Today’s speed limits grew out of studies on rural roads from the 1930s and 1940s. Now states are looking to change guidelines

“What are you waiting for, someone to get it killing? “The 85 -year -old has fluctuated in the northwestern Ohio officials, and complains that nothing has been done about motorcycles that are racing about daily.

Amid increasing general pressure, the town of Silvania requested the provincial engineers in March to analyze whether Mitchaw Road was published The speed is very high. The surprising answer: technically, it is very low.

The reason is due to studies on rural roads of the thirties and forties of the last century, which still plays a big role in the road Speed It is placed throughout the United States – even in urban areas.

It was born of this research a widely acceptable concept known as the 85 % base, which indicates that the speed published on the road should be linked to the fastest vehicle of 15 out of 100 traveling in free traffic, round to the nearest 5 miles per hour.

But after decades of closely following al -Qaeda, some states – with the payment of the federal government – seek to adjust if they are not replaced when specifying instructions for how to determine the limit of local engineers to the point of publication.

Drivers put the speed

This concept assumes that it is the safest speed of the road in which the most vehicles are going – neither too high nor very low. If drivers believe that the speed should be raised, they can simply move in gas and “vote with their feet”, as an old booklet from the Transport Engineers Institute that he placed once.

“The problem with this approach is that it creates this episode of comments,” said Jenny Okonil, director of the members of the National Association of City Transport officials. “People rush, then the speed limits are increased to suit this speed.”

The association has developed an alternative to the 85 % base known as “City Borders”, which aims to reduce the risk of injuries to all road users by identifying Speed Limit Based on a formula that belongs to the level of street activity and the possibility of conflicts, such as collisions.

The report indicates that the 85 % base is based on dated research and that “these historical methods are far from the vibrant streets and arteries that describe the city’s streets today.”

Conversation Spike on the death of the road Throughout the country, Federal Roads Management Send a hidden but important message that the 85 % base is not actually a base at all and it carries a lot of weight in determining the limits of local speed. In its first update since 2009 to a guide that defines national guidelines for traffic marks, the agency explained that societies should also consider things like how to use the road, the risk of pedestrians, and the frequency of accidents.

Lea Shahoum, who directs the Zero network, is a non -profit organization that defends it Street safety, She said that she hopes that the guide would have gone beyond running 85 % running, but she admits that the change has already affected the way some countries have set the limits of speed. She said that others are still simply clinging to the long approach.

Shahoum said: “The eighty -eighth percentage should not be the Holy Justice or the Bible, yet it is accepted again and again.”

Restore the need for speed

Under its “IS Plant” campaign, Wissonsin Capital of Madison changes signs all over the city this summer, which reduces the maximum speed of 25 miles per hour in the local residential streets.

When Seattle took a similar step in a pilot program seven years ago, it did not witness a noticeable decrease in serious injury accidents but also a 7 % decrease in the 85th Celsius, according to Vision Zero.

California The base of 85 % more than most countries embraces the basis for determining the speed limits. But the legislators have reduced the restrictions imposed on local governments a little in recent years, which allowed them to get out of instructions if they were able to cite the need for installed safety. Defenders For pedestrians and bicycles, they say change helps, but it is not enough.

“We still have a long way in California in terms of setting value on all road users,” said Kindra Ramsey, CEO of California Coalition. “There is still a very heavy mentality that cars are the main way to travel and should be given priority and reverence.”

But Jay Bieber, Executive Director of Policy at the National Auto Poetry Association, an advocacy organization for drivers, said after the 85 % base, it is usually the safest way to reduce the difference in speed between drivers who adhere to the published restrictions and those who exceed them greatly.

“It doesn’t really matter the number I put on a sign,” Bieber said. “The ordinary driver pays the nature of the road. It will be fair to be a government to build a road to encourage people to drive 45 miles per hour, put the maximum speed of 30 miles per hour, then everyone tickets to do what they built on the road to do.”

80 is the new 55

Fears about the oil prices of Congress in the 1970s prompted the maximum national speed of 55 miles per hour, which later relaxed to 65 miles per hour before the law was canceled in 1995 and the delivery of power to the states. Since then, the speed limits of climbing continued, as North Dakota this summer has become the ninth term to allow drivers to go to 80 miles per hour on some of the extensions of the highway. Even a 40 miles in Texas is between Austin and San Antonio, with 85 miles per hour.

Although high-speed high-speed roads outside the main population centers are not the focus of most efforts to reduce the base of 85 %, a study conducted in 2019 from the Highway Insurance Institute-a search arm funded by auto insurance companies-clarifies the risks. The study found that every 5 miles per hour increases to the maximum speed in the state increases the chance of deaths by 8.5 % on highways between states and 2.8 % on other roads.

“Maybe when you were driving a model, you have a real feeling of how quickly your biography, but in modern vehicles, you have no feeling of 80 miles per hour. You are in a cocoon,” said Chuck Varmer, Vice President of the Institute for Research, who conducted the study.

The city’s attempt to change

If the elected officials in the town of Silvania, Ohio, are on their way, the maximum speed published in Mitchaw Road will significantly reduce – from 55 miles per hour to 40 miles per hour or less. The boycott discovered that the 85 % base is actually calling for a raising to 60 miles per hour, surprising the city’s leaders, but not the engineers who managed the study.

“If we do not make decisions based on data, it is very difficult to make good decisions,” said Lucas Mike Bennsky Provincial Engineer.

Currently, the speed limit will remain the same. This is because the Ohio law places maximum speeds of 15 different types of roads, regardless of what is proposed by the 85 % rule.

Ohio’s guidelines are evolving. The state now gives more attention to the road context and allows cities to reduce speed limits based on the low standard of fifty percentage when there is a large pedestrian presence and cyclists. The authorities recently rented a consultant to consider additional adjustments based on what other countries are doing.

“The countries have slowly moved away from the eighty -fifth centennial as a type of golden standard for decision -making,” said Michel May, who runs the highway safety program in Ohio. “People travel and live differently from what they did 40 years ago, and we want to put safety more in focus.”

It is not clear whether any of these changes will eventually affect the speed published on the Micho Road. After years of calls and non -feasible emails to state officials, provinces and town, Hammond says it does not breathe.

She said, “I felt very frustrated.”