Talk:Speed limit/Archive 3

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

85th percentile speed

In the paragraph Effectiveness the 85th percentile speed is defined using a reference from the Institute of Automotive Engineers (IAE). The definition is incorrect as MetroCount reference information quote standards and state: "The speed at or below which 85% of all vehicles are observed to travel under free flowing conditions past a nominated point." [1] I think the definition in the article needs to be reviewed. GGeoff (talk) 12:20, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

Biased

I feel that this article is written from the perspective of disgruntled, anti-speed limit zealots. Can anything be done to shift the tone to informational from sarcastic and borderline hostile? - 74.128.57.230 (talk) 21:51, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

It appears rather to be written from a perspective unwilling to ignore arguments from either side of the speed limit debate, pro or against. Referring to those who are against limits as "zealots" identifies your opinions as biased in the same way referring to those who support limits in the same manner would. 222.153.34.239 (talk) 04:17, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

The "essential physics" section is overly simplstic and misleading. Crash physics are a lot more complicated than just "higher speed = more damage", as is car behaviour approaching such an accident. It makes it seem like speed limits are completely reasonable and effective, especially in tandem with the section relating to reasons against the speed limit being simply named "opposition". It also fails to take into account on how and why speed limits are abused by their enforcers on so many levels. 207.210.29.71 (talk) 17:56, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

See 'Notability of road casualty statistics' section below where I am insisting that the road casualty content that I added some time back is retained in the article.PeterEastern (talk) 23:06, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

I also find that there may be a slight bias from the European community. I honestly doubt anyone in North America would find a red circle on a speed limit sign conventional. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 205.211.157.107 (talk) 01:48, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

The article, as is, appears overall to portray speed as the only factor driving road fatalities. Yet evidence appears that clearly shows an increase in the speed limit can also DECREASE road injuries. I believe the article requires greater emphasise on other factors involved in road fatalities. Speed may a a factor but not the only factor - and the proportion of contribution remains open to debate in most road fatality incidents. Driver or pedestrian error, mechanical fault, driver eyesight, in-car distraction (insect/radio/children) & a whole range of other factors can be involved. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.206.230.82 (talk) 13:49, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

I also found instances of bias throughout the article. For example, "Sometimes, however changing a speed limit has little effect on the average speed of cars", although supported by the source cited, seems to have a biased connotation. I have edited it to "However, research has shown that changes in the speed limit may have little effect on the average speed of vehicles, in certain cases.", which I think carries a more objective tone. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Assumeallama (talk • contribs) 04:39, 14 April 2019 (UTC)

Reorganization

The 'opposition' section seems to be contentious. It appears that there may be a problem regarding inappropriate synthesis (WP:SYN). I don't think anyone doubts that there is opposition to speed limits, but some of the content of that section is unrelated to the formal opposition of speed limits. It may make sense, as has been suggested to me, to move some of the content to pertinent sections such as 'safety and efficacy'. Non-compliance, for example, demonstrates by itself that speed limits are opposed. One source that does mention much formal opposition (my copy is lent out to a friend) is "American Autobahn" by Mark Rask.

This article may need further reorganization, shouldn't variable speed limits go under signage? On a more Machiavelian note, I'd like to see this and similar articles incorporated into projects, in an effort of improvement and cohesion. Perhaps a new project, such as traffic?Synchronism (talk) 06:18, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

Australian Design Rules

This is embedded as an internal link but the page doesn't exist. I was going to fix it but this raises the whole question of the context of this article and it's relationship to the Portal:Law. The name Australian Design Rules has become accepted terminology for the "Motor Vehicle Standards Act 1989" which in its current incarnation includes a series of amendments made up to 2006. This is an Act of the Parliament of Australia see [2] which will take you to the COMLAW website.Celsius100 (talk) 02:54, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

