ABSTRACT
There has been a sea change in the Transportation Engineering world since people introduced traffic calming and other ideas for reducing the omnipresence of automobiles in culture. The very people who are upset that we do not change speed limits are the same people who complain "everybody drives over the speed limit." The Institute of Transportation Engineers reports that "it is important to note that setting speed limits lower than 85th percentile speed does not encourage compliance with the posted speed limit. Speed limit may only be a concept, but it is an item of information that is posted on every major road segment in our country. Setting a speed limit recognizes the reality of the current road configuration and environment. Posting of speed limits below the 85th percentile offers the following risks: enforcement efforts concentrate on a large cohort of reasonable drivers, to the detriment of enforcement of more serious driver misbehaviors.
