On Sat, 25 Nov 2006 19:00:13 +0000, badger.badger wrote:

Bruce L. Bergman wrote:
The Traffic engineers try to use a rationale like they're setting
them at "the 85th Percentile of the average traffic flow on that
stretch of road" or other nonsense, but plain and simple they're
guessing.

Well some might, one city locally has a traffic planning
engineer/manager that doesn't even have a driving licence, she however
does have a degree.....

The traffic engineer if he's doing his job lets the drivers decide. He
does a study, finds out the 85th percentile speed (or whatever the
research showed--this was done in the '30s if I recall correctly and the
purpose of the research was to figure out what speed limit produced the
fewest accidents or fatalities--it's not a number somebody pulled out of
his butt) and sets the limit there. If he's good then he does another study
to see what the change in speed limit has done to the speed.



--
--John
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(was jclarke at eye bee em dot net)