The reason why the name Australian Design Rules has been applied to the regulations made under the Motor Vehicles Standards Act 1989 (notably not the act itself) is because they had been called the Australian Design Rules ever since the first edition, which were a non-binding set of proposed rules back in about 1968, then the 2nd edition ADRs, which applied from around 1971 but were legislated in each state or territory separately (eg August 1972 is the official commencement date in NSW). The 3rd edition ADRs commenced in July 1988. The non-legislated "rules" were finally withdrawn and replaced with legislated instruments made under the act in 2005, and those regulations have the title "Australian Design Rule" followed by the rule number and a description of its function. For example, "Vehicle Standard (Australian Design Rule 1/00 Reversing Lamps) 2005". Aside from this article containing reference to versions of ADR 18 (in relation to calibration limits for speedometers), I don't see relevance to this article. Also, the Law Portal link above doesn't work and I've no idea where you intended it to go. --Athol Mullen (talk) 12:08, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps the Law Portal link will work now, that may have been a mis-keying by myself. This is not meant to be contentious and I have no issue with the use of the name Australian Design Rules; at the time I put this little note here there was no Australian Design Rules article despite the link and there was concurrent discussion in various Australian published journals about the apparent inconsistencies caused by the application of the Australian Design Rules for the calibration limits of speedometers and the codified State laws for penalties relating to exceeding gazetted or marked speed limits. In some States, the laws or regulations allow one to be penalised for exceeding speed limits, (when measured by electronic speed cameras and other detection devices) even if the speed is in the tolerance band of error permitted by the ADRs. In essence, while the driver cannot necessarily detect the fact that the specified limit has been exceeded (via the in-car speedometer) the precision of the detection device allows for an accurate, instantaneous assessment of the speed and the issuing of a penalty notice. This is not the only case where State Laws and Commonwealth Legislation produce a mismatch and I am not asserting that it is even a major one, however from my reading of the comments raised in the articles it would seem that it results in much scepticisim by some members of the driving populace about the validity of such penalties, but perhaps more significantly, doubt about the validity of the underlying laws, both State and Commonwealth. These State laws & regulations are commonly dismissed as "revenue raising" with little to do with the observable outcomes of exceeding the signed speed limit. The relevance is that people increasingly rely on Wikipedia as a reference source of information for many things, the obvious next step after a search engine, it seems therefore, that it should have the references that explain how to get from the name "Australian Design Rules" to the underlying legislation so the actual words can be read. Celsius100 (talk) 05:10, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

South Dakota has a border with Canada?

In "Units of measure" section, clumsy wording could be taken to imply all these states have borders with Canada. Or does it just mean Vermont? Last time I looked South Dakota was separated from Canada by, er, North Dakota. I'd suggest at worst saying Vermont (especially near), Ohio... etc. etc if that is what is meant. It's not as if it's in alphabetical or west-eas order or anything: even west-east this would nicely bracket Vermont and thus make clear the parens apply only to that state, assuming that is what's meant. SimonTrew (talk) 18:18, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Ridiculously sourced

I think the number one reason for this articles bias is the sources. Kudos to the original writer for actually reading up a bit, but (s)he really should have looked beyond results found on the first page of a google search.

80% of the sources of information in this article come from government sources like various Departments of Transportation. Need I say that its these very departments that are the reason we have speed limits (these guys are the ones who set them). Any information possibly cited from them is bound to be ridiculously biased. (This could be equated to quoting PETA with regards to meat in a nutritional article) I do not think they should be quoted in any sort of way that suggest factual accuracy.

I can see only two reasonable exceptions:
Quoting statements from them (that do not deal with matters of fact)
-and-
Citing DoT funded studies, as opposed to just pulling something off the Dot website that says "Don't speed, you'll cause accidents". You have to remember that these guys are paid to say that.

I also believe the paper named "Synthesis of Safety Research Related to Speed and Speed Limits" was misquoted as saying that higher speeds result in more accidents, when the article says nothing remotely similar. The article does state that higher deviances from mean speed can result in more accidents, which can misconstrued similarly to mean slower speeds cause more accidents. Furthermore, studies to cite should be chosen with more care, as this paper is written more as a persuasive essay than a factual conclusion to a well founded study. Not to mention it is nothing but a conglomerate of the results of many other studies that the author appeared to pick favorable bits from. I think the actual studies themselves should be used to write this article.

