Quote:
Originally Posted by Kracken
So the question is: What is an appropriate limit?
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Why I'm so glad you asked.
It can be debated as to whether a SL is needed or not, and if implemented whether it'll do any good. For the moment I'll leave these questions aside and presume that there's a SL (or 2, day, night). I don't see why the general philosphy that's supposed to be used to set road limits isn't applicable here. That is you set a SL so that the reasonably cautious driver is neither unduly slowed nor going so fast as to pose a danger to others on the roadway. The assumption is that the road conditions are good. Breaking this down just a bit it means we don't have a SL set artificially low because that's the speed a 1 eyed, drunk centenarian with narcolepsy can handle safely. Neither do you set a SL so high it takes the skillz that only a M Schumacher posesses to run safely at that speed. Lastly the law demands that the driver recognize when road conditions are less than optimal and adjust his speed accordingly. We don't see the posted speed limit to a speed that's safe for an ice covered roadway in the middle of a blizzard and demand people follow that in the middle of a summer day.
I do believe humans have limitations. Some people are more limited than others. I don't think it's proper to let the bottom feeders set the SL to an artificially low number. I don't think the SL should be set so high than anyone else more limited than M Shumachers boating equivalent (which is all of us), running at the SL, is in danger of mowing down innocent boaters.
The complaint I hear is that people are afraid of getting run over by the "fast" boater. OK, I can understand that and at some high speed I can see the scenario wherein an innocent kayaker sitting in his craft, lying in the path of said boat, gets run over because the boater simply didn't see the kayak in time to avoid the run over. So let's use that as a simple test case. Seems to me that the variables are pretty limited. You have the distance at which we can reasonably expect the kayak to be seen, the perception and reaction time of the driver and the dynamics of the boat wrt to turning and stopping. We can debate the numbers to be input but if we can agree that this simple test case must be satisfied then a step has been taken to move the setting of a SL from having it's basis in emotion and conjecture to having it's basis in science and engineering.
Oh wait, you wanted the number ?
We'll I do have mine, having done the math, but I'd rather lead the horse to water than pour it down his gullet. There's a lot less whining from the horse this way.