Ever drive on one of our new and beautiful four or six- lane highways and wonder why the speed limit is only 45 mph? Or why when you try to maintain the legal speed everyone on the road is blowing by you. Here's how it can happen.
Lets look at Davis Boulevard that was widened from a two-lane cow path to a real boulevard during my tenure at the CCSO. When new highways were built the standard way to determine the appropriate speed limit was with a procedure called the 85th Percentile study. The study required the monitoring, with radar, of the traffic on the new highway over a period of time, say a few months. Before the monitoring, a proposed speed limit was set on the road, say 55 mph.
At the end of the monitoring period, if the road being travelled had not had an above-average accident rate, demonstrating that it was safe at the speed motorists had been traveling, the speeds were analyzed. The speed that 85 percent of the cars were driving at is the 85th percentile and what the speed limit of the road should be.
That survey was done on Davis Blvd and the resultant speed was a little over 60 mph. Consequently, the Florida Dept of Transportation recommended the speed limit be 55 mph, just to be on the safe side.
Sound reasonable? Not in the Elephant's Graveyard. Not in the domaine of wine and cheese government where a group of whiners can gather up a few cheesy elected officials and get what they want. In this case it was some folks from Kings Lake who said they couldn't drive at that terrifying speed (55). Or exit their sub-division safely--even though they had a traffic light. One resident told me in private that the real issue was they feared the high-speed "tire noise" would keep them awake. Yep, that's what he said.
And guess what, they got what they wanted--a 45 mph speed limit. I remember talking to the engineer on the project after the decision was made. "Don't you realize," I said, "that you're saddling the Sheriff with a constant enforcement problem. Drivers see this big highway and naturally speed up to 55 or 60. Then the Sheriff is supposed to write tickets where they're not really needed." The engineer just nodded and said it was out of his control.
So we've had a speed limit there that's about 10 mph under what it should be. Not just there, either. Ever check out Golden Gate Parkway? Get off the Interstate driving 70 and enter it--a highway that looks just like I-75. So, your speed creeps up and pretty soon you're getting a ticket cause the speed limit on this autobahn is 45 mph.
Go figure. But, if you're in whine country, don't bother with anything sensible like the 85th percentile study or your gonna be real disappointed.
Lets look at Davis Boulevard that was widened from a two-lane cow path to a real boulevard during my tenure at the CCSO. When new highways were built the standard way to determine the appropriate speed limit was with a procedure called the 85th Percentile study. The study required the monitoring, with radar, of the traffic on the new highway over a period of time, say a few months. Before the monitoring, a proposed speed limit was set on the road, say 55 mph.
At the end of the monitoring period, if the road being travelled had not had an above-average accident rate, demonstrating that it was safe at the speed motorists had been traveling, the speeds were analyzed. The speed that 85 percent of the cars were driving at is the 85th percentile and what the speed limit of the road should be.
That survey was done on Davis Blvd and the resultant speed was a little over 60 mph. Consequently, the Florida Dept of Transportation recommended the speed limit be 55 mph, just to be on the safe side.
Sound reasonable? Not in the Elephant's Graveyard. Not in the domaine of wine and cheese government where a group of whiners can gather up a few cheesy elected officials and get what they want. In this case it was some folks from Kings Lake who said they couldn't drive at that terrifying speed (55). Or exit their sub-division safely--even though they had a traffic light. One resident told me in private that the real issue was they feared the high-speed "tire noise" would keep them awake. Yep, that's what he said.
And guess what, they got what they wanted--a 45 mph speed limit. I remember talking to the engineer on the project after the decision was made. "Don't you realize," I said, "that you're saddling the Sheriff with a constant enforcement problem. Drivers see this big highway and naturally speed up to 55 or 60. Then the Sheriff is supposed to write tickets where they're not really needed." The engineer just nodded and said it was out of his control.
So we've had a speed limit there that's about 10 mph under what it should be. Not just there, either. Ever check out Golden Gate Parkway? Get off the Interstate driving 70 and enter it--a highway that looks just like I-75. So, your speed creeps up and pretty soon you're getting a ticket cause the speed limit on this autobahn is 45 mph.
Go figure. But, if you're in whine country, don't bother with anything sensible like the 85th percentile study or your gonna be real disappointed.
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