Another note, notice how you wont find the actual studies on the government website, just the opinion 'synthesized' from them. At least it cited its sources. /sarcasm

My vote: I think this article should be rewritten with reliable sources. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.205.10.206 (talk) 00:49, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Wikispeedia

I would like to see wiki-speedia.org added somehow. We have been around for almost 5 years with a big list of actual speed limits from drivers. Since the advent of the iPhone, there has been quite a lot of interest in these data. Its good for research, and to avoid tickets. Q: How should it be presented? wikiSpeedia --Cellurl (talk) 21:50, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

I really think the answer to this one is "Not at all". The purpose of putting the link in the article seems to be to be promoting the service, rather than assisting the readers of the article. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 17:56, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

I don't know, as far as a resource allowing one to look at various speed limits around the world it seems good. Any camera locations noted? Nevard (talk) 11:11, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

No cameras, just speed limits. Perhaps I could make some speed limit png files for researchers. Heres a quick stab at one. memphis --Cellurl (talk) 00:28, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

It is promoting an orgnasiation, see WP:ORG. And it must be removed for that reason. SimonTrew (talk) 00:52, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

This is not a service. Its free as in beer.--Cellurl (talk) 15:55, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

Notability of road casualty statistics

I have just reverted changes which removed all virtually all references to road casualties and from the article citing WP:OR. Does one really need a citation in the lead to confirm that speed is related to road deaths and injuries? I have also reinstated the para in the lead about vehicle design and road design as this also seems to be self-evidently related to acceptable speed limits. Please discuss here before removing content again.PeterEastern (talk) 22:27, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

• It would be better to add it to the main article body than to the lede. --John (talk) 22:43, 30 March 2010 (UTC)
• If you think that information is relevent then add it to the body of the article and if significant enough, summarise it in the lead. Of course reliable references are required - that is Wiki policy. Remember too that this article is about speed limits, not necessarily speed per se. -- de Facto (talk). 22:49, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

• You also removed cited content from the main article. Please improve the article by all means, but don't just delete stuff. Please leave the lead alone for now until we agree how to integrate casualty content into the main article then make the change to the lead. PeterEastern (talk) 22:56, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

• There was no rationale given for the inclusion of the comparison between the GB road casualty figures for 1966 and for 2008 in this article about speed limits. The lead should only be a summary of what's already legitimately in the rest of the article - add it first to the main body, then summarise any significant stuff in the lead. -- de Facto (talk). 09:27, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

• I have included one line in the section on the history of speed limits in the UK showing the decline in road fatalities from their maximum in 1966 to 2008 which has been dramatic. Why is that not notable when the World Health Organisation say speed limits as very significant in reducing road deaths? I will add a direct citation showing the relationship in the UK between the imposition of speed limits and the desire to reduce road casualties in the next 48 hours. PeterEastern (talk) 09:40, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

• Are you suggesting that there is a causal link? Are you suggesting that all, or even any of the casualty reduction since 1966 been as a result of the introduction of a national speed limit in 1965? And without any supporting references - just based on your personal synthesis? -- de Facto (talk). 09:56, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

• As I said above I will create content in the main article that covers the WHO report in the main article in the next 48 hours.PeterEastern (talk) 09:40, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

• The 'Intervention chapter' of the World Health Organisation's report on road injuries that I cite in the lead makes it very clear that speed limits are highly relevant to the levels of road casualties. I will add appropriate references to the article and build content into the main article over the next 48 hours, but I can't do this against a background of content being deleted.PeterEastern (talk) 23:04, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

