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Comment by konschubert | Hacker News Reader

We have the option to make traffic much safer by implementing mandatory gps based speed governors and automatic breaking for collision avoidance.

Self driving cars are the next step in this.

people will make up a million stories how going above the speed limit is essential for their safety. It’s all BS.

People want to speed, and they are willing to accept thousands of dead and disabled as the price.

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> People want to speed, and they are willing to accept thousands of dead and disabled as the price.

Is speeding the primary reason of most traffic fatalities? Also it's highly variable, in some case it might result in a significant increase in risk and in others it might be completely negligible.

Urban speeds above 20mph are way more deadly, and "stroads" are bad. Speeding on limited access highways where you don't have vulnerable traffic is probably a minor factor if any.

If traffic spacing is maintained, speed is not a problem. Speed is a problem when one car is going 20mph slower than everyone else and creating a logjam.

exhibit a

Speed is absolutely a problem because it reduces the time you have to react to oncoming and crossing traffic and because it increases the impact of collisions.

Introduce a stupid 45mph speed limit on drivers for 1 year after they've passed their test in NI. That means I could be on a motorway or big A road where people are going 70+mph, and be supposed to do 45mph.

Of course I don't do that unless I see a car that I think is a police car. I've been flashed at before for doing 45mph and find it way easier to drive at the same speed as other cars.

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