Road design, safety and Vision Zero

[tomh009]

Would automated enforcement be more effective if it was used in higher speed areas. Maybe...but possibly not. Places with higher speed limits don't need speeding drivers in order to reach lethal speeds. If you're on the 401 it doesn't matter too much if you're going 105 or 115...if you hit an immovable object, you're quite likely to die. Where as in a school zone, at 30km/h most collisions are survivable even for pedestrians (although maybe not for children vs. a 2 tonne pickup truck), so it takes someone who is...for example going over 40km/h to make that collision lethal in the majority of cases.

So on the 401 if everyone is doing the speed limit, we still have deaths, but in a school zone...only people who choose to drive an unnecessarily large vehicle kill people.

I think on the 401 the issue isn't so much the absolute speed but the speed differentials, people who drive 130-140 and weave past people driving 20-30 km/h slower. There the design speed (and modern car safety) would certainly allow a higher speed: maybe people would accept an increased speed limit, maybe 110 or 120 km/h, but with effective camera enforcement?