• The WHO opinions should only be included so long as they are described as such - and not asserted as fact - and then only in the main body. There are other valid opinions about the effect of speed limits which should also be added for balance to any such discussion. There is also research which suggests that speed limits alone are of little value, and that other methods of speed management are actually effective and efficient (they reduce traffic speeds without expensive enforcement activity) without the need for speed limits. This could then be sumarised in the lead along the lines of "there are conflicting opinions as to the road safety benefit of speed limits and there are other more effective measures for reducing traffic speeds". -- de Facto (talk). 09:43, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

• I agreed with your proposal even though I don't agree that 'speed limits alone are of little value' but I respect your point of view and I respect your request for balance. I will see if I can satisfy everyone, if not then please adjust it to improve the balance when I am done. PeterEastern (talk) 09:52, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

I have reinstated the UK road casualty content twice today and also removed what I consider to be a spurious OR tag. I have added further text to the article to back up the notability of this beyond what I consider should be necessary. Possibly others would like to provide there perspective on this. PeterEastern (talk) 14:02, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

• A further comment. I do not say that the drop in fatalities is 100% due to the introduction of speed limits. I do however put the facts next to each other which implies some relationship which I think is appropriate. PeterEastern (talk) 14:12, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

• That is OR. See WP:OR. You are asserting, by associating the data, that there is some relationship. You must provide a reliable reference as to whose opinion that is; for it to be valid content. You might have a point (but still an OR one) if the speed limit had been reduced each year, but to suggest that a couple of speed limit changes decades ago is some how relevant to recent drops in casualty figures is, in my opinion, ludicrous. Find a notable proponent of that view with a reliable reference - or that implied association does need to removed from the article. -- de Facto (talk). 10:07, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

I note that the correlation between the fatality rate and vehicles exceeding the speed limit or travelling too fast for the conditions has been removed again by this edit. I see no reason for not including the fatality rate in this section, especially when the same editor introduced a correlation between a speed limit and fatalities during WW2 by these two edits. I would however note that in the first case it offers an argument for speed limits and the later is provided as an argument that there isn't one (ie introduction of lower speed limit = higher mortality rate in two reported monthly figures for 1940). PeterEastern (talk) 09:42, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

• The bit that I removed, in the absence of a supporting reference to support its association, was the bit that implied that an accident for which 'driving too fast for conditions' was considered to be a contributory factor had any relevance in an article about speed limits. That contributory factor explicitly in its definition excludes all accidents in which a vehicle was exceeding the speed limit. Accidents caused by the driver going too fast on ice or too fast for a bend (but, by definition, within the prevailing speed limit) are no more relevant in an article on speed limits than, say, accidents caused by a wheel falling off or caused by a hole opening up in the road. To suggest otherwise needs a reference to in whose opinion it is relevant. See WP:OR.
• My edits that you cite are supported by contemporary reliable accounts that linked the statistics to the new speed limit. That is why they are valid and not OR.
• Peter, with all due respect, there is a recurring theme here (and it's not the one that you mischievously suggest); have you actually ever read (and understood) the Wiki WP:OR policy?
• -- de Facto (talk). 10:28, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

• Yes I have read the OR policy and yes I do understand it. PeterEastern (talk) 11:15, 9 April 2010 (UTC)
• I would be interested in your comments on the findings on page 26 (table 10 and table 11) of the Review and Analysis of Posted Speed Limits and Speed Limit Setting Practices in British Columbia which seems to show a considerable correlation between increasing speed limits and increasing fatalities and also the converse (reducing speed limits leading to reduced fatalities). Do you think that is would it be appropriate to include these findings in the article and is that the sort of evidence you are looking for? PeterEastern (talk) 11:15, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

• Yes, that report looks like a reliable source of notable opinion. Their finding, based on a review of several research studies from elsewhere is summarised: "The majority of motorists drive at a speed they consider reasonable, and safe for road, traffic, and environmental conditions. Posted limits which are set higher or lower than dictated by roadway and traffic conditions are ignored by the majority of motorists." Or to put it another way: speed limits generally have no effecdt on the speed choice of motorists. -- de Facto (talk). 11:47, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

