Well there’s an upside. Automobiles in America should obviously be speed limited to 75mph, but that’s politically and commercially impossible. If this were normalized, we could sort of get better safety as a side-effect.
And many more places with 75 - which people effectively treat as 80.
The speed-unlimited sections of the German autobahn have far fewer accidents per million miles travelled than any US highway, in spite of the fact that many people are routinely doing 150+ mph / 250+ kmh on a daily basis through those stretches.
If you're arguing from an environmental perspective, just remember that even if the entirety of the USA and western europe hit net zero carbon emissions tomorrow, it would still be impossible to avoid 2° C of global warming thanks to India and China alone, to say nothing of the rest of the world.
I forgot which study it comes from, but I read that several dozen Chinese coal-powered industrial cargo ships produce more CO2 than all North American personal automobile emissions combined.
I'm not a climate denier, and we should do more to improve things but what would the impact be if 32 million people cut back?
We already have massive taxes on our gas, and now we have a "carbon charge" on top of this.
if canada's consumption fell to zero would the world notice?
If we really want climate change, we need to stop focusing on small consumer usage and look where the real problem areas.
Convincing people in Saskatoon to buy electric cars, which are powered by coal plants is not going to "save the planet".
Helping remove coal as an energy source globally will.
Why? There are speed limits greater than that in a few states. The flow of traffic in Southern California is often even faster.
Which is exactly the problem GP wants to fix.
I'm more worried about the growing pedestrian deaths since vehicles have no requirement, like in Europe, to be as safe as possible when hitting pedestrians.
pedestrians being struck at speeds in excess of 75 mph while crossing freeways?
But it's a good thing that we should make sure can continue, not a problem that needs to be fixed.
Reminders of scale aside, I posit that the limit for vehicles needn't be speed or size, but braking distance. If a manufacturer can make a 6600 pound SUV that stops from 75 mph in the same distance that a 3300 pound sports car with track brakes and extra grippy, super-wide tires, brakes from 75, I say more power to them.
Until then, this metric will naturally lead manufacturers to downsize, and for the ones who still produce SUV's anyway, they will need to be as good at stopping as regular cars, which might make them more cost-prohibitive and dissuade their ownership via market pressure.
After all, it's not speed or size that cause automotive fatalities, it's cars being unable to stop in time before impacting other vehicles, pedestrians, or impassible barriers.