I’ll take “I don’t know what Road hierarchy is” for 500
I’m going to copy paste a redacted comment I made in another related thread because I want to hear pro and counter arguments.
Whenever there is a discussion about reducing the speed limit there is always always always some article or some bright guy arguing how ‘you will only lose x minutes if you drive y km/h slower’. Therefore lowering the speed limit can only be a gain right? Why don’t we drive 10 km/h on the E40 then? No more accidents!
This is because only a few seconds per person per day adds up to a substation amount of lost time over a lifetime. It also adds up by number of commuters. Several thousand commuters who lose a number of seconds a day ends up to a lot of man-years less spent being economically productive or having leisure time.
If you lose just 4 minutes a day because of a speed reduction, that’s 60 days lost over a 60 year period. For one person! 60 days not working, not volunteering, not doing anything useful for my family. Now multiply that by millions of commuters.
There is definitely an objective measurement to be made. If you know how many injuries and deaths happen on a road you can calculate the cost of this. A statistical human life is worth about 3 to 6 million euros in Belgium. The injuries can vary more.
Then you project how much less injuries and deaths you will have if you reduce the speed. You can also factor in the lower levels of pollution this reduction will cause. Next, you compare this to the economical loss of all these extra seconds by all those thousands of commuters and you can objectively state if it is a societal gain or loss to lower the speed limit.
I have no problem with lower speed limits if it results in a net gain for society.
This is also why I dislike our Belgian traffic lights. In the Netherlands you get green if you are alone at an intersection. In Belgium you often have to wait for nobody. The societal cost of all this time lost waiting for nothing is hundreds millions of euros per year.
Lijkt me nogal dom om de bebouwde kom te gebruiken. 30km/u heeft zijn nut op sommige plaatsen (lokale wijk met spelende kinderen, in de buurt van scholen etc), maar niet in heel de bebouwde kom.
As someone from a more rural part of the country, this sounds like a straight up stupid idea. 30 km/h is more safe and does have its place in areas with schools or a lot of foot traffic, but most of Limburg’s bebouwde kom is just a steenweg with houses on either sides, making 30 km/h excruciatingly slow
They’ll have to add “50” signs on many places because frankly, driving this slow on certain bigger roads inside the bebouwde kom will just be useless. Except for state, they’ll be collecting a lot more fines.
Near schools and in the town/city centre, sure.
They’ll have to add “50” signs on many places because frankly, driving this slow on certain bigger roads inside the bebouwde kom will just be useless. Except for state, they’ll be collecting a lot more fines.
Near schools and in the town/city centre, sure.
They just don’t want you to move anymore… but now in every village or near every village, the schools, the post offices, the police, the firemen, the banks, the doctors, the hospitals, the administration are all gone and they won’t come back.
From hln, maar het zal wel kloppen en to be clear, betreft voetgangers in bebouwde kom: *In 2021 vielen 22 dodelijke slachtoffers in straten waar auto’s vijftig kilometer per uur kunnen rijden. Er vielen negen doden in een zone dertig en één dode op een plek waar zeventig kilometer per uur mag gereden worden.*
In totale wegenafstand: zones 50>30>70 in bebouwde kom, dus qua aantallen ongevallen is dat geen verrassing.
Blijft de vraag, als er wordt gespeeld met die cijfertjes, lost het uberhaupt iets op? Worden er dan gewoon niet meer mensen doodgereden in zones 30?
Wat ik hier mis -gebeurt nog hoor- zijn kwalitatieve analyses, waaraan zijn die ongevallen dan wel te wijten. Overdreven snelheid? If so mag je maximum nog op 10km/u zetten… GSM-gebruik of andere onoplettendheid achter het stuur? Of van de voetgangers zelf? Rode lichten niet gerespecteerd? Dode-hoekongevallen? Dunno, maar is het dan niet beter om al die dingen aan te pakken?
It was maybe a good idea if the half of belgium wasn’t ‘bebouwde kom’.
If they do this they can just as well get rid off cars all together.
Hasselt vanaf maandag 20km/u … andere steden zullen zeker volgen.