• Needless to say, my reading of the report was somewhat different. I have added a summary of tables 10 and 11 to the article which seem to show that in general (but not in every case) increasing the speed limit increased fatalities and crashes and decreasing speed limits resulted in lower figures. Anyway, I think the added information should satisfy any reasonable remaining concerns regarding OR.PeterEastern (talk) 12:47, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

• It's not your (or my) 'reading of it' that I'm talking about (and you shouldn't be either) it's the author's summary that I was discussing. Your interpretation is your opinion - OR. The author's summary of the current position, which I quoted above, is a notable opinion verifiable from a reliable source - and the one that we should include in the article. Do you see the difference? We can work on the paragraph to reflect that. -- de Facto (talk). 13:54, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

• I am not sure which para you are referring to so why don't you add it - you know I will adjust it if I disagree ;) One phrase from the Exec summary which I think is important is this one "Speed limits are primarily set for safety reasons, i.e., to reach a balance between travel time and crash risk, and to provide a basis for enforcement of inappropriate speeding behavior. Maximum speed limits enhance safety by placing an upper limit on speed choice, and reduce the differences in vehicle speeds by drivers using the same road at the same time." That seems to summarise the compromise nicely and justifies speed limits being set somewhere, possibly at the 85% mark.PeterEastern (talk) 15:14, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

• On a separate note, could I ask for your help sourcing sorting references for the many remaining uncited claims in this article? PeterEastern (talk) 11:15, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

• Of course; I will help in every way that I can :-) -- de Facto (talk). 14:11, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

References

This article generally seems to be low on references. I am working through the article doing the following:

• Removing references that are not in English and which do not have English translations as per WP:NONENG and replacing the comments with 'fact' tags
• Adding fact tags to claims which could reasonably be expected to be referenced.
• Using a 'Notes/References' format for sources where there are likely to be multiple references to different parts of a long document. Unfortunately the 'Synthesis of Safety Research Related to Speed and Speed Limits' report only appears to be available online in either a summary form as a pdf or as a series of poorly formed html pages (one for each chapter?) for the main report which will make the references less clear and simple. I will be going through the report in some detail and improving the references to it and pull out other relevant content.

Can people go through and find references for some of the many un-cited claims? - I guess any un-cited content will eventually need to be removed. PeterEastern (talk) 09:31, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

• I have reviewed more sections of the article checking the references and checking for references. The level of referencing again very poor. I have removed a few other non-english references and one very weak self-published source. I could have just put a banner at the top of the article, but individual fact tags makes it easier for others to see what needs to be done. PeterEastern (talk) 05:23, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Thanks to contributors

Someone will no doubt tell me this is not what talk pages are for, but I should like to say thank-you to (in no particular order) Peter Eastern and De Facto for amicably discussing the article and improving it. I have it on my watchlist but have not been very busy on Wikipedia lately. I just wanted to say, it is nice to see it being sorted out by two committed, intelligent contributors, and thank you both, a great example to Wikipedia.

I could of course say so on each of your user talk pages, but I wanted to say so here, "in public".

Si Trew (talk) 18:50, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

What studies should be reported in an encyclopedia

I've removed two studies listed as covering effects of speed limits. The first concerned driving speeds and showed that deviating far from the speed limit caused crashes. The second was an experimental study of 24 subjects under simulation conditions. These suffer from two big problems (i) They aren't studies of speed limits, so the implied inferences constitute WP:SYNTH or WP:OR (ii) They are individual primary sources - we should be using secondary sources. If we don't do this, and particularly if we use studies that are quoted on websites and blogs advocating a particular position, violations of WP:WEIGHT are virtually inevitable. This is a problem with almost any issue where science and policy intersect.JQ (talk) 10:17, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

