Fact: Sports cars do have more active safety than regular cars ceteris paribus.
Picking 80 mph and 60 mph to make your point -though valid - is disingenuous considering nobody has claimed 80 mph in their vehicle is just as safe as 60.

Those sound like subjective statements to me and seems perfectly valid if they were able to frequently drive their vehicles in such manner and arrive at their destination.

1) Your chance of dying at 60 mph is higher than at 30 mph. The question is, given the right conditions, is driving at 80 mph risky? My opinion is that it isn't.

2) People don't have a clue about risk either. You probably have a higher chance of death if you drive 100,000 km/yr while never exceeding the speed limit than if you drive 50,000 km / yr often exceeding the speed limit in a reasonable and prudent manner.

Semantics. Since the traffic flow is often above the speed limit, it becomes convenient to suggest that speed is the cause of the majority of accidents. How is the data collected? Is a fatality involving a speeding drunk marked as both speeding and DUI? I'd just as easily mark "human error" as the cause of the majority of accidents. I'd conjecture that if you placed a professional driver in 95% of scenarios where a fatality was involved, the accident could have been avoided. So is speed a factor? Or lack of driver skill? Or lack of attention?

One could even argue that increasing speed limits saves lives even if it resulted in a couple of extra fatalities if you added up all the minutes and seconds saved by the vast majority of drivers benefitting from faster speeds.

Think about what you just said: "What is considered safe is completely arbitrary...(thus) the argument holds no value whatosoever." Yet, you are trying to justify why you feel certain speeds are unsafe.

1) Driving less frequently and shorter distances decreases risk
2) Driving a vehicle equipped with the latest safety technologies decreases risk
3) Installing higher performance tires on one's car decreases risk
4) Becoming a better skilled driver decreases risk

Those are all choices that people can make to decrease risk. Driving faster than the speed limit, where the conditions are appropriate, is NOT an inherently risky activity.

Look at injury/death rates per mile of travel vs. winter sports and you'll probably find your statement is false.

Can you guarantee that there will be no deaths or injuries if everyone drove at the speed limit? Surely you cannot. We've arbitarily picked a level where we balance the risk against convenience. You have yet to put forward any arguments showing that this level is set reasonably.

I often say that a more attentive driver is far safer than a driver in "auto pilot" mode. Driving at a reasonable and prudent speed keeps me attentive, and makes me a better driver.

Vehicles are much safer and driver aids have contributed signifcantly to vehicle safety. But vehicle saftey and driver aids have not made cars exponentially safer than previous cars. Meanwhile, higher speed does increase risk exponentially.

Do you even read threads on RS? People regularly claim that vehicles are so much safer that speed limits should be raised to reflect the enhanced capabilities of modern vehicles.

Being able to drive fast and get home does not make it safe. My dad was an alcoholic who drove his entire life (often drunk) and never had an accident. Should we stop charging people for drunk driving because most drunk drivers arrive at their destination? I bet everyone on RS knows someone who has or still drives after drinking and still manage to get home in one piece.

It is riskier simply because the ways cars are designed. Modern vehicle crumple zones and body structures are tested to survice the most common types of accidents. Here's an example.

ADAC: 50mph crash-test shows weaknesses even in top-rated cars

A car that gets a 5 star rating at 40 MPH yet performs very poorly at only 50 MPH. Manufacturers know that crash energy rises expenentially with speed, and it would be economically impossible for them to design cars that were just as safe in crash tests only slightly faster than current test (or in real world terms, to make cars as safe at 80 MPH as they are at 60 MPH).

You said given the right conditions and reasonable and prudent manner. How do you know what conditions are right? Can you control those conditions? What is the definition of reasonable? Is it reasonable to do 150-160 km/h when the normal flow of traffic is only doing 100 km/h?

Why are you talking about the causes of accidents? I never said speed caused accidents. I said speed caused fatalities.

Seriously? If a professional driver was involved they could avoid the accident? While that may very well be true, the road is not populated with professional drivers. Therefore the rules of the road have to be written to apply to the average driver. Even though some people are excellent drivers and may own extremely safe and capable cars they still have to operate on the same roads as the "normal" drivers. They don't have the right to use a public road as their personal racetrack.

I generally support the raising of speed limits, so I don't disagree with this argument. I think we need to stop debating based on the unrealistic premise that the objective is to get the highway fatality rate to zero. We need to accept that highway fatalities are going to occur and we are merely balancing the fatality rate against the convenience of quick transport and efficient commerce. Traffic congestion costs the economy millions of $ in waste. Slower speeds take time out of people's lives too. A goal to save a couple of traffic deaths is no less noble than an objective to improve efficiency for the vast majority of road users.

I'm sure you remember how Lion's Gate Bridge used to be congested and politicians were debating different transport options, such as a tunnel, or another bridge. They couldn't afford either option and decided to keep three lanes and widen/repave the bridge instead. Result, faster average travel speed and reduced congestion. I think fatalities on the bridge may have decreased as well because road conditions are safer. Clearly we can come up with solutions that benefit to society as a whole rather than "let's slow these people down"?

