this post was submitted on 24 Sep 2023
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National to spend at least $30m to reverse speed limit changes if elected (www.1news.co.nz)
submitted 11 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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Alternative headline: National to spend $30m to sacrifice some of your lives so our trip is slightly faster.

The changes have been endorsed by transport researchers and street safety advocates as effective measures to help reduce the number of Kiwis killed and injured on the roads.

That's all there is to it.

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 11 months ago (2 children)

Also, if I hit a pole at 120km/h then the impact speed is 120km/h. If I have a head-on at 80km/h then the impact speed is 160km/h. So physically segregating traffic is the most effective infrastructure change to make, it is slow and expensive and impractical in most places.

I also initially thought that was the case, but it's not! http://warp.povusers.org/grrr/collisionmath.html There's no difference between 80km/h against a pole or wall vs 80km/h head on.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 months ago

Fascinating! TYVM for that.

Though, I'll argue that even in my flawed examples having double the number of vehicles in the collision is still worse: double the casualties. It's just technically the same as two vehicles having independent collisions.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago

Oh, also: it improves the effectiveness of lowering the speed limit versus infrastructure upgrades.

Neat.