• As you may have noticed I have done a lot of work on the article in the past few days which I hope has been helpful. I have checked many of the references in the process and removed loads of ones that either appeared to be long-term dead, were of dubious merit, were not in English, were 'self-published' or didn't support the claim being made. In some cases I have made it clearer who is making the claim (and therefore their angle). I have also reworked the references which cite long reports in a better way when there are multiple references to the same report. I am sure that we are not going to be able to get an article to be perfectly balanced but I hope you feel that it is getting better. Are there any reports that obviously stick our to you as being problematic which we could discuss or indeed others that should be added? PeterEastern (talk) 12:43, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

• I think your edits have been very helpful. A lot of Wikipedia articles on topics involving public policy (smoking is another example) have the problems you identify - cites to dubious sources with an axe to grind. I think you've caught most of them. Seat belt laws has very similar problems. (comment by JQ)

• Thanks for the feedback. A year ago I was giving these articles a wide berth because it seemed impossible to deal with the issues. A year later I think we are better at it and the project has matured considerably. The ability to create multiple reference into the same key documents by page with quotes seems to be important and I for one only learnt to do that effectively a few weeks ago. I suggest that we have another edit pass through this article in a week or so and either find references for the remaining uncited statements or pull the claim out because I think it is good to try to shorten some of these down - people generally seem to want a quick intro with some juicy references for further reading as far as I can see. I am planning to have a go at Road traffic safety next and see how that goes. PeterEastern (talk) 04:55, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

POV presentation of obvious, non-controversial facts

Under Safety, we have "Roads with high speed limits can be safer than slower roads; motorways have higher design standards and restrict access by slower, and more vulnerable road users."

I suggest that this is presented with an obvious POV in favour of higher speed limits. The reality is that roads with higher design standards are safer. Quite obvious and unarguable really. And where we have better roads we have higher speed limits. Also quite obvious. That whole sentence is demonstrating nothing more than what is already obvious to all, just with a pro-higher speed limit bias. The sentence, or even the whole paragraph, should be removed. HiLo48 (talk) 12:05, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

It may seem "obvious" to those who've seen highway safety statistics and understand the various efficacies of the E's (engineering, enforcement, and so). However, it is not at all obvious to those who have only heard "speed kills". 15:05, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

You can't really be serious. Please find a source that tells me that there is somebody out there who thinks that the quality of a road makes no difference to the speed limit that can be and is applied to it. HiLo48 (talk) 21:30, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

"You can't really be serious." Are you? Where in Wikipedia are those "obvious, non-controversial facts" documented (outside of the edits I introduce)? That's rhetorical: I added the "obvious, non-controversial" fact here. How else would a young reader have known that motorways only account for 6% of British traffic deaths? Duke Ganote (talk) 22:14, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

I rewrote that sentence for a more NPOV presentation of the facts. The previous para was an unsalvageable mess of anti-speed limit advocacy, mixing WP:WEASEL, WP:OR, WP:SYNTH and WP:NPOV violations. I deleted it.JQ (talk) 01:11, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

Yes. Much better. Thanks. HiLo48 (talk) 02:12, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

Who can not be serious? I put "there's no such thing as a dangerous road" into Google and got over 46 MILLION hits. Most of the ones on the first page went on to "explain" ....only dangerous drivers! And what, exactly, do people think that "Speed Kills" is meant to imply? It's definately NOT meant to imply "Inappropriate Speed Kills", as that's the "zealots" counter argument which is ridiculed by the "Speed Kills!" lobby whose basic premise is the higher the speed, the more lethal the accident (regardless of the road)!

Of course, if you want to argue that there's more to safety than speed then you will have to plunb the depths of the zealots debates and consider aspects like which is more dangerous, "glancing" down at your speedo for a "split second" (and hitting a child that's run out while you're blind at 29mph) or driving at 31mph and avoiding them altogether. Once you start down that slippery slope you end up in the realms of which is worse, being 1 over the 8 for a few minutes one night and being banned for a year, or driving an MOT failure for a year and getting slapped on the wrist for a few seconds?!?!?!

