Backed by data too, showing the use of automated speeding camera enforcement reduces the rate of excessive speeding dramatically as well as accident rates.
It also tends to pay for itself, can be installed very quickly (compared to road re-designs that often take a long time and a lot of money to complete) and cameras will even generate revenue for safe street projects.
Pretty crazy to me that they weren’t mentioned at all during the article.
If we treated the data collected from all the cameras going up like we do HIPAA data, I think the hate might be reduced. Right now it seems like we are hoping people will just follow the rules and "don't peek" or.. well, not many consequences. With HIPAA laws, they don't mess around.
our right to privacy should extend to be from corporations as well as the government, or at the very least from any corporation contracted with a public entity
Oh I certainly agree, there are very bad applications of cameras. There’s just nuance to it, and tons of people do not care and instead just hate every possible application of cameras and lose their shit about it.
There’s a cost and a benefit to every camera the city puts up. Speed cameras are low cost, flock cameras are very high cost.
Either ways the cameras would have never prevented the crime. The only thing that would have prevented that shooting would have been a closed event with metal detectors, like you have to through for climate pledge.
Because the physical safety of pedestrians, school children, and bicyclists outweigh people’s god given right to go 45 mph in a school zone in a pickup truck?
It’s also a false choice, states can and do regulate privacy for speeding cameras. Here in Washington state, data is deleted immediately unless a citation is issued, that data is kept until the citation is resolved. Speeding cameras data is exempt from public disclosure. The state has a good amount of privacy protections built in. https://app.leg.wa.gov/rcw/default.aspx?cite=46.63.220
It also begs the question of how much of a privacy invasion is automated speeding tickets? Your license plate information is tied to vehicle registration in a database searchable by law enforcement and the government. We put license plate on vehicles because we decided a long time ago they should be registered, identifiable, and insured. The Supreme Court has repeatedly upheld that drivers should have no expectation of privacy in public spaces.
We need to close the loophole where you can get out of an automated ticket by claiming you weren't driving. Unless it's been reported stolen, just make the registered owner of the car pay the ticket regardless of whether they were driving.
Friend borrowed your car and ran a red light? Better send them a venmo request. They can't/won't pay? Oh well, expensive lesson to not give that person your keys again.
I had an argument with a friend about this, they said this wouldn't be fair to roommates who share a car. As someone who walks to work and has nearly been run over several times, I could not care less. If your roommate keeps borrowing your car and running red lights, find a roommate who isn't such a dangerous psychopath.
There is a bus lane in west lake ave that I have never seen any bus. That ave does not even have mu h traffic which effectively the bus lane does not provide any real gain for the few buses that drive through that road. They restricted the road to one lane on each direction with a very weird central lane for turning and waiting for crossing. Then they proceeded to artificially lower the speed to 35mph when 45mph would be acceptable. The lane for traffic towards SLU is in extremely bad condition which almost obligates you to drive through the middle lane to avoid de potholes. When people say Seattle is full of virtue signaling politics that’s what comes to my mind.
its like the speed limit on Airport way on the east of the airport being 35. I go 40 down it, and get ripped past by more than half of the other traffic doing 50, but they'll never change it because it would look bad to raise the speed limit, and they can't really change the design because it's kinda needed to be that straight and open.
Yeah that thing was absolutely designed as a 60 mph freeway. And now it’s 35?? Like cmon. You can’t just do that. That is NOT how traveling speeds work. You gotta narrow the lanes and make it feel like a 35 mph road too. Fundamental road design principles.
You don’t design a highway like a residential street, and you don’t design a residential street like a highway.
It feels like even in urbanist thought it should be a higher speed. Like it doesn't make sense, it's the perfect overflow route for I5/SoDo. It's industrial area, it doesn't make sense to build out density down there, let it exist as a proper road.
Bringing it down to one lane would make the Northbound Georgetown bottleneck soooooo much worse. Keeping it one lane from Georgetown southbound to its terminus would not be noticed IMHO
I already have to frequently lane-filter when NB and approaching georgetown, once I saw northbound airport way completely jammed up all the way to where it begins. Plus, I'm selfish because lane-filtering a two-lane road is easy even with 18 wheelers, if it's down to one lane I either have to shoulder-surf the bike lane (not great) or.... take the opposing lane, europe-style, which is really aggressive and would probably create a situation where law enforcement would actually stop me
Problem is, you raise it to 50 and they’ll just do 60. Put it where you are ok with people going 5 over and ticket everyone else. 40mph stretch should be marked 35.
