[shadowgovt]

You play pick your speed limit in the wrong place in Chesterfield county, you'll discover that those speed limits are where they are because the roads haven't been updated since they originally had asphalt laid down.

It was a very specific road near where I grew up. Nice and flat. Looked like you could do any speed you wanted. People routinely did 55. Posted was 30.

Near one end of the road was a tree slowly pushing a tree root underneath the road. This followed into a sharp curve bordered by a second, ancient tree.

The neighborhood lost about one person every 6 months who got complacent driving that road faster than speed limit and then got decapitated when they hit that tree root, their car went airborne, rotated 90°, and the top half of the passenger space intersected the ancient tree down the road.

DOTs get no budget to reshape a bad road and do the best they can to try and keep us from killing ourselves out there.

[salawat]

If DOT has no budget, that sure sounds like those people are good decapitating somebody every 6 months.

Funny thing about governments by, for, and of the people.

[shadowgovt]

Honestly... Yes. That's how it appeared to work.

The group that petitioned most consistently not to reshape the road were the people who lived in that neighborhood. They didn't want their main thoroughfare shut down and they didn't want people driving that road faster.

Eventually, two volunteer firefighters died when a fire truck flipped doing lights-and-sirens down that road. Then the county stepped in, declared eminent domain on the tree, and cut it down to remove the root and reshape the road.

Democracies don't always vote in everyone's best interest. Or plenty of Americans are comfortable with one vehicular death every six months. Many possible explanations.