And don't get me started on "Speed Kills" on the roads but the people who argue that want higher and higher speeds on the rail roads: train drivers kill pedestrians at a rate a thousand times higher than road drivers (and as I understand it the rail companies have mapped where they are most likely to do it, but do they slow down?!).

86.3.102.152 (talk) 00:26, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

Mr B J Mann

POV in the lead

I have just removed (again) a paragraph of apparent WP:OR, based on WHO data, from the lead. The lead should be an introduction to, and a summary of, the article - see WP:LEAD. It is not a place to put a original research, controversial constructions or personal point of view about the subject of the article. The justifications for speed limits (which are diverse and varied) should be discussed in the appropriate section, and then a neutral summary of that discussion may added to the lead. The WHO figures for worldwide road casualties may be one of the reasons that they may promote the use of speed limits, but that does not outweigh views and opinions from other sources. If that is the view of the WHO, then it could justifiably be added to the appropriate section, duly referenced, but it should certainly not be added, especially as a self-constructed (non-attributed and unsupported by reliable references) association of speed limits with road casualties, directly to the lead. -- de Facto (talk). 19:34, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

• Defacto:

• I have recently battled with you on overspill parking which is now has a talk page that is an impressive 4 times longer than the article. It was only the intervention of a passing 3rd party that appears to have allowed the article to come to some sort of balance. I note that you also introduced the phrase 'for political reasons' there on a number of occasions to explain the introduction of parking restrictions. If people wish so understand where you are coming from in general I suggest they glance at the history and the talk page.
• I notice that you have also had a bit of an epic battle with someone else over Motor vehicle emissions in the past two weeks in a manner that doesn't seem to have achieved as much as could have been expected. Again I think it will be instructive for people to check out the history and the talk page.
• You have also made recent edits to a number of articles I have created/edited recently including Motor Car Act 1903, Locomotives on Highways Act 1896 mainly deleting content related to casualty rates. Earlier you removed all details of casualties I added to Reported Road Casualties Great Britain[3] citing WP:OR and WP:NPOV. Some time earlier you added the phrase 'and is also opposed by a public transport industry funded anti-car pressure group' to describe the Campaign for Better Transport in the Norwich Northern Distributor Road article[4] (which seems to betray just a touch of POV).
• I note that you haven't added any references to the article as per my request on this talk page on the 9th April to which you responded favorably at the time.
• I note that you have edited Wikipedia almost every day for the past 3 weeks (mainly countering me and one other person)[5] but have not made edits to Speed limit as the article has evolved since the 9th April until today when you make major changes which seem to have a strong POV to my reading.
• Personally I would prefer the article to be reverted to the past edit before your most recent intervention which removed big chunks of content which seemed to have been well received by others.
• However, I propose to take a break from this article now for a number of days to allow others to express their views by making edits.

--PeterEastern (talk) 21:44, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

Peter, I think that most of what you write above says more about the stuff that you've added than about the stuff I've added. You seem to prefer to attempt to belittle my contributions than to address the POV issues that I raise. Do you not think that there are good reasons for me removing details of accidents in 2008 from an article about 100-year old, and long expired, traffic acts? You seem intent to add your personal synthesis of GB road casulty trends, and other things, into as many articles as possible. Not only is it not valid in those articles, it, as your OR, is not valid content for any article (see WP:OR). The fact that I have tackled POV issues in other articles too suggests that NPOV is my motivation, and nothing else. The articles that I have visited are certainly better balanced now than they were before. Much reguatory action, particularly that aimed at motorists, is undeniably politically motivated - so the fact should not be excluded from articles. In the case of the subject of this article, speed limits are undoubtedly being set by politicians, not based on incontrovertible evidence that they will reduce accidents (perhaps because there isn't any), but based on spurious political dictates and on demands from vociferous minorities of residents (to boost their poll chances perhaps). Why do you want to attempt to suppress that from appearing in the article?