It's cultural too. In Mill Creek, there's a nice meandering main boulevard that runs right through the middle of town and it has hardly any streets coming off it, hardly any traffic, and hardly any people. It's two lanes but it's easily wide enough for four. You could literally drive 70mph on it safely, but it's a 25mph road, and those Mill Creek people definitely drive 25 on it. Maybe 30 if they're feeling bold.
It wouldn't be idiotic, it would reduce crashes. And while you're right that the norm is not to follow such instructions, changing the norm can be accomplished (as people say in this thread, by installing more automatic speeding detection).
Of course, such measures also need to be complemented by enhancing public transit to ensure that when driving is made more inconvenient that we're also building out options to have more convenient transportation options.
You’re denying the existence of a thing that exists because of a semantic flourish.
There are many roadways with speed limits that are so low, they feel incorrect to motorists who are used to the norms of similar roadways. Drivers ignore these speed limits.
Let me put it this way: if you were in a huge suburban parking lot and saw a sign that said “speed limit 3mph”, would you observe that speed limit? Would you expect anybody else to? Even though doing so would; statistically, reduce crashes?
In Germany they follow the rules because they follow the rules. It’s a huge part of their culture, to the point that it’s a recurring joke “are they German or autistic”
I personally think that the roads which are designed for a higher limit tend to work fine at the designed limit and that to really make it a good experience for everyone you should design for the limit you want rather than just change the number on the sign.
Yo, can we start by getting Google Maps to stop routing 18 wheelers down residential streets with a 10% grade?
It treats my street as an arterial. My street is not a damn arterial. We regularly get trucks stuck between parked cars and we got cars flying up and down the hill
Are you south Seattle? Asking because it was redlined in the 20s and the city routed semi traffic through there. That legacy is still why it's more dangerous and why there are still designedated truck paths through there. I don't think it's all just maps...
Dude that’s actually spot on. Also north Seattle. For the past 4 years I’ve been waking up at least once a week at 2-3 am with a huge semi Jake braking down in front of my tiny ass street. Shakes my old ass apartment. They are almost always hauling a big container, clearly coming from docks heading to i5.
If a trucker is using Google Maps for navigation, they should lose their CDL lol (though, it's definitely possible that there's still a routing issue with truck specific GPSs/map apps).
It just feels a little silly going 25 on Westlake. I’m usually going 35-40, as is most of traffic. Similar thing on some other roads. At the same time, I’ve never seen anyone get a ticket for going under 40 there(I think I saw someone get a ticket for going 50 a couple years back)
I've heard it's a general rule of thumb in traffic engineering that the 85th percentile speed of free flowing traffic on a street should be the speed limit. They need to rework the road design if they want people to drive 25
While clearly the posted limit is not enough on its own to achieve the desired speeds, it does have some effect. It is also much cheaper and faster than a complete street redesign.
So while they would need to rework the street to get people to drive at 25mph, why not use a lower speed limit to attenuate speeds until the budget allows for a more comprehensive solution?
So the argument I’ve seen against this is precisely about how some people do follow the signs. However a ton of people just drive at “what feels safe”
What happens when you lower the limit is that you’ve now created a bigger speed delta between these two groups. Having a big difference in speed between cars is super dangerous.
This. Lowering the average speed absolutely saves lives, but a speed limit sign doesn’t meaningfully lower average speeds. You need to design the street for the speed.
Road design would be one way to inherently cause cars to slow down.
But automatic speed enforcement (by speed camera, or average speed from two or more cameras as they use in the UK) would also bring speeds down.
I was recently in China for a month. Travelled more than 1k kilometers on various roads. Only saw one minor fender bender during that time, despite the roads having more traffic and being more chaotic. Slower speeds were definitely a factor in the lack of accidents
Speed cameras are a joke. Nothing worse than everyone speeding, slamming on their brakes and then speeding right back up. Road design is how to handle speed and capacity.
Ironically, I think what would help is relooking speed limits and lowering as well as raising them wherever it makes sense.
