No, the proper speed limit is one that is decided based on traffic engineering safety factors such as sight distances, and who else uses that road.
Cities aren't dropping their speed limits to 25 mph for shits and giggles. They're doing it because the odds of a person on foot or bike surviving being hit by a car goes up dramatically when speed drops from 30 to 25. Fatalities drop to nearly zero at 20mph, which is why many dense residential side-streets are 20mph. It also has the nice side effect of discouraging people Waze-slaloming their way through neighborhoods instead of using major routes.
The whole "make the speed limit what most people are doing" was just auto industry bullshit that helped make our roads even more dangerous to people not in a car or truck.
You aren't solve the problem of "Too many people are driving on the arterials, so traffic is going too slow" by making driving faster and more attractive.
> The whole "make the speed limit what most people are doing" was just auto industry bullshit that helped make our roads even more dangerous to people not in a car or truck.
Hard disagree. It is simply an observation of reality, and a very useful reminder to anyone who wants to waste time and resources putting different numbers on signs. You have to actually engineer the roads for the speeds you want, and I get that it's more expensive than just painting new signs and telling your constituents how much you're trying to help.
We have neighborhoods where cars cannot pass without one giving way and pulling off into the parking area. Is it inconvenient? Sure, sometimes, very much so. But you know what? People drive damn slow. Nobody cuts through the neighborhood to save time when traffic on the arterial road is congested. It matters not one bit what the speed limit signs say (there aren't any, actually), because road design solved the problem neatly.
Cities aren't dropping their speed limits to 25 mph for shits and giggles. They're doing it because the odds of a person on foot or bike surviving being hit by a car goes up dramatically when speed drops from 30 to 25. Fatalities drop to nearly zero at 20mph, which is why many dense residential side-streets are 20mph. It also has the nice side effect of discouraging people Waze-slaloming their way through neighborhoods instead of using major routes.
https://nacto.org/publication/city-limits/the-need/designed-...
The whole "make the speed limit what most people are doing" was just auto industry bullshit that helped make our roads even more dangerous to people not in a car or truck.