Het maakt toch niet uit. Bebouwde kom heeft zelden een flitspaal staan. Mijn straat is een 30 zone en hier racen de patsers nog elke avond en weekend. Hels lawaai met de raam open als je tv aan het kijken bent. Regeltjes maken niets uit voor die mensen zolang ze weten dat er geen camera staat.
Will this be as in Brussels? Because it actually makes sense in Bx, main trafic axes are still 50.
* 30 km/h is a pain of a speed to keep imo, with every car I’ve ridden so far.
Counter-proposal: 40 km/h. The ‘Golden Middle Road’ :p to say it in perfect Flemglish.
Btw: local community implemented 30 km/h… in the rich houses zone.
And it is good to wreck your transmission on the steep inclines…
30 km/h upward on a steep hill?
hear how much your engine likes that.
* as extra counterpoint: instead, stop having crosswalks with a zebrapad, where the light for the pedestrian *only* turns green if someone pressed the button.
Make this illegal instead of 50.
Make the owner of the lights liable for any pedestrian-involved accident if that’s how they operate.
* let’s not forget either that these are the same parties that implement regulations to obligatory limit the number of parking spaces, including for domestic building projects. (what is it now, 0.6 parking spaces per home/appartment in Gent?)
Gans Vlaanderen is 1 grote bebouwde kom 😭
Allez, ik zal eens pro spelen. Ik heb gene auto meer dus /care. Maak rijden met de auto maar zo duur en onhandig als het kan.
Nee maar echt. 30 is niet eens zo traag. Ik doe 30 met de fiets en ik ga rap genoeg vooruit:)
De minderheids regering, waar amper iemand op stemde maar die toch aan de macht raaktte, is de enige die dit wil.
Guy guys guys. They want to incentives folks to drive bicycles. People gonna be like well if I am gonna drive 30 km/h I might as well take the bicycle. Atleast that’s what I am thinking or naybe it’s just for road safety after all
I only think this is a good idea for every municipality or city that has a ring, so you aren’t forced to drive through it.
Mijn straat is zone 30 en vlakbij de flikken en ze racen hier gelijk zotten. Zelf de 2 verkeersdrempels houden ze niet tegen.
19 comments
I’ll take “I don’t know what Road hierarchy is” for 500
I’m going to copy paste a redacted comment I made in another related thread because I want to hear pro and counter arguments.
Whenever there is a discussion about reducing the speed limit there is always always always some article or some bright guy arguing how ‘you will only lose x minutes if you drive y km/h slower’. Therefore lowering the speed limit can only be a gain right? Why don’t we drive 10 km/h on the E40 then? No more accidents!
This is because only a few seconds per person per day adds up to a substation amount of lost time over a lifetime. It also adds up by number of commuters. Several thousand commuters who lose a number of seconds a day ends up to a lot of man-years less spent being economically productive or having leisure time.
If you lose just 4 minutes a day because of a speed reduction, that’s 60 days lost over a 60 year period. For one person! 60 days not working, not volunteering, not doing anything useful for my family. Now multiply that by millions of commuters.
There is definitely an objective measurement to be made. If you know how many injuries and deaths happen on a road you can calculate the cost of this. A statistical human life is worth about 3 to 6 million euros in Belgium. The injuries can vary more.
Then you project how much less injuries and deaths you will have if you reduce the speed. You can also factor in the lower levels of pollution this reduction will cause. Next, you compare this to the economical loss of all these extra seconds by all those thousands of commuters and you can objectively state if it is a societal gain or loss to lower the speed limit.
I have no problem with lower speed limits if it results in a net gain for society.
This is also why I dislike our Belgian traffic lights. In the Netherlands you get green if you are alone at an intersection. In Belgium you often have to wait for nobody. The societal cost of all this time lost waiting for nothing is hundreds millions of euros per year.
Lijkt me nogal dom om de bebouwde kom te gebruiken. 30km/u heeft zijn nut op sommige plaatsen (lokale wijk met spelende kinderen, in de buurt van scholen etc), maar niet in heel de bebouwde kom.