Now please explain why you think that your interpretation/synthesis of WHO data on road casualties should sit in the lead of this article. -- de Facto (talk). 22:17, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

DeFacto - YOU may think that certain decisions related to speed limits (THIS article) are political, but by definition, that is YOUR Point Of View. The only way the claim that decisions are political can be added to the article is if you can find a reliable external source where someone else says so, and even then, it's probably only safe to say that "X claims that yyyyy decisions are political". What YOU think has no place in Wikipedia. I haven't looked at the other article were you and PeterEastern are in dispute, but the same Wikipedia rules apply there. HiLo48 (talk) 23:15, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

All policy decisions are ultimately political; that's what "political" means. That's so obvious as not to need mentioning in any Wikipedia article. On the other hand, the POV opposition between "political" and "based on scientific research" suggested by DeFacto is inadmissible WP:OR. WHO is an ideal example of a WP:RS for a lead: the opinions of individual critics of speed limits are not.JQ (talk) 23:43, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

Attempting to fix the POV edits on a one-by-one basis has proved hopeless. I've reverted to Peter Eastern's last edit, as he suggested. We can start again from there. For the moment, let's stick to changes that directly reflect the views of reliable sources such as WHO and national road safety authorities, avoiding WP:SYNTH and WP:OR.JQ (talk) 06:00, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

• Thanks JQ. One comment about DeFacto's angle. He seems to be putting undue weight on the phrase 'A speed limit is based on both safety and mobility considerations and increasingly also on environmental considerations.'[6] for his justification to rename the section titled 'Safety'. I would just note that there is a separate 'Environmental considerations' section already and just because it is 'increasingly important' does not mean that it is a major or dominant issue - it certainly isn't one in the UK yet even if it has moved from being a 'non-issue' to being an issue. I note that DeFacto does not quote the 'ethical' issue covered by the same reference which said Some administrations [61] are now proposing that the "balance" between safety and mobility should be judged from a more ethical standpoint. This requires that an upper limit is put on the injury risk that could occur on the road (e.g. virtually eliminating the chance of a fatality occurring). The speed limit and the design of the road infrastructure would then be matched to ensure that the injury risk was not exceeded. That view is articulated in Vision Zero which you will see is getting interest from the UK and is a huge shift away from the earlier view that 'accident's happen'. Personally I have been coming to the conclusion over the past two weeks that DeFacto should be asked not to work on articles that are critical of motorcars or motorists given that he seems unable to see the issue in the round and creates a condition where editors spend more and more time justifying and reworking 'anti-motorist' (to use DeFacto's phrase) content rather than developing the article; the only alternative being to watch their work being 'trashed' (my phrase). It is also my experience that DeFacto spends more time removing content from articles than adding it or doing general 'improvement work' on article, also that he rarely finds new references unless they suit a 'pro-motorist' POV. His use of Wikipedia policies is seems partisan in that he only responds to some classes of issue within articles relevant to his POV. Personally I was very encouraged by the 2 week breather from his attentions during which time various people were able to make a big transformation on this article and I hope we can retain the good work and deal with the situation appropriately. I am not saying that DeFacto's contributions are always negative, he does a lot of work on articles about makes of car in particular and I am not in a position to comment on his edits to those article. PeterEastern (talk) 08:11, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

Please do not characterise an anti-anti-car stance as a biased stance, and the removal of unacceptable and un-reliably-sourced content as "trashing", and please don't sink to the level of personal smears as an attempt to discredit my contributions. This should be a discussion about the article content, not about the personalities involved. Stick to the substance. -- de Facto (talk). 09:03, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

Article damage

In this edit User:John Quiggin has unjustifiably undone several valid edits and restored some unacceptable content. The reason appears to be a stubborn insistance that one of my previous edits removing OR could not be tolerated. I will attempt to restore the article to its latest valid state. -- de Facto (talk). 07:22, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

• You are being confrontational. There has been a discussion about this up above. I have been part of it. I too disagreed with what you have now re-added to the article. Please join that conversation and stop acting unilaterally. HiLo48 (talk) 07