Rose Hammond has insisted on the authorities for years to reduce the speed limit to 55 miles / h on a two -lane road, which passes its assisted community for life, church, two schools and a busy park that hosts many youth sports leagues.
“What are you waiting for, someone to be killed?” The 85-year-old killed employees in Northwest Ohio, complaining that nothing is being done for the motorcycles that compete almost every day.
Against the backdrop of increasing public pressure, the city of Sylunya, the city of Silvania asked district engineers in March to analyze whether the published speed of Mitchaw Road is too high. The surprising answer: Technically, it is too low.
The reason dates from rural studies from the 1930s and 1940s, which still play a huge role in the way speed limitations are placed in the United States -even in urban areas.
Born from this study is a widely accepted concept known as the 85%rule, suggesting that the specified speed of the road must be bound by the 15th fastest vehicle of every 100 traveling in free-flowing traffic, rounded to the nearest increase of 5 miles / h.
But after decades, following the rule, some countries – by pressing the federal government – strive to change if they do not replace it in determining guidelines on how local engineers have to decide what speed restriction to publish.
Drivers set the speed
The concept suggests that the most secure speed of the road is the one that most vehicles travel – neither too high nor too low. If drivers believe that the speed limit should be increased, they can simply step on the gas and “vote” with their feet, as an old brochure from the Institute for Transport Engineers, once put it.
“The problem with this approach is that he creates this feedback cycle,” says Jenny O’Connell, Director of Programs for Members of the National Association of Urban Transport Employees. “People speed and then speed limits will be reinforced to match this speed.”
The Association has developed an alternative to the 85%rule known as the “city limits”, which aims to minimize the risk of injury to all road users, defining a speed limit on the basis of a formula that factors in street activity and the likelihood of conflict, such as clashes.
The report states that the 85% rule is based on dated research and “these historical paths are far from the vital streets and arterials that describe the city streets today.”
Against the backdrop of a recent jump in deaths across the country, the Federal Highway Administration has sent a fine but important message to countries that the rule of 85% is not really a rule and has too much weight in determining local speed limits. In its first update from 2009 to a leadership that establishes national guidance on road signs, the agency explained that communities should also consider such things as how the road, the risk of pedestrians and the frequency of catastrophes is used.
Leah Shahum, who runs Vision Zero Network, a non -profit purpose that is advocating for street safety, said she wanted the management to go further in the reduction of the rule of 85%, but admits that the change had already influenced the way some countries set the restrictions. Others, however, still stick to the simplicity and knowledge of the long -standing approach, she said.
“The 85th Percentile should not be the Holy Grail or the Bible, and yet again and again it is accepted as this,” Shahum said.
Rethinking the need for speed
Within its campaign “20 is an abundance”, the capital of Wisconsin from Madison is changing signs throughout the city this summer, reducing the speed limit from 25 miles / h to 20 miles / h on local residential streets.
When Seattle made a similar step in a pilot program seven years ago, he not only saw a noticeable decline in serious injuries, but also a 7% drop in 85 percentage speed, according to the Vision Zero network.
California covers the rule of 85% even more than most states as a basis for determining speed limitations. But legislators have loosened the restrictions on local authorities in recent years, allowing them to deviate from the instructions if they can cite a proven need for safety. Pedestrian defenders and cyclists say change helps, but is not enough.
“We still have a long way in California regarding the value of all road users,” says Kendra Ramsay, CEO of the California Bicycle Coalition. “There is still a very difficult way of thinking that cars are the main method of travel and should be given priority and reverence.”
But Jay Bieber, CEO of the National Motor Association Policy, an advocacy organization for drivers, said that after 85%, the rule is usually the most secure way to minimize the difference in speed between drivers who follow the published limit and those who exceed it.
“It doesn’t really matter what number you put on a sign,” Bieber said. “The average driver drives the nature of the lane. It would be clearly unfair to build a road to encourage people to drive 45 miles / h, set a speed limit of 30 miles / h, and then be tickets to all who do what they built along the way.”
80 is the new 55
The fears of oil prices prompted the congress in the 1970s to determine a national maximum speed of 55 miles / h, which later relaxed to 65 miles / h before canceling the law in 1995 and to pass on the powers to the countries. Since then, speed limitations have continued to climb, with North Dakota becoming the ninth state this summer to allow drivers to cross 80 miles / h on some sections of the highway. In Texas, there are even 40 miles of segment between Austin and San Antonio, where 85 miles / h are allowed.
Although high-speed highways outside the main settlements are not at the center of the most efforts to alleviate the rule of 85%, a 2019 survey by the Insurance Institute for Safety of Highways-Research Hand funded by automotive insurers-ITRESSES. Every 5 miles / h increases to the maximum speed of the state increases the likelihood of victims by 8.5% on interstate highways and 2.8% on other roads, the study found.
“Maybe the opposite when you were driving a model T, you have had a real sense of how fast you are going, but in modern vehicles you have no idea what 80 mph is. You are in a cocoon,” says Chuck Farmer, Vice President of the Institute of Research, which conducted the study.
The city’s attempt to change
If selected employees in the city of Sylvania, Ohio, make their way, the fixed speed of Mitchaw Road will be drastically reduced – from 55 mph to 40 mph or a lower one. The statement of the county that the rule of 85% actually requires its increase to 60 mph, surprised the city leaders, but not the engineers who conducted the study.
“If we do not make decisions on the basis of data, it is very difficult to make good decisions,” said Lucas County engineer Mike Pnevski.
So far, the speed limit will remain as it is. This is because Ohio’s law sets maximum speeds for 15 different types of road sails, regardless of what makes the rule of 85%.
And Ohio’s instructions are evolving. Now the state is considering more attention to the context of the roadway and allows cities to reduce speed limits on the basis of the lower standard of 50 percentage speed when there is a large presence of pedestrians and cyclists. Authorities have recently hired a consultant to look at additional modifications based on what other countries do.
“The countries have slowly began to move away from the 85th Percentile as a type of gold standard for decision-making,” said Michelle May, who runs the Ohio Highway Safety Program. “People travel and live differently than 40 years ago, and we want to put the safety more on the focus.”
It is unclear whether any of these changes will eventually affect the published speed of Mitchaw Road. After years of useless calls and emails to state, district and urban officials, Hammond says he does not catch breath.
“I’m just discouraging,” she said.