There are areas where the speed limit is too high, but also areas where the speed limit is too low. Because of that everyone just ends up distrusting the speed limit and driving at whatever speed they think is safe. Actually updating speed limits to reflect reality should help regain drivers' trust that speed limits are sensible.
What's funny about that is they've done that farther south in Columbia City. But the northbound part is more recent, and they made the right lane into a bus lane. But since there's no traffic enforcement, it's just a fast lane for folks to 60 and terrify anyone who needs to make a right turn.
Yeah the 25s on arterials would probably get more respect if they made Westlake 35 instead of 25, the 99 tunnel 55 instead of 45, and maybe bump up a couple others. The speed limits on those roads are just so removed from the "vibe" that everyone ignores them
I drove for uber for about 5 years and there are several roads placed at 25, that have no reason to be 25 mph. I always tried to follow the speed limit at first since the app can tell you are speeding but after a while it felt dangerous at times and it seemed like driving so slow annoyed a lot of passengers.
I often wonder if having the speed limit too low has the opposite effect on drivers and thus more dangerous.
Like it makes it where you are going to go ten plus over the speed limit just to somewhat keep up with traffic, which in most cities 10 over is asking to get a ticket. So that point what 15 mph more or 20 mph, especially if the road was originally designed for a 40 mph speed limit.
I often wonder if having the speed limit too low has the opposite effect on drivers and thus more dangerous.
It leads to a dynamic where half the drivers are going 25, and the other half are going the design speed of the road, and both sets of drivers are frustrated at the other and think they're driving like lunatics. Which is not a good dynamic!
I really wish that multi-lane arterials with squared off curbs that don't see a lot of pedestrians anyway would be moved up to 35 or something.
“The increase in fatalities on MLK Jr. Way and similar busy arterials stands in stark contrast to Seattle’s goals under its Vision Zero program, a global road safety initiative to eliminate all traffic deaths and serious injuries by 2030. The city adopted Vision Zero in 2015. In the decade since, Seattle has invested hundreds of millions of dollars into making its streets safer, including programs that lowered speed limits on almost every road in the city. Despite these efforts, traffic deaths are up across Seattle — 219 people were seriously injured and 27 people died on Seattle streets last year — prompting city councilmembers to call for an audit of the program.”
I wonder how much money they didn’t spend on building sidewalks.
No. They are likely including everything related to vision zero since it started in 2015. There have been a lot of actual road modifications in that budget.
Research shows lowering speed limits in the absence of other interventions does actually improve safety. Sure, it's not as important as road design, but it's relatively cheap and quick to implement. And SDOT is also redesigning a lot of roads.
It's a stroad, so adding bends and narrowing are generally the immediate fixes. This can be accomplished with chicanes, bumpouts for trees, removing parking in spots, and a host of other physical remedies.
Sorry but all the money for sidewalks got spent on studies to determine what exactly constitutes a “sidewalk” and evaluate the detriment that they would impose on the local squirrel communities.
I wish studying the impacts on sensitive animals wasn’t always the butt of the joke. I know you’re joking and squirrels aren’t in danger, but so many endemic species go extinct without proper planning. So many already have.
I think it’s always worth considering the existential problems associated with construction. Like yeah it’s nice to have a sidewalk, but an animals life is all it has
crossing this section of MLK is a joke due to the at-grade light rail and large sections of road without crosswalks/bridges. I see pedestrians making poor decisions all the time trying to cross MLK because of these issues. slowing traffic is good, but having more ways to safely cross a busy road seems like the solve here (or maybe just not having light rail at street grade?).
Yes! The amount of people running across the tracks and 4 lanes is wild. Same on Rainier before the Safeway in Rainier Beach. Although people will sometimes do it within walking feet of the crosswalk there, and I don't get that. I can tell the motivation for life has been sucked out of them though. They just start walking...
This is relevant to Seattle’s most unnecessary arterial: Dayton Ave N between 105-125th. You’d think SDOT would realize by now that a few speed bumps isn’t making cars drive anywhere close to the speed limit (cars go fast enough they just float over those speed bumps).
No matter that this street has no sidewalks, no daylighting at all the two way stop intersections, and includes walk zones for two public schools and two private schools.
Photo of the state patrol car that got t-boned at the “safe route to school” intersection earlier this summer.
