[freehunter]

I think the premise of the 20mph speed limit is good, but the way car transmissions are geared, doing a sustained slow speed could actually be dangerous as well. Doing 15mph through the parking lot at my office means I'm feathering the throttle quite a bit, and paying close attention to my speedometer and less attention to the things in front of me. I've never driven a car that "wants" to do 15mph or 20mph. I can't just keep the throttle at one position and stay at 20mph, the pedal, the foot controlling it, and the sense of speed related by the brain just aren't designed for fine adjustments.

The point being, I believe that setting low and strict speed limits could be counter productive and could lead to drivers being more distracted and less prepared to stop. If my hunch is right, there would be an increase in car-pedestrian accidents at exactly 20mph, and fewer at 10mph or below due to people being less likely to get their foot on the brake because of the effort required to keep the car moving at 20mph and watching the speedometer.

I've actually hit a pedestrian once. My light turned green as the person stepped into the crosswalk, and I hit them less than a second after I was stopped at 0mph. The pedestrian and the car were both fine with no injuries. Perhaps rather than dropping the city speed limit from the 25mph it already is down to 20mph, we should be focusing on getting pedestrians to cross in locations where cars are naturally going very slowly to begin with. I don't want to shift the blame of an accident from the perpetrator to the victim, but for pedestrian safety, crossing at a light (and following crosswalk signals) is worlds safer because the cars there will already be either stopped or going very slowly.