[cryptonector]

American highways for decades now have been designed for very high speeds, often 100mph or more, but the speed limits are set much much lower than that.

Perhaps you are in Europe, where speed limits are generally just the natural speed for the roads they're posted on, and the roads are designed for natural speeds that are appropriate for their uses. Lucky you, if so. Here in the U.S., speed limits are set to give police probable cause to stop anyone, any time.

[cycomanic]

> Perhaps you are in Europe, where speed limits are generally just the natural speed for the roads they're posted on, and the roads are designed for natural speeds that are appropriate for their uses. Lucky you, if so.

What are you talking about? With the exception of Germany all countries in Europe have maximum speed limits and I have no idea what you mean by natural speeds. Sweden which has highways that are in better condition than pretty much all US roads I've driven on has a maximum speed of 110 km/h (as has Australia btw) , Spain has 120 km/h, France 130 km/h. All lower than the US 85 miles/h.

[devilbunny]

85 mph is on one road skirting Austin, Texas. It's 146 km long. That's it.

Everything else is 80 (~130 km/h, actually a little slower) or less, and even 80 only applies to western roads with pretty much nothing around. But if you drive in the parts of the US where most people live, you're looking at 70 (a bit over 110), or 65 (~105) in rural areas. But those 105-112 km/h limit roads are in most states, even when the European example would suggest that 75 (which is almost exactly 120 km/h) would be far more appropriate.

[cryptonector]

You're talking about posted speeds. There are long stretches of other highways in the Austin area where, if traffic conditions allow, you can safely drive much faster than the posted speed limits. This is and has been true over much of the U.S. for decades.

One time I was driving on the NJ turnpike, passing a car at about 100mph, and far behind me, on my rearview mirror, I saw cars gaining rapidly on me and flashing their highbeams almost desperately. I barely managed to get in the right lane ahead of the car I was passing, and those cars that had been far behind passed me at what must have been 150mph. They were all beemers and such. Now, I wouldn't do that, but apparently that was a common sight at the time -- young drivers driving rich New Yorkers cars between NY and FL when their owners were flying to FL to spend the winter or back to NY for the summer. I've driven on quite a few highways in the U.S. where 80mph wasn't breaking a sweat and where I believe 100mph would have been perfectly safe weather and traffic allowing. I'm quite certain that our highways are simply designed for much higher speeds than posted.

[cryptonector]

Your roads are often designed with natural speed control devices. Things like making them narrow, or lining them with trees, etc.

[cycomanic]

Highways certainly have not, and for other roads it highly depends, just like in the US. But the Bundestrassen in Germany (the next larger roads after highways) have a speed limit of 100km/h and are very straight and definitely not artificially narrowed.

I'm actually not aware of any roads without a specific lane separator (like highways) that have speed limits above 100km/h in Europe (I certainly could be wrong though).

[SOLAR_FIELDS]

Reading your comment makes me think you’ve never driven in Europe whatsoever. Driving on your typical E road (say E6 or E4 in Sweden) is no different in design than any US interstate. In fact, driving on regional highways is mostly roughly equivalent in design with USA state highways, except roundabouts are often in place of street lights.

[SOLAR_FIELDS]

Some highways in Sweden go up to 130 kph. E4 in Halland is an example. Still not 85mph but close.

[cycomanic]

Really, TIL. I live in the Gothenburg area and in all my driving I only encountered 110 km/h so I assumed that was the maximum. Should have looked it up, thanks for correcting me.