Lowering urban speed limits to 30 km/ h an exercise in futility
Across Canada, the default urban speed limit is 50 km/ h. It drops in school zones and construction zones, but by and large 50 it is.
You can read years of arguments for raising the limits on our major highways — nobody drives the limit anyway, and if they do, you know where to find them: in the passing lane. In some denser residential areas in parts of Toronto, limits are already at 40 km/ h, but some want to lower these limits to 30 km/ h.
The Toronto Board of Health relays the fact that if a person is hit by a car going 50 km/ h, they have an 85 per cent chance of dying. If that same car was going 30, the risk falls to five per cent. It’s hard to argue the fact that going slower would save lives.
Except this argument is being made in a fact vacuum, and it’s unrealistic. Slapping up signs now telling everybody to go 30 km/ h would have as much impact as telling people on the highway to go 80 km/ h. Drivers aren’t computer models. Drivers aren’t mathematical equations. And quite honestly, humans in general, whether they’re pedestrians, cyclists or drivers, aren’t the most predictable lot, either.
Behavioural studies present some fairly obvious and consistent findings: people obey laws that make sense to them. Having the majority obeying the laws makes everyone happier and safer. Make laws that make sense and you’ll spend less money enforcing them and have more people following them.
Get in your car and drive 30 km/ h. You’ll see immediately why this will be a ridiculous law. Unless you’re in a parking lot or a school zone, it’s ludicrous. I’ll wager a bet the biggest problem isn’t how fast people are travelling, it’s what they’re doing while driving. Stop texting. Stop turning to look at your passengers. Stop trying to broker a deal over your Bluetooth. Stop punching the buttons on your GPS.
Stop speeding on local streets so neighbourhood petitions and grandstanding politicians don’t have the ammunition they need to lower speed limits to a crawl.