aware of safety trade-offs I’m making. Oddly enough, not being inside a steel cage is a pretty good reminder to keep safety very high on the list of things I think about while riding.
Most European city centers do not have four lane straight-as-a-line roads with only a sign "restricting" the speed. On tight, winding roads with near-zero visibility at junctions, it's rare to even hit the speed limit. Driving faster doesn't happen because it feels (and is!) dangerous.
That's the kind of road this vehicle is designed for.
