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[quote="Guest"][quote="Guest"]See its so frustrating to talk to some of you folks because you are so incredibly stuck on the idea that reducing the speed limit increases safety. Its blatantly untrue and its also blatantly untrue that the traffic engineer who studied the road approved of any reduction. You also refuse to understand that consistency in limits is important, and that 50 mph is a standard for this type of road. Its 50 mph on ancil davidson. 50 mph on cranbury neck. 50 mph on 571. 50 mph on john white rd. 50 mph on old trenton after 571. 50 mph on southfield rd. 45 on George Davidson Road. I could go on and on. Most are thinner roads, some are more congested, and most have more houses directly on them. If the corresponding stretch of road has plenty in common with these roads, shouldn't it have the same speed limit?

I know people love to go "but there are pedestrians and housing, and the character of the area has changed!". Well it has not changed much in the last 5-7 years, and there isn't much housing directly on it except for after the curve (and even then, not even that much), and it has no more pedestrians than any other 45 or 50 mph road. Furthermore, most people slow down for pedestrians and bikers anyway, so there's no point to have a low speed limit when there are none around.

Lets see which roads are 35: Edgemere Ave, about 1/2 as wide with houses directly on it. 35 on Plainsboro Rd. near the school.  35 on Millstone rd. 35 on Clarksville rd before N. Post. 206 through lawrenceville, 40. Again, I could go on and on. All of these roads are vastly more residential and are much thinner. So why would it make sense to make a road that has NOTHING IN COMMON with the above 35? Do you see why this is incredibly nonsensical?

All of these roads also have their share of a few accidents, because its NEW JERSEY and there are going to be stupid aggressive drivers. A temporary construction zone limit is one thing, but a permanent change is another. If you want a speed limit reduction to actually be safe, you need to change the road and utilize traffic calming. The reason this change is so absurd to me is not because I'm some 'angry out of towner', its because I study traffic engineering as one thing I am interested in. Again, the real problem is that some of you refuse to drop the belief that decreasing limits below traffic speed increases safety. Its completely untrue. Or that, several accidents are a rationale for a lower limit. Also true.

Even state DOT guides agree that posting limits way way way below the 85th percentile speed is stupid, because drivers judge appropriate speed generally pretty well for the most part, and do so much better than an obscure statute that applies to roads that vary immensely. I remember the statute I was told by the county representative....must have 660 feet or greater of business development or houses directly adjacent to the road. As I said before, because developments count technically as 'businesses', this 'rule' applies pretty much anywhere and is incredibly vague.

http://www.gjcity.org/citydeptwebpages/publicworksandutilities/transportationengineering/TEFilesThatLINKintoDWStoreHere/Word%20Files%20Needing%20to%20be%20Saved%20as%20HTML/EstablishingRealisticSpeedLimitsBrochure.pdf

http://www.ibiblio.org/rdu/sl-irrel.html

http://www.thenewspaper.com/news/31/3151.asp

http://www.mlive.com/news/grand-rapids/index.ssf/2010/03/wyoming_looks_at_raising_speed.html

http://www.motorists.org/speed-limits/

http://onlinemanuals.txdot.gov/txdotmanuals/szn/determining_the_85th_percentile_speed.htm

http://www.bhspi.org/documents/BHSPI_ITE6_Denver090715f.pdf

85th percentile is supposed to be the main consideration, aside from some huge anomaly that dictates a lower limit, which must be determined by a valid study. This doesn't mean 'oh there are pedestrians on that road', it means that the road must be dramatically different than other roads with the same speed limit to warrant the lower limit. In this case, it certainly is not. 35 is irrational, and 40 is irrational. Period. I rest my case, and if you're fed up with this and other artificially low limits, call up the county. At the least it'll get the message out. I refuse to discuss this with anyone who continually ignores these facts and keeps repeating the same tired falsities, but I will continue to discuss this with those who are genuinely interested in learning about the subject.

Thank you.[/quote]

Are you for real? What's with all the intellectual masturbation? If this is so important to you, lead an effort to make a change. Either way, stop whining![/quote]

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