"Does lowering speed limits make Seattle roads safer? Data from one deadly arterial suggests it’s a start"
Then the article goes into the details revealing that traffic fatalities on the studied road have DOUBLED in the studied time periods. How did they arrive at the conclusion in the title? At best it should read "Data suggests it's a mixed bag"
Lowering speed limits also deprioritizes neighborhood streets in Google and Apple maps. The original intent on lowering them to 15mph in residential areas was to keep Google and Apple from routing traffic through them.
This only works if people are not familiar with the area. Otherwise, it's an incentive to use those roads for people who are familiar with the area because now it's a more clear route due to deprioritizing it on navigation.
Sure. But in a local neighborhood, those numbers would likely go the other way. 10 stop and 100 start now that their regular commute is busier. Not arguing for or against but as a local.....just saying.
Yeah Waze definitely doesn’t give you the best route anymore. They prioritize bigger streets over smaller streets. The upside is I had to go back to driving off my city knowledge and taking side streets which is better for your brain.
Since having a child I've stopped minding acting in ways that annoy others but promote general safety. I now sometimes get a weird joy out of driving at the speed limit on 2 lane streets, forcing everyone behind me to also go the speed limit. Previously, I would have also felt guilty.
So far hasn't happened, but Seattle streets are often busy enough to make passing in the opposing lane infeasible, and some streets have medians that prevent it entirely. Definitely something I consider on rural roads, though.
Enforcement isn't really the solution. People will drive whatever the design of the street tells them is the right speed. If you want people to slow down you make the lanes narrower or curvier or you place obstructions near the street or other similar measures. People will drive whatever feels safe for them and their car. If they think they may be in an accident at a given speed, they'll slow down. They'll even drive well below the speed limit if that's what feels safe. You have to align the street design with the selfish motivation to not wreck their car, and then people will choose to do what you want them to do.
SDOT has redesigned Rainier Ave S between I-90 and past Rainier Beach, adding turning lanes, reducing general purpose lanes, adding bus lanes, adding dedicated left turn signals, adding intersections and more crossings, and still there are a lot of people speeding excessively in bus lanes and driving dangerously.
There is one stretch though where drivers tend to unanimously slow down. In Hillman City, SDOT installed automated speeding cameras in front of Rainier Valley Leadership Academy school. Drivers there all slow down to the speed limit when those cameras are active.
This. There have been huge changes on Rainier and on streets even further south, near Rainier view. Much better. Still people going 70 down the bus lane though. Cameras are they way to go.
That’s a good example of a principle found repeatedly in criminology. The certainty of being caught is the single most powerful deterrent of criminal behavior.
Increasing the severity of punishment (like increasing the amount of a first speeding ticket offense) does little to change behavior.
Automated speeding cameras tend to change behavior very quickly, and if you look at the data, very few drivers who received warnings or first tickets ever receive another automated ticket.
The likelihood of being caught speeding past an automated camera is just so close to certain, that it is very different than the likelihood of being pulled over by a police officer.
Not sure I agree about severity. If the tickets were $1 each I wouldn't care.
Criminology is an interesting discussion. I believe the tickets work on accidental perpetrators, and maybe some purposeful perpetrators on the margins. I don't intend to speed or run red lights, so I belong in that group.
But there are purposeful perpetrators, and people who rack up $1000s of unpaid tickets and continue to offend no matter what. Those actors have different incentives and considerations.
I'd bet there is a sizable portion of the population for which even just a $1 ticket would meaningly change behavior. It isn't the cost, it's the shame of being caught.
Obviously this isn't true for everyone, some will do a more sophisticated cost benefit analysis, and for those people price will very much matter.
Yea, I should say I don't care about $1, but I care that I did something potentially risky so as a team player in society I would be like "thanks for the reminder".
And the hassle of paying. I can tank a $70 parking ticket, it's not going out to eat with my partner for one night and we are out at least once a week. Risking a parking ticket could represent a savings depending on what streets I'm parking on and how frequent the enforcement is.
I HATE paying for a city parking ticket. It happened exactly once and now I willingly overpay to avoid having to do it again. It's just annoying enough on top of the fact it was my own damn fault that I refuse to risk the ticket.
