| ▲ | 6DM 3 hours ago |
| With a built in 25mph limiter, that eliminates "city" driving too unfortunately. Most roads around me are 35 mph. There's sizeable demand for people who want to be able to do runs to the bigbox stores for garden and DIY renovation supplies and store it the rest of the time. |
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| ▲ | bryanlarsen 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] |
| You need to complain to your congressman, not to Toyota. The 25mph limit is set by the Low Speed Vehicle standards. |
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| ▲ | malfist 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | Why? If they can't make a vehicle safe enough to not require low speed vehicle standards then they should make their vehicles safer. | | |
| ▲ | chowells 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Because they can't bear to make vehicles smaller. That's the real terror on American roads. Something like 60% of vehicles are huge because it makes the driver feel better. And indeed, it makes the driver safer in a collision - at the cost of making everyone else in the area less safe. Something has to be done to stop this trend first and foremost. After that, when vehicle sizes start trending down towards reasonable, we can look at getting speeds up without reducing overall safety. | | |
| ▲ | jnellis 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | I think the reason trucks are so huge these days is not the ride feel. It's the EPA gives more lenient pollution restrictions based on size of vehicle. So instead of making the engine less polluting, just make the truck bigger and keep the same engine. It's like a cereal box that's only 1/3 full. | | |
| ▲ | amiga386 an hour ago | parent | next [-] | | I believe it's a mix of both. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SUV#United_States The idea to introduce light trucks in passenger-car shape to get around pollution limits was the car manufacturers' idea. However, the US public ran with it and bought because of the perceived higher safety and social status that comes with driving a larger, heavier vehicle than everyone else. And they continue to buy to attempt to one-up each other even though the pollution limits now apply to SUVs as well as smaller passenger cars. | |
| ▲ | intrasight an hour ago | parent | prev [-] | | And you can expense a >6000lb vehicle |
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| ▲ | LastTrain 30 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | You might be the last person on earth that believes this is about safety. The rules are protectionism to keep cheap/affordable vehicles out of the US. Those rules and setion 179 bonus depreciation on large cars are what are keeping the American auto industry alive without having to actually compete. | |
| ▲ | bryanlarsen 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Low-speed vehicles are essentially golf carts. Do you expect golf carts to be safe at 65 mph? | | |
| ▲ | malfist 43 minutes ago | parent | next [-] | | If they want to go 65mph, yes I expect them to be safe. | |
| ▲ | bombcar 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Will classify them as motorcycles | | |
| ▲ | bryanlarsen an hour ago | parent [-] | | Yes, the other option Toyota had was to classify then as UTV's, like quad bikes and gators. No speed limit, but not street legal either. They should probably do that: sell a variant without doors and with knobby tires as a UTV. |
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| ▲ | schiffern an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Note that LSVs are allowed on roads with a posted speed limit of 35 mph or less. Whether you feel safe doing so is a separate question, of course. https://afdc.energy.gov/laws/5954 |
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| ▲ | samtheDamned an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| This is what bothers me about this category of vehicles. There's not good line between a city car and a general purpose vehicle. You either get dangerously slow toy or a full 2-5 ton piece of heavy machinery. If you could get something like this or the Fiat Topolino[1] that could be restricted to, say, 35-45 mile roads, it would be a very different story and much more appealing. 1: https://www.fiatusa.com/models/topolino |
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| ▲ | kridsdale1 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Speed limits are an upper bound. |
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| ▲ | Manuel_D 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | I often ride my ebike at 28 MPH (max legal ebike speed in US) on a street with a 25 MPH speed limit and I'll regularly get cars tailgating me honking and crossing the double line to pass. | | |
| ▲ | WillPostForFood 26 minutes ago | parent [-] | | You aren't getting honked at because you are going too slow, you are getting honked at because you are blocking the lane with your bike. | | |
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| ▲ | DoctorOW 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | American here, in practice no. They are generally only the upper bound for dense neighborhood streets, throughout most other roadways you will be considered a poor driver if you go lower than the speed limit. | | |
