The measure is aimed at reducing accidents in urban areas with heavy pedestrian traffic and narrow streets, marking a major shift in the country’s traffic rules as these roads account for around 70% of all ordinary roads nationwide.
[…] above [30 kph] the risk of pedestrians suffering fatal injuries in accidents is said to spike.
[…]
The aim of the speed limit change “is to prevent accidents by stopping dangerous driving, such as failing to slow down even on busy streets”
60 kph seems really high for residential, yikes
Japan actually does very little in the way of pedestrian or bicycle friendly road design compared to most European countries (there are a few things worth learning from IMO, just not as many as, say, the Netherlands).
It works as well as it does because of the narrow streets and how little car traffic they have (even less than the Netherlands, which does way more to try and reign in cars but has way more of them). They have so little car traffic because you have to prove you have a permanent parking space in order to buy a car, there’s no on-street parking, and the public transit network is very extensive. That and the aforementioned narrow streets just make driving inconvenient compared to the other options.
Surprised as that’s even faster than most places in the car-brained US. It’s “only” 48kph (30mph) on the high side and 32kph (20mph) most other places
Right?? I’m in the US and was really surprised that even we consider that way too fast for residential. It’s 20mph on my street and I would be livid with anything over 30
The problem is also that likely no one did 60, but rather close to 70.
So for everyone thinking 30 is too low, do not fret, people will just drive 40 anyhow and that is not too slow.
Yeah, they should’ve enforced a 20kmph or even 10kmph rule.
Definitely. If you’re not going the “customary” 10 over, people will often ride right on your ass everywhere I’ve driven in Japan.
Edit: I can’t grammar today
Actual 10 over or 10 over the speedometer?
I don’t understand the question. What I meant was, if the sign says 30, most people are doing at lead 39-40 (some up to 49).
Speedometers show more, in many countries by law. The actual speed is thus lower. Depending on the car und the tires, real 50 can be shown as nearly 60. There are still speeding people, but when driving the real velocity that is actually not so often.
i think they’re alluding to how speedometers are generally made to display a couple units above true speed? but I’m not sure why
Our vehicle inspections (3rd year for new vehicles otherwise every 2 years) in Japan strictly test the speedo, but I guess I don’t know for sure that they aren’t letting it display faster than reality.
What?
Not in Switzerland, hehe.
Yeah a lot of people will be going over the 60 and just get into crazy dangerous speeds when they need to be alert and cautious. My area is 30 and some people are very clearly hitting like 50-60 and it makes me want to chase their cars down but I’d never catch up, cos they’re going so god damned fast. Allowing 60 is going to invite some massive twats to hit 80