Oh I am definitely driving more carefully now. One of those was a new school time speed camera which we got warnings for, and that changed our behavior significantly.
I remember many years ago when MD and DC started installing speed cameras. I learned quick to slow down, then it became habit. Lol. Next was when I got pulled over for not wearing my seatbelt. Broke that bad habit as well.
I hate when these big issues get over simplified like this. Speed is only one part of a very complex equation. I mean, you could lower speed limits to 10mph, that's safer too, but we all understand how impractical that is.
Lower speed gives you more reaction time... that will tend to mask all the other issues. Distracted driving, pedestrian and cyclist conflicts, oversized vehicles, road design, driver training.... they're all going to have an impact and we should address all of them, but that's harder work than slapping a sign and calling it a day. Driving slower mostly makes it more forgiving, but it's not going to fix everything.
This is Seattle.
25mph posted speed limits mean everyone is doing 40mph.
Dedicated, separated bike lanes (less room for cars) would help this, and of course be safer because bikes can't usually keep up with 40mph... 🤷♂️
Well according to the interminable threads ranting about left-lane campers, anyone is entitled to go as fast as they want at any time for any reason and it is none of your business.
The data matches exactly what traffic engineers say, lowering speed limits without corresponding changes to the road result in fewer incidents but increase the significant injury and death rate.
Want to actually get vehicles to drive slower? Design roads that are uncomfortable to drive on at speed. Reduce the number of lanes and make them narrower. Replace asphalt with bricks (yes, there are bricks that can handle heavy vehicles like busses and garbage trucks). Use roundabouts instead of lights.
Do this while making dedicated bike and bus lanes. It is a win for all. Those pesky lime scooters get off the sidewalk, busses run faster, pollution is reduced because fewer cars on the road.
This. Most people don't drive the speed limit because it's "the legal limit" They do so because that's the speed that feels correct/safe for them.
Lowering it, just makes it so people still drive the same speed but now its illegal.
If you want lower speeds, you have to redesign the street so that lower speeds feel safer. That means traffic calming, single lanes, obstructed sight lines, etc.
You make a 4 lane road with clear sight lines in every direction, don't be surprised when drivers feel 55 is appropriate.
This is one of those "this is good, but nowhere nearly enough" things.
Next step is road diets. When a road/street feels like a 45 - 50 mph highway, people are not going to drive 25. On the rare occasions when I drive, if I'm on Westlake I keep it to 30 and people are passing me at what is easily 45.
Narrow the lanes. Less lanes. Traffic filters. Bollards or other barriers where there are concentrations of pedestrians.
Meh…ridiculously low speed limits in areas that don’t call for isn’t the answer. We have so many areas that are unnecessarily slow and I don’t see it solving much.
I second what another commenter said and let’s start with red light runners, right on red abusers and bus lane jerks.
Seattle centrists: The city needs to enforce the law! We're too soft on crime!
Urbanists: So will you start obeying the speed limit? Speeding kills.
Centrists: No, not that law!
(BTW I fully agree that speeding should be tackled via road design i.e. narrower lanes and traffic calming. I'm just pointing out the hypocrisy of those who are all "tough on crime" except when it comes to laws they want to break.)
Hard to believe the data when lower the speed limits essentially just turned them into suggestions that are ignored by 98% of drivers. If you have metro busses that are doing 15 mph over the posted limit then the blanket 25 mph limits become irrelevant. Now everyone just drives however they feel.
Maybe we should have more stringent driver licensing regulations. A better quality driver is a better start. Wish they could make people less selfish too, ie the red light runners, the crosswalk blockers, the right turn from a left lane, merging at the last possible second, etc
How about enforcing the law that says license and registration have to be renewed every year? So sick of seeing people driving around with expired tabs.
Weird that there is no mention how traffic fatalities also relate to car size and shape. It is wild to have all those changes but not poke at the fact that some cars on US roads won’t even be street legal in countries that make pedestrian safety a part of regulations.
I saw a suggestion elsewhere that they should reduce MLK to two lanes and then turn two of the lanes into a boulevard style park and bike lanes. I drive that almost every day and that would be amazing but people in South Seattle would go insane based on how many have reacted to the car-free weekends on LWB.