As someone from a more rural part of the country, this sounds like a straight up stupid idea. 30 km/h is more safe and does have its place in areas with schools or a lot of foot traffic, but most of Limburg’s bebouwde kom is just a steenweg with houses on either sides, making 30 km/h excruciatingly slow
They’ll have to add “50” signs on many places because frankly, driving this slow on certain bigger roads inside the bebouwde kom will just be useless. Except for state, they’ll be collecting a lot more fines.
Near schools and in the town/city centre, sure.
They’ll have to add “50” signs on many places because frankly, driving this slow on certain bigger roads inside the bebouwde kom will just be useless. Except for state, they’ll be collecting a lot more fines.
Near schools and in the town/city centre, sure.
They just don’t want you to move anymore… but now in every village or near every village, the schools, the post offices, the police, the firemen, the banks, the doctors, the hospitals, the administration are all gone and they won’t come back.
From hln, maar het zal wel kloppen en to be clear, betreft voetgangers in bebouwde kom: *In 2021 vielen 22 dodelijke slachtoffers in straten waar auto’s vijftig kilometer per uur kunnen rijden. Er vielen negen doden in een zone dertig en één dode op een plek waar zeventig kilometer per uur mag gereden worden.*
In totale wegenafstand: zones 50>30>70 in bebouwde kom, dus qua aantallen ongevallen is dat geen verrassing.
Blijft de vraag, als er wordt gespeeld met die cijfertjes, lost het uberhaupt iets op? Worden er dan gewoon niet meer mensen doodgereden in zones 30?
Wat ik hier mis -gebeurt nog hoor- zijn kwalitatieve analyses, waaraan zijn die ongevallen dan wel te wijten. Overdreven snelheid? If so mag je maximum nog op 10km/u zetten… GSM-gebruik of andere onoplettendheid achter het stuur? Of van de voetgangers zelf? Rode lichten niet gerespecteerd? Dode-hoekongevallen? Dunno, maar is het dan niet beter om al die dingen aan te pakken?
It was maybe a good idea if the half of belgium wasn’t ‘bebouwde kom’.
If they do this they can just as well get rid off cars all together.
Hasselt vanaf maandag 20km/u … andere steden zullen zeker volgen.
Het maakt toch niet uit. Bebouwde kom heeft zelden een flitspaal staan. Mijn straat is een 30 zone en hier racen de patsers nog elke avond en weekend. Hels lawaai met de raam open als je tv aan het kijken bent. Regeltjes maken niets uit voor die mensen zolang ze weten dat er geen camera staat.
Will this be as in Brussels? Because it actually makes sense in Bx, main trafic axes are still 50.
* 30 km/h is a pain of a speed to keep imo, with every car I’ve ridden so far.
Counter-proposal: 40 km/h. The ‘Golden Middle Road’ :p to say it in perfect Flemglish.
Btw: local community implemented 30 km/h… in the rich houses zone.
And it is good to wreck your transmission on the steep inclines…
30 km/h upward on a steep hill?
hear how much your engine likes that.
* as extra counterpoint: instead, stop having crosswalks with a zebrapad, where the light for the pedestrian *only* turns green if someone pressed the button.
Make this illegal instead of 50.
Make the owner of the lights liable for any pedestrian-involved accident if that’s how they operate.
* let’s not forget either that these are the same parties that implement regulations to obligatory limit the number of parking spaces, including for domestic building projects. (what is it now, 0.6 parking spaces per home/appartment in Gent?)
Gans Vlaanderen is 1 grote bebouwde kom 😭
Allez, ik zal eens pro spelen. Ik heb gene auto meer dus /care. Maak rijden met de auto maar zo duur en onhandig als het kan.
Nee maar echt. 30 is niet eens zo traag. Ik doe 30 met de fiets en ik ga rap genoeg vooruit:)
De minderheids regering, waar amper iemand op stemde maar die toch aan de macht raaktte, is de enige die dit wil.
Guy guys guys. They want to incentives folks to drive bicycles. People gonna be like well if I am gonna drive 30 km/h I might as well take the bicycle. Atleast that’s what I am thinking or naybe it’s just for road safety after all
I only think this is a good idea for every municipality or city that has a ring, so you aren’t forced to drive through it.
Mijn straat is zone 30 en vlakbij de flikken en ze racen hier gelijk zotten. Zelf de 2 verkeersdrempels houden ze niet tegen.