| ▲ | 0x1ch 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | The city of Tacoma, WA recently implemented new ALPR ticketing systems to enforce speed limits in northern Tacoma. They received so many hits, they had to build out a new system akin to a lottery for sending ticket / infraction notices. To me, that seems like the city is entrapping its citizens to make up for a lack of revenue, when the data clearly shows the speed limit should probably be adjusted. But no, they move to develop a lottery system to send the infractions. | | |
| ▲ | Manuel_D an hour ago | parent | next [-] | | Entrapment means the government induced the illegal behavior. An ALPR speed cam doesn't induce anyone to speed. Its not entrapment, just drive the speed limit and you won't get tickets. | | |
| ▲ | idle_zealot an hour ago | parent [-] | | It's the road design, not the cameras, that are entrapment. Or maybe it's most accurate to say it's both together. We understand how people drive on different kinds of roads and choose to build ones where people will go fast, then make going fast illegal. We know that mere illegality doesn't stop approximately everyone from speeding. We know how wide lanes and long stretches of straight road interact with human psychology. |
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| ▲ | hatthew 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > the data clearly shows the speed limit should probably be adjusted The problem is a cultural one. Most people interpret a speed limit of N as "I should go N+10" (or something like that). If we remove speed limits, the majority of people would end up driving at unsafe speeds. People will always break speed limits unless they are set at that unsafe level. | | |
| ▲ | cowgoesmoo an hour ago | parent | next [-] | | I don't think that's true. When I was in Montana, where the limit is 80mph on freeways, there were very few people going faster than the limit. | | |
| ▲ | hatthew 9 minutes ago | parent [-] | | I feel like 80mph is not a particularly safe speed. Everything is relative though. |
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| ▲ | bombcar 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Not true people drive what they feel the safe limit of the road to be. You can easily devise a road that has 55 mile an hour speed limit and no one will go over 35. | |
| ▲ | nkrisc an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | And the solution is to build the roads such that going over the speed limit feels dangerous. Make roads narrower. Add more bends and lateral shifts. Plant trees along the road to obstruct sight lines. Build roads so that only speeds below the speed limit are safe on them and people will travel below the speed limit. | |
| ▲ | foobarian an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | The speed limits are a useful safety signal. If I suddenly see a 30mph limit in a 50mph zone, usually it's because of upcoming curves and it likely not safe to continue at 65mph. | | |
| ▲ | conductr 14 minutes ago | parent [-] | | Unless it’s a blind curve then it takes no time to adjust to the conditions on your own And it comes naturally. I say this as someone that just drives as fast as I want and don’t usually attempt to adhere to any posted sign. In cases there is a sharp/blind curve that’s when I see they usually just use the curve arrow sign to warn me and so I know to pay a bit more attention and make sure I am ready and able to adjust my speed if actually needed. I almost never adjust just because I see a sign. |
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| ▲ | conductr 19 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Most people drive at a comfortable speed for the road and conditions with little regard for the posted limits. Most studies I’ve read, sorry not going to look them up to cite, say speed limit should match the human level. Not some imaginary forced number that the DOT came up with on a spreadsheet. | |
| ▲ | dmitrygr 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | > If we remove speed limits, the majority of people would end up driving at unsafe speeds. [[citation needed]] | | |
| ▲ | anigbrowl an hour ago | parent | next [-] | | Why do you think speed limits were introduced in the first place | | |
| ▲ | TylerE 34 minutes ago | parent [-] | | Problem is ma t of those limits were set for cars with horrible bias-ply tires and drum brakes. In modern cars that can easily traverse those roads at 20 or 30mph over they feel assinine. I would be totally fine fine with speed limits being actual, enforced, no wiggle room limits, IF the actual limits were reasonable in the first place. This would mean most interstates outside of built up areas being posted at 80-90mph, say . |
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| ▲ | bombcar an hour ago | parent | prev [-] | | I mean, isn’t that the idea? That people will be bad unless you give them citations? | | |
| ▲ | dmitrygr an hour ago | parent [-] | | My neighbors could steal my packages. They do not. Not all people will be bad if not micromanaged, some people are just nice. |