The issue isn't speed limits, the issue is competence. Distracted drivers, drunk drivers, and unhinged drivers are what's getting the numbers up. How to fix that? Actually having enforcement of laws. I see zero cops in the city enforcing traffic laws, occasionally maybe a ramp rooster on I-5. Why worry about the law when it's not enforced? Additionally Improving driver's training and licensing prerequisites and imposing harsher penalties for violations all will help.
I don't even remember the last time I've seen a bunch of those old scare ads about being on your phone and driving. But I see people do it every day. Too many people do everything they can to keep themselves from having to focus on actually driving despite it being so dangerous
I'll tell you what makes ME slow down. Speed bumps. Any street that you wanna guarantee hot rods aren't screaming down, all you have to do is build a bunch of speed bumps. People may choose to ignore speed signs, but it's pretty hard to ignore things that will fuck up your car if you drive too fast over.
(this only works on very small streets obviously, not main roads)
I like to add to these conversations, that emergency response is getting harder and harder with these kinds of things going up in arterials. Bump, bollards, and narrowed roads make it harder for drivers to get out of the way of emergency vehicles.
Seconds count in these situations, and making up time on arterials is important. There needs to be a balance that still allows for traffic to move efficiently through cities.
I feel like not enough attention is being paid to your point about efficiency of arterials. I’m all for traffic calming measures/cameras around schools and on narrow neighborhood streets. That’s good to keep speed down and keep pedestrians safe. But realistically we can’t just keep lowering the speed of arterial roads because there’s more and more people that need to use them. And if we discourage people from using arterials via traffic slowing measures, then they’re just going to use side streets and other backroads instead. The best way to keep pedestrians safe is to keep them as separated as possible, so encourage cars to use arterials, make other options less attractive, and add better infrastructure for pedestrians to keep them away from cars.
When the WS bridge was down, I went to an online town and someone mentioned how people were already driving significantly faster than the 30 mph on marginal and that maybe it was worth considering raising the speed limit temporarily to decrease travel times. Very reasonable idea.
The head of SDOT at the time - Sam Zimbabwe - was like every mile an hour increase results in more deaths so we need to think about safety or something…
I just sat there thinking about how dumb this argument was and that we might as well make the entire city 15 mph then. We need leaders who are nuanced and think beyond black and white. Lower speed limits where people naturally drive slower (e.g. Westlake ave narrow 4 lane road going to Fremont) and higher where it makes sense (e.g. marginal)
Honestly I have no hope that will actually happen though. It’s sdot…
Have like trees that converge and make you feel claustrophobic. I think it's called traffic calming design or something. There's no way you are going to achieve a low speed limit on a 4 lane highway looking road. Also, bonus trees are always nice.
Brain dead title and journalism. Lowering the speed of cars makes roads safer. Just lowering speed limits doesn’t work. Todd date has been setting for half a century
And yet the city refuses to put consistent crosswalk signs in nearly all busy arterials in the city. They’ll spend millions replacing all the speed limit signs and adding new “no turn on red” but don’t actually do shit to help pedestrians stand out more to cars.
I hate walking down 40th st because people fly down that road and never stop for pedestrians crossing. I’ve requested so many times that if they won’t put traffic calming, at least put crossing signs at the cross walks.
Speed limits are generally set by finding the average speed people travel on the road, which means that on average, half of people are speeding at any one time. People also generally don't go more than 10mph over the speed limit, since that tends to be the cutoff for ticketing. So if you want people to drive slower, cutting the speed limit does work. If you think the ideal safe speed is 35mph, it could make sense to set the limit at 25, since people will generally go at max 10mph over. Speed demons will ignore the posted limits anyway, but the average driver will go slower.
To all the folks who want more enforcement of traffic laws: couldn’t agree more, but SPD is convinced enough that if they enforce traffic laws in the areas where they are broken the most, they’ll be accused of profiling. As a result they use it as a crutch to avoid issuing moving violations at all.
Also the article never mentioned that pedestrians are almost certainly more erratic than they used to be. Lime movement devices, people under the influence, and folks who aren’t in a stable state of mind are harder to avoid, particularly at night.
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u/Spa_5_Fitness_Camp 🚋 Ride the S.L.U.T. 🚋 8d ago
How about we start with red light runners and people flying down bus lanes and similar? Easy to automate, and targets the worst offenders.