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Skyline Drive: First Time a Victim of Anti-Motorcycle Bias

Paul, as a person who has ridden across the US and a lot of Canada many times, which would you prefer: 1. lower speed limits that are sporadically enforced and hence often violated with the expectation you won't be pulled over if you are no more than 10 mph or higher above the speed limit; or 2. higher speed limits on similar highways (as you have in Texas) but little slack to people even slightly over the limit.

You have the experience in miles to tell us not only what you prefer but also what makes you feel safer.

An essay answer is acceptable.

OK - essay answer.

I can answer this question more or less on two levels. Almost every transportation planner or traffic engineer (as opposed to state legislator or county commissioner) will tell you that the proper set for a speed limit is the 85th percentile speed - the speed at which no more than 15% of drivers would be comfortable going faster. Traffic engineers would also say that a speed limit at this speed will usually result in the most orderly traffic flow and least speed differential in moving traffic.

My riding experience agrees with this. Note however that when establishing "normal" speed limits for highways state-wide legislators often throw traffic engineering out the window. Some states do a pretty decent job at allowing district engineers to set speed limits.

My experience is that when the driving public finds speed limits to be arbitrarily low (55 two-lane statewide as in Iowa, Minnesota, and a bunch of other states) traffic flow gets all messed up and so does public safety. Some folks will insist that the speed limit is what they intend to drive while others are perfectly happy to take their chances at 10 or 15 over because the roadway, side friction, sight distance, and other conditions allow these speeds safely. This is an open invitation to: large speed differentials, aggresive driving, tailgating, erratic lane changes, etc.

But when speed limits are set at more reasonable speeds for the actual road characteristics speed differentials decrease and traffic generally flows smoothly. In West texas where the I-10 and I-20 limits are 80 speeds generally cluster between 75 and 80 - with occasional outliers mostly from out of state that think that 10 over is OK, but even these folks are fairly rare.

On most of the 2-lane roads with 75 or 70 as the limit most of the traffic flows near but not much if any over the limit. You can sometimes go for 50 miles without being passed or any need to pass because traffic is flowing generally close to the same speed.

Just like the traffic engineers and transportation planners say it is likely to behave.
 
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