If the statistics show that drinking drivers are a low risk to society than, yes, I think it shouldn't be regarded as a serious offence. Unfortunately, drinking drivers don't benefit society, and they have high collision rates. The economic penalties for speeding in British Columbia a wholly out of proportion to the level of the offence.

So what? If I could have road conditions where the average speed was 80 mph such as the German autobahn, and the overall fatality rate was similar to a US Highway at 60 mph, I would consider that to be a superior option.


Traffic research shows that the 85th percentile is the safest speed to travel at. On most roads I drive on, the 85th percentile is above the speed limit.
I think it's fine to leave it to the judgement of drivers to decide what is a reasonable and prudent speed.

1) Nobody is supporting driving at 99% of the limits of one's vehicle.
2) Fuck the average driver and their sloppy driving manners and poorly maintained vehicles. If we were serious about reducing fatalities AND efficient transport, we'd have laws and a driving culture similar to Germany. a) High level of driver training and first aid training requirements
b) High level of driver discipline on the roads (e.g. left lane discipline)
c) High level of vehicle maintenance and inspections

Not every person might be able to meet this extensive criteria to get a driver's license. Fuck 'em. Ride the fucking bus.

You keep going on about this, and professional drivers. The truth is this is the city of Vancouver, British Columbia. Green is the shits here. There is no way they would put in a licensing system that would allow an increase in speed limit. It doesn't work to their plan, to the image of the city. of the province.

The origin of the 40mph speed limit was from the States and safety wasn't the reason. It was to cope with the oil crisis. A city/province who is aiming toward eco-friendly will NEVER EVER in a million years allocate huge funding to bring the licensing system up to German standard. NEVER. Why use funding on licensing program when you could use that to build a metro system that is many times more efficient?

I am all for levying hefty fines on excessive speeders. Speeders cause variance in speed. Variance in speed kills. Repeated offenders should have vehicles impounded and auctioned off.

It won't take huge funding, the cost of obtaining a license should be a lot more than it is today and will be funded from applicants.

Easy there. No need to impinge on anyone's civil rights by confiscating private property. The point demerit system is enough to ensure that bad drivers are kept off roads. Enforcement of speeding laws should be much more selective and less punitive. I think if you have a number of at fault accident in a short period of time, you should have your driving license revoked and you should have to go back through the driver training program to obtain a license. I think that if you're driving under the speed limit and you're holding back traffic, the same fines/penalties should apply as going above the limit. Drive 20 km/h under the limit, while holding up traffic, and you should see the same fine as driving 20 km/h over.

Including re-licensing every single license holder in BC? It cannot be done. Not in a short amount of time, at least. You're talking about a long-term plan here.They have neither the infrastructure nor the personnel to do it. And even then it's not the direction the province is going. Eco-friendly is a steadily rising trend. And that's where we all heading, whether you like it or not.

I guess that viable. Doesn't stop them, e.g. older people, from driving unlicensed and uninsured though.


I believe you can get pulled over and get a ticket for impeding traffic by driving unreasonably slow. There's not a lot of people driving excessively slow, they're mostly tourists in rentals who have no clue where they're going. But there's a good percentage of drivers in Vancouver tend to speed.

Nope, I don't see what's wrong with that statement. You have not established what YOU considered is safe. For all I know your believe is that 200km/h is relatively safe in your opinion in terms of accident avoidance and event of collision. For example, I feel safe knowing that the my vehicle has been crash tested at a certain speed.

This is comparing oranges to apples. Just because a sport have a injury/mile ratio doesn't mean it can be fairly compared to car travel. The objectives and geography of the locations are completely different.

Nope I cannot. But what I can guarantee is that in the event of a collision at lower speeds is much safer because of physics, and the fact NHTSA and other car safety regulators have crash tested and regulated vehicle manufacturers to designed cars to be able to sustain impacts at speed limits.

That is definitely true, but distracted driving is also against the law, and subject to punishment as well. As attentive and prudent as you can be, you can't defy the laws of physics. There are also other drivers on the road good/bad, debris, black ice, and other variables that you cannot control. As good as a driver as you are, you can't make the car change the amount of energy that will be disperse upon you (or another car) in the even of a collision.

if... we dont need to drive faster than 90km/h, y does cars have so much power these days?

Ticket won't teach people how to drive, but education will. I hope our government understand this.

My girlfriend picked me up from Frankfurt a.M. airport for our drive back to Werdohl, where she's currently working. Anyway a 2 hour drive at speeds of 160km/h in a 69 horsepower Hyundai would have taken god knows how long on the Trans Canada Highway.

God I love the Autobahn.

Assuming the Trans Canada Highway limits you to 90km/hr it would take you 3.55hrs. :troll:

For a second I though this was the blue gt3rs from fast & furious.

Just need a couple ak47-out-the-window-drifting-down-the-street Arabs to get the heat off the speeders!