alt Hacker NewsThere are highways in the US where drivers regularly go 10-20 over the speed limit, if not more; maintaining the speed limit on a road that's labeled as 45MPH zone, but is treated as a 65, will be dangerous for everyone involved, both the cars approaching the slowpoke at 20+ miles an hour, and the slowpoke itself.
I don't know how Waymo is going to square that circle.
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That's Phoenix, it's here. Waymos commit to nominally keep the speed at the speed limit but it is _extremely noticeable_ that that's the case because literally NO ONE drives 65 on the freeways here. Everyone is at minimum at 74. It's a rite of passage in Arizona. It's not even a speeding ticket until 75. Goes back to the 70s with the feds trying to force speed limit laws or threatening to revoke highway funding. Arizona said "fine, but it's not a speeding ticket. it's 'misuse of a finite resource.'"
So you'll see the Waymos kind of puttering along at 65 as everyone zooms around them. They DO say they'll occasionally exceed speeds when it's safer to do so, but it's obvious they don't want a narrative of them being speed demons and flying around exceeding the speed limit.
> a road that's labeled as 45MPH zone, but is treated as a 65
If this is the case, then the speed limit is too low. To control speed on such a road you either need draconian enforcement or you need to change the road so people aren't comfortable driving that fast. Make the lanes narrower, introduce lane shifts or reduce the number of lanes, etc.
I used to live in a place where this was common -- the issue was not just speed, but a general disregard for traffic law because traffic law was unenforced. You could be going 50 in a 35 and someone would aggressively pass you. At some point, the road is simply occupied by unsafe drivers and there's not much you can do other than hold your line and be as predictable as possible to the aggressive drivers around you.