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| ▲ | bryanlarsen 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Speed limit cameras are highly effective at slowing cars down. They were recently removed in Ontario, and the average road speed increased substantially. The pedestrian death counts spiked in both Toronto and Ottawa this year. This is likely not a coincidence. | | |
| ▲ | 0x1ch 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | But did Toronto and Ottawa have to develop a lottery system to enforce the new systems due to capacity issues? Over the course of a month, it was over 400k infractions captured... 40MPH road. The only reason for the speed to trend downwards is the increasing threat of a ticket from an automated system that cannot be reasoned with. A real cop generally isn't going to ticket me for going 5, maybe even 10 over a posted 40MPH zone unless they fished me for something else during the the stop. Flow of traffic is everything. | | |
| ▲ | bryanlarsen 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | Almost all of the cameras were in front of school zones. 10 mph over in a school zone would definitely result in a ticket here. 5mph likely wouldn't, but the speed cameras didn't issue for 5 over either. The cameras in Ontario issued an order of magnitude fewer tickets than yours. The highest volume cameras issued about 100 a day. | | |
| ▲ | 0x1ch 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | Yeah, 10mph over in a school zone is absurd. The issue I'm referring to are literally TWO speed cameras on common city corridors, non school zones. The lottery system they're building to support the capacity issue is going to calculate weights based on the most egregious speeders, which I guess is nice... |
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| ▲ | seanmcdirmid 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | 25 mph limits abound in Seattle and hardly anyone bothers with following them. The only way they are going to ever enforce that is with speed cameras since we also don't have enough police to even deal with violent crime, let alone with traffic violations. | |
| ▲ | jelloroll42 43 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Lol driver preference should have nothing to do with it. Cars are the biggest threat to public safety everywhere and making people slow down is a good thing. | |
| ▲ | anigbrowl an hour ago | parent | prev [-] | | I prefer that people drive under the speed limit actually. |
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| ▲ | rizzom5000 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Considered a poor driver, and you can be ticketed for impeding traffic. I'd guess you are also more likely to undergo a field sobriety test if and when that time comes. | | |
| ▲ | littlecranky67 35 minutes ago | parent | next [-] | | Not an expert of US jurisdiction, but how can you be ticketed for impeding traffic when your car does not go faster than 25mph? If you can't go faster due to technical restrictions, there is not intent - hence no ticket. Unless you were not allowed to drive that vehicle there or the road has a minimum speed requirement (highways probably). | |
| ▲ | anigbrowl an hour ago | parent | prev [-] | | No ticket issued for staying within the speed limit (absent some obvious emergency) is going to stand up in court. | | |
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| ▲ | 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | [deleted] | |
| ▲ | readthenotes1 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Where I live the major strode has a 45 mph speed limit and during most times of the day we only get to 35 mph but people make up for it by running the red light |
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| ▲ | Dig1t 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | I know two people who have been pulled over in the US for driving too slow. If you drive significantly slower than the flow of traffic it can create a hazard for other drivers. Generally speaking, much of driving is predicting what other drivers will do. If you behave significantly differently than other cars you do raise the chances of an accident. | |
| ▲ | nkrisc an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | And yet if traffic is traveling at the speed limit and you’re going 20 MPH slower you’re a hazard. Most cops will likely even pull you over for that. I’ve seen more than one person try to merge onto a highway at 45 MPH and every time they very nearly caused an accident. | |
| ▲ | asdff 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Imagine how many diesel exhaust clouds this clown car going 25mph is going to be served at green lights in the bible belt of the US | | |
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| ▲ | JKCalhoun 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Yeah, I see quads on Main Street in the small rural towns in the Midwaste, golf carts tearing around the 'burbs in larger cities… |
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| ▲ | benfrancom 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| I see folks going 25mph in 35mph every time I drive! |
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| ▲ | 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] |
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