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Paris speed limit falls to 30km/h

bbc.com

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Re: Paris speed limit falls to 30km/h

#41

Post by speeder »

I live in a city with low-ish speed limits and recently they added radars everywhere.

It is just a nightmare, because the country is big and hilly, cars tend to have gear ratios optimized to 100km/h, my car is a Peugeot 206 and it stalls often if I go slow as the speed limit on some roads, and it stalls hard, as in the engine stops so suddenly that the car was moving and suddenly it isn't, had people almost crashing on my rear multiple times, and I almost crashed on other people rears multiple times.

Also some roads with low speed limit NOBODY drives inside the limit, because the limit is impratical so people use it as license to actually go faster than average, and when you are on those roads you are forced to go faster, if you obey the limit people WILL crash on you, and I am not kidding, I saw flipped cars there from crashes like that.

And finally, to keep under the speed limit I must stay wiht my eyes glued on my speedometer and RPM meter, to make sure I can stay under the limit without stalling, multiple times I almost crashed because of that, and I believe the same applies to other drivers, because in the same places where this happened to me, I saw other drivers not seeing thigns and almost crashing or... actually crashing.

Re: Paris speed limit falls to 30km/h

#43

Post by 1-more »

banana_giraffe wrote: post #22
1-more wrote: post #20

Kinda want to go rip around Paris in the middle of the lane on my bike now. Look you can't get mad I'm going over the limit!!

Can bicycle riders not get speeding tickets in Paris? Around me in the states, the cops can, and do occasionally, ticket bicycle riders going over the speed limit in school zones (20 mph at certain times of the day).

Probably can. Will you? IDK. I am now adding "evade the police on a high speed chase" to my holiday itinerary in Paris. TY for this idea.

Re: Paris speed limit falls to 30km/h

#44

Post by 1-more »

rad_gruchalski wrote: post #42
1-more wrote: post #20

Kinda want to go rip around Paris in the middle of the lane on my bike now. Look you can't get mad I'm going over the limit!!

Good way to lose the driving license, if you have one. Speed limits apply to all traffic.

You lose your license for getting one speeding ticket?

Re: Paris speed limit falls to 30km/h

#45

Post by throwaway0a5e »

true_religion wrote: post #30
DaveExeter wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People who either do not or cannot should simply not drive. I have the opposite attitude. People who cannot use their own judgement as to what speed to drive or when a stop sign can be safely disregarded should not drive.

How would you codify that into law?

I don't think you'd need to change much of the law.

A heck of a lot of stop signs would become yields. A heck of a lot red arrows would become blinking yellow arrows.

We could probably do automatic speed limits on limited access highways by measuring the current traffic speed, hitting it with some sort of weighted algorithm to prevent swings in speed or comically high/low speeds.

Frankly I'm surprised there's no such thing as a "yield, unless you're turning left or going straight" type stop sign since there are a lot of intersections where that's what the prevailing traffic flow is in practice.

A ton of intersections could be redesigned to facilitate easier and safer jaywalking with carefully placed islands.

If I had to change the law I'd have stiff fines for stopping at a cloverleaf and I'd make failing to go the minimum speed (which is usually the speed limit minus some constant) subject to the same fine schedule as speeding.

Re: Paris speed limit falls to 30km/h

#47

Post by [deleted] »

ThePadawan wrote: post #6
josephcsible wrote: post #2

To put how slow that is into perspective, it's slower than the speed limit on most residential streets in America, and it's about the same as the school zone speed limits that are only used at the beginning and end of each school day.

Huh, that's curious. 30 km/h is what residential streets in Germany are pretty much by default [0]. In busy pedestrian areas, we're getting down to 20 km/h [1] and km/h [2] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/30_km/h_zone#Europe [1] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Begegnungszone [2] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schrittgeschwindigkeit

[deleted]

Re: Paris speed limit falls to 30km/h

#48

Post by pwinnski »

throwaway0a5e wrote: post #23
pwinnski wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In civil engineering circles, it is well understood that there are many measures that can reduce "natural" speeds, like "The number of street parking bays is being halved and ... Cycle lanes have increased and streets are being redesigned to make districts more pedestrian friendly," from the linked article. I'm not sure how you got the wrong idea that this is "[c]hanging a bunch of signs," especially since HN guideli…

Read between the lines. If they were breaking out the heavy equipment and actually changing the infrastructure they would be trumpeting it as an infrastructure initiative, urban makeover/revitalization or something like that. To assume that this is more than a simple regulatory change is to assume that the Paris government is wholly staffed with people too stupid to capitalize politically on a major infrastructure ch…

Don't be so quick to read between the lines that you forget to read the lines!

You seem to be confusing a BBC News article based in large part on tweets with a prime messaging push by the government.

As the article points out, many cycling lanes have been introduced. The infrastructure has been changing, is changing, and will continue to be changed, as both supporters and critics alike attest.

Your original tweet suggested that putting up new signs would have no effect because people drive whatever speed they feel is safe. This is true, which means it's notable that critics point out the average speed in Paris is already below this new lower limit. So either the infrastructure changes have had a positive effect and now it's time for the limit to catch up, or the traffic is bad and it's time for the limit to catch up.

Either way, your pessimism seems to be unsupported by any of the supplied evidence.

Re: Paris speed limit falls to 30km/h

#49

Post by Isinlor »

speeder wrote: post #41

I live in a city with low-ish speed limits and recently they added radars everywhere. It is just a nightmare, because the country is big and hilly, cars tend to have gear ratios optimized to 100km/h, my car is a Peugeot 206 and it stalls often if I go slow as the speed limit on some roads, and it stalls hard, as in the engine stops so suddenly that the car was moving and suddenly it isn't, had people almost crashing…

Take a bus, tram, metro, try bike - ask your politicians to make them reasonable.

Cities should be pedestrians first, public transport and cyclists second, cars third. Certainly something we should aim at in Europe.

Re: Paris speed limit falls to 30km/h

#50

Post by Agingcoder »

throwaway0a5e wrote: post #28
Agingcoder wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, to add some nuance, cars are not fast anyway because of the bad traffic, the city is extremely polluted (there are days where we are told to stay inside) so cars are indeed a problem, and people are leaving for many reasons, one of them being that the city is too expensive. The metro is not unreliable - it can be very crowded, but it's ok. I understand the regional trains can be very unreliable. As to the polit…

>The metro is not unreliable - it can be very crowded, but it's ok. I understand the regional trains can be very unreliable. The regional trains are exactly the ones that need to be reliable in order to replace cars.

Yes and no.

The regional trains need to be expanded first: the paris transit network is star-shaped, and it's very difficult to navigate around Paris without going through the center of the star. This immediately overcrowds the existing lines, and then trains are late/you wait a lot (people fainting when it's too hot, massive queues because too many people, etc) . There's currently a massive project going on ('le grand paris', aka 'greater paris') which is supposed to achieve this. I haven't followed it very closely though.

Then, I agree with you : the trains must be reliable. However, this can't be achieved unless some kind of rerouting happens first.

It's worth noting that the speed limits apply to Paris only, which is absolutely tiny (about 100 sq km). In many (most?) cases, it's already more efficient to go to Paris by train than by car, even if not very reliable, and within Paris you have the metro. Outside of Paris, the regional trains are not very good (not dense enough), but the speed limit point doesn't apply.

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