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| ▲ | SamBam a day ago | parent | next [-] | | This is the difference between Design Speed and Posted Speed. I remember twenty years ago flying into someplace in Florida and finally getting my rental car on the road at 2 AM. At a certain point I was on what was, to me growing up in New England, the equivalent of a divided six-lane highway. I open up because no one the was on the road, and immediately get blue flashing lights in my mirrors. Turns out this "six lane highway" was considered the equivalent of a back alleyway and the speed limit was 35. | |
| ▲ | Manuel_D a day ago | parent | prev [-] | | Nothing about road design forces people to drive fast. People can drive at 5 mph along a perfectly straight road. They're speeding because they're impatient, not because there is something about road design that forces drivers to exceed the speed limit. | | |
| ▲ | amiga386 a day ago | parent | next [-] | | This isn't true. Road design imparts a psychological effect on the driver, and in some countries this is in their design standards. See for example the UK's Manual for Streets 1, 7.4 "Achieving appropriate traffic speeds" (https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/...) You can slow people down by making lanes thinner, adding in-road obstacles or chicanes, removing road markings to take drivers out of their complacency and get them actively thinking, and at the slowdown at the end of a road, using tightly packed lines or rumble strips to give the impression of speed, to which they naturally react by slowing down. You also stagger junctions, and put in bends, rather than have a fast road run directly onto a slow one (or vice-versa) and then say to yourself "WELL, I DID MY PART, I MADE A NICE FAST ROAD SLAM RIGHT INTO A SLOW ONE, AND IT'S ENTIRELY ON THE DRIVERS TO NOTICE THAT STOP SIGN AND SLOW DOWN IN TIME. NOT MY PROBLEM IF THEY DON'T" Naturally, if you do the opposite, and build a wide, long, straight road with few visual indications of how fast people are going, even the most conscientious will likely zone out and start unintentionally speeding up. It's simple human psychology. You can't be like "human psychology's not a thing, I'll judge every single human like they're completely omniscient and perfectly rational", because there are millions of people who unintentionally do things they don't rationally want to do, every single day, because they were psychologically manipulated. Use road design to manipulate them into doing the right thing, rather than manipulate them into doing the wrong thing and then directly take money from them. That's a dark pattern. | | |
| ▲ | Manuel_D a day ago | parent [-] | | Sure, if someone is used to going 70 on the highway then they drive to Oregon where speed limits max out at 55 then yeah they'll probably speed if they drive carelessly. But that's ultimately still the responsibility of the driver to obey the speed limit. This is not remotely close to entrapment. | | |
| ▲ | amiga386 a day ago | parent [-] | | I wasn't claiming anything was entrapment, I was taking up your claim that "Nothing about road design forces people to drive fast." Indeed, nothing forces, but road designs really strongly suggest through the use of psychology. The mafioso didn't force you to be a drug mule when he said he'd murder your family if you didn't. The website didn't force you to let them sell your data when they put in giant bold letters "AGREE AND ENTER" and in 5 point grey on grey "decline" -- after the website's owners ran multiple rounds A/B testing to see what was most effective at getting people to click the option that gives them free money. They didn't force you, it's all your choice buddy. You feel tricked or conned? Like you were carefully goaded into making a choice against your best interest? Well, you shouldha read the small print, sucker! Anyway, I don't think these things are "entrapment" (meaning the police coerce you into breaking a law you wouldn't otherwise have broken), but they are sketchy, especially if the organisation in charge of enforcement also gets a cut of the fines. Your example reminds me very much of Brookside, Alabama, where the tiny town's police department did everything in its power to bilk passing motorists for its own private enrichment. https://reason.com/2026/10/01/judge-preliminarily-blesses-1-... > Brookside "recognizes" that its "policy of aggressive policing," which "prioritized generating revenue for the department's expansion," "likely interfered with the Town's obligation to administer justice equally under law," "undermined the public's trust in the justice system," and "raised serious constitutional concerns under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment." | | |
| ▲ | Manuel_D a day ago | parent [-] | | > Indeed, nothing forces, but road designs really strongly suggest through the use of psychology. The mafioso didn't force you to be a drug mule when he said he'd murder your family if you didn't. Uh, yeah it is? This is literally textbook coercion through threat of murder. I'm not sure how this is relevant to people who don't pay attention to speed limits and speed, though. Also, the example in your linked article isn't even related to speed limits: > According to the lawsuit, Coleman "was following three or four car lengths behind" her boyfriend's car. But Sellers claimed she was "tailgating." He also claimed to smell marijuana, which supposedly justified ordering Coleman out of her car and handcuffing her. |
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| ▲ | stfp a day ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Traffic engineers, road designers, and car makers deserve a lot of the blame and should be held accountable. You keep designing deadly streets and roads that encourage speeding, you keep producing and marketing bigger and bigger more dangerous vehicles... Ads about power and speed... And then turn around and blame people as being solely responsible? No, the overall system is a direct cause of crashes and deaths as well. | |
| ▲ | cucumber3732842 13 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | You could say that but you'd be saying it with the same amount of honesty that one could say nothing about gambling and fast food ads everywhere makes people piss their money away on sports betting while being fat. At the societal level these things are numbers games. If you don't want people going 60 on a road don't build a road where normal conditions cause that to be a comfortable and safe speed. |
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