And there is disagree. We don’t need speed limits for their own sake. They are the speed that is deemed appropriate in the area for a multitude of reason. Primarily safety, but also things like noise and emission reductions.

No, that’s what the design speed is. Speed limits are just a crutch to enforce the design speed when the engineers screwed up and the design fails to do it itself.

Your argument again is to be apologetic for people deliberately violating the rules.

Your argument again is to be apologetic to incompetent engineers, which is way worse!

I know, from first-hand experience, that traffic engineers in the United States are systemically bad at a lot of what we do. A lot of the industry’s standards of practice are outdated, misguided, or misapplied, and the whole profession needs reform. Often, the goals that we’re trying to accomplish in our designs aren’t even the correct goals to begin with.

And by the way: No. No, I am not, in any way, shape, or form, trying to excuse bad drivers. Never mind that you’ve strawmanned my argument to the point of unrecognizability; even if I did want to abolish speed limits like you seem to think I do, “reasonable and prudent” would still be a thing and it would still be possible to punish dangerous drivers!

Frankly, you’re way the fuck out of line.

The only thing that works for these kind of people is to permanently remove them from operating motorized vehicles and to give them some time in prison to think about what they have done. being apologetic of them instead, encourages lax traffic laws and lax consequences for people who are injuring and killing other people in traffic.

You clearly don’t realize it, but in actual reality, attitudes like yours are part of the problem! Having speed limits divorced from design speeds breeds contempt for the law, which is why consequences are often so lax. Everybody speeds when the speed limit is set too low – that’s human nature whether you like it or not – so of course even judges and juries who speed themselves won’t think speeding is a big deal and will give offenders a slap on the wrist. By prioritizing enforcement of speed limits over fixing street design, you are actively trying to perpetuate that contempt.

I’m starting to think you’re so bloodthirsty to punish people that you’re willing to put more people at risk by accepting bad design just so you can manufacture more violators!