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  1. #1
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    Default Speed Limits Are Too Low

    And some cops are starting to agree: https://qz.com/969885/almost-every-s...it-is-too-low/

    About damn time. I can count on one hand how many people drive at 110 kph on Highway 1, or 100 kph on Deerfoot.

    Do YOU?

    I know I don't.

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    my usual cruise speed on Deerfoot and QE2 is almost always 120
    Boosted life tip #329
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    Originally posted by Mibz
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    I like about 10 over most places, unless I'm pulling my trailer then 5 under.

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    Funny read, on Stoney today there was a cop frustrated with traffic and tailgating people in the fast lane to move. All of us were doing 120 already haha.
    Originally posted by SEANBANERJEE
    I have gone above and beyond what I should rightfully have to do to protect my good name

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    On business 8 over, on personal the speed limit or under in my truck, the speed limit or 5-10 over in my car:

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    The only time I stick to the speed limit is on the bike, only because it's a cop magnet as it is and I don't need any of that nonsense.

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    Quote Originally Posted by rage2 View Post
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    Funny read, on Stoney today there was a cop frustrated with traffic and tailgating people in the fast lane to move. All of us were doing 120 already haha.
    Left lane on Stoney on the east side going south is 130-140 normally now
    Sig nuked by mod.

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    ...
    Last edited by Sugarphreak; 08-18-2019 at 04:37 PM.

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    Nice timing to rehash a 2 year old article, just as Edmonton votes to reduce the city speed limit to 40km/h.

    The article echoes everything I've been pickled about for 15 years now. It's mind blowing that they allow the influence of these "Think of the children" types to dictate our speed limits, when we have hard data and science at our finger tips that shows us clear as day that the exact opposite of what these crazies want, is what will get us the results they want.

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    I usually do 10% over but have no problem doing the speed limit. I only use the left lane to pass and make every effort to stay out of the way of all the trucks and BMWs. Getting to my destinations 5 minutes sooner is not worth the price of a ticket and insurance hike to me. I think the current speed limits are fine, I wouldn't mind if they were increased but I'm definitely against a decrease.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Swank View Post
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    Getting to my destinations 5 minutes sooner is not worth the price of a ticket and insurance hike to me.
    It's not about getting there faster, it's the fact that if you drive speed limit on Crowchild or Deerfoot, you're effectively creating a speed differential with 80% of the other vehicles out there. It's fucking sketch, tailgaters, aggressive lane changes from frustrated drivers behind you. You drive the right lane, and you deal with people merging and changing your speed differential with others even more. Middle lane, you have people passing you left and right. Blocking in the left lane is probably the safest unless you encounter a road rager.

    Seriously, there is no win driving the speed limit on some of our roads.
    Originally posted by SEANBANERJEE
    I have gone above and beyond what I should rightfully have to do to protect my good name

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    We must drive on different Crowchilds, I'm simply not seeing what you are and I'm a very alert driver. I pass more people on it then get passed by people when I'm doing ~90 but generally find we're all flowing within about a 5k speed differential. If 80% of the cars were doing 120 I absolutely would speed up to reduce the speed differential between us, speed limits be damned, I certainly recognize the differential to be a real hazard. But you're a lot more north aren't you (I end at Dalhousie)? Maybe that's where it's a Mad Max war zone. Also I only drive it on weekends, dunno how different it is on weekdays.

    You're never going to eliminate speed differentials so people either need to calm down as the aggressive driving maneuvers only add more hazards on the road, or enjoy a heart attack at 45. Reducing speed differentials should be the priority, and in places where that is accomplished by raising the speed limit I'm all for it.

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    On Crowchild the traffic in the morning commute is a lot faster, I say easily ~110 at times on the left lane starting from Stoney, it gradually slows down as you move towards the university. In the afternoon, it will speed up to 90-100 as you move away from the university. Weekend and holiday is closer to the speed limit.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Swank View Post
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    We must drive on different Crowchilds, I'm simply not seeing what you are and I'm a very alert driver. I pass more people on it then get passed by people when I'm doing ~90 but generally find we're all flowing within about a 5k speed differential. If 80% of the cars were doing 120 I absolutely would speed up to reduce the speed differential between us, speed limits be damned, I certainly recognize the differential to be a real hazard. But you're a lot more north aren't you (I end at Dalhousie)? Maybe that's where it's a Mad Max war zone. Also I only drive it on weekends, dunno how different it is on weekdays.

    You're never going to eliminate speed differentials so people either need to calm down as the aggressive driving maneuvers only add more hazards on the road, or enjoy a heart attack at 45. Reducing speed differentials should be the priority, and in places where that is accomplished by raising the speed limit I'm all for it.
    Speed differential is highly overrated as a measure of safety until you're talking about like 40km/h+ differentials. Everyone travelling the same speed just equals congestion, congestion equals decreased following distances, and decreased following distance equals high potential for accidents. A healthy 10-30km/h differential is great, it filters quicker traffic ahead to ease congestion, and it's within reason that somebody going faster isn't flying up your ass out of nowhere like a lot of idiot crotch rockets doing 160km/h on Deerfoot.

    Proper lane usage enforcement should be a much bigger priority than decreasing speed differential. Improper lane usage is the number one controllable variable that has a negative effect on congestion.

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    Quote Originally Posted by lilmira View Post
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    On Crowchild the traffic in the morning commute is a lot faster, I say easily ~110 at times on the left lane starting from Stoney, it gradually slows down as you move towards the university. In the afternoon, it will speed up to 90-100 as you move away from the university. Weekend and holiday is closer to the speed limit.
    OK, that definitely explains it, thx.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Misterman View Post
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    Everyone travelling the same speed just equals congestion, congestion equals decreased following distances, and decreased following distance equals high potential for accidents.
    Wut?

    If everyone travelled at the exact same speed there would be more congestion? If everyone travelled at the exact same speed there would be no tailgating, larger spacing between vehicles and no blocking of people from changing lanes in front of you thereby less phantom traffic jams and consequently less congestion.

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    Quote Originally Posted by 94boosted View Post
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    Wut?

    If everyone travelled at the exact same speed there would be more congestion? If everyone travelled at the exact same speed there would be no tailgating, larger spacing between vehicles and no blocking of people from changing lanes in front of you thereby less phantom traffic jams and consequently less congestion.
    You're forgetting how traffic actually functions. If the limit on a freeway is 100km/h, but more traffic is entering the freeway than what can clear at that speed, it is an inevitable traffic jam. And you adding in the word "exact" in an attempt to change the context doesn't help. There is no way for everyone to travel at the EXACT same speed. Speedometers will all be off from eachother between 1-5km/h or so depending on circumstances, so if you have 2 vehicles at front of pack in both lanes with cruise set at 70km/h for example, but actually travelling 69km/h. And then traffic behind them with cruise set at 70km/h but actual speed of 71km/h, you have another traffic jam scenario.

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    I've slowly come to the opinion that you can pretty much drive however you want as long as you're paying attention. I haven't seen a manned/lidar speed trap in the city in 5+ years on my routes, I am not even sure if they use lidar anymore due to safety reasons on the side of the road and such. With there only being 2-3 vehicle types for photo that are so unbelievably obvious, not to mention in the same spots every single time, as long as you don't see one of of those and you don't see police cars around you, you can do whatever you want. Slow down through all the clearly marked speed on green cameras (which are now marked on google maps as well as photo radar) and you're good to go. There are also certain roads or sections where there is no chance there will be photo radar because there is nowhere for them to park. I used to spend more time complaining about speed limits (which I agree are absurdly low on many roads), I just don't really find it to be an issue at all anymore because it's so easy to avoid the types of speed enforcement Calgary seems to rely on. If there's any traffic you're stuck at that speed anyway, and on roads like crowchild, deerfoot, glenmore, etc. slow drivers are serious safety hazard.

    And for those that say speeding only saves you a couple minutes, with the amount of 3-5 minute long lights in Calgary, making a few lights or not can literally half your travel time depending on where you're going - it can make an enormous difference to your ETA with all the poorly timed lights everywhere. Just leaving downtown for example on 6th ave W, the lights are not timed for 50km/h, so if you speed you can hit every single green light all the way to Bow trail, if you go the speed limit you will hit almost every red light and add 5+ mins to your commute right there before you're even out of the core.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Misterman View Post
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    You're forgetting how traffic actually functions. If the limit on a freeway is 100km/h, but more traffic is entering the freeway than what can clear at that speed, it is an inevitable traffic jam. And you adding in the word "exact" in an attempt to change the context doesn't help. There is no way for everyone to travel at the EXACT same speed. Speedometers will all be off from eachother between 1-5km/h or so depending on circumstances, so if you have 2 vehicles at front of pack in both lanes with cruise set at 70km/h for example, but actually travelling 69km/h. And then traffic behind them with cruise set at 70km/h but actual speed of 71km/h, you have another traffic jam scenario.
    If more traffic is entering a freeway than it can clear at 100km/h you're absolutely right we'll still have congestion, that's inevitable but it's also different than what you had previously stated. You stated that if people traveled at the same speed it would create more congestion, that's what I'm saying doesn't make sense. You're example above of vehicles traveling at 69km/h and 71km/h surely would cause some very minor traffic jams due to the way phantom traffic jams work but compare that to the current scenario were you have cars on that same 70km/h road going 55km/h - 85km/h. It's clearly worse for traffic jams when a vehicle that is traveling 85km/h has to slam on their brakes for the one doing 55km/h.
    Last edited by 94boosted; 05-22-2019 at 10:22 AM.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Mitsu3000gt View Post
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    I've slowly come to the opinion that you can pretty much drive however you want as long as you're paying attention. I haven't seen a manned/lidar speed trap in the city in 5+ years on my routes, I am not even sure if they use lidar anymore due to safety reasons on the side of the road and such. With there only being 2-3 vehicle types for photo that are so unbelievably obvious, not to mention in the same spots every single time, as long as you don't see one of of those and you don't see police cars around you, you can do whatever you want. Slow down through all the clearly marked speed on green cameras (which are now marked on google maps as well as photo radar) and you're good to go. There are also certain roads or sections where there is no chance there will be photo radar because there is nowhere for them to park. I used to spend more time complaining about speed limits (which I agree are absurdly low on many roads), I just don't really find it to be an issue at all anymore because it's so easy to avoid the types of speed enforcement Calgary seems to rely on. If there's any traffic you're stuck at that speed anyway, and on roads like crowchild, deerfoot, glenmore, etc. slow drivers are serious safety hazard.

    And for those that say speeding only saves you a couple minutes, with the amount of 3-5 minute long lights in Calgary, making a few lights or not can literally half your travel time depending on where you're going - it can make an enormous difference to your ETA with all the poorly timed lights everywhere. Just leaving downtown for example on 6th ave W, the lights are not timed for 50km/h, so if you speed you can hit every single green light all the way to Bow trail, if you go the speed limit you will hit almost every red light and add 5+ mins to your commute right there before you're even out of the core.
    I worked nights downtown for a few months and in the early hours of the morning I would find going down 6th at 50km/h I'd almost be guaranteed to hit red lights. The second I sped up to 55-60km/h down 6th it was green the whole way through.

    This became even more apparent if I hit the light red at 3rd street and 6th ave and then did 55-60km/h the whole way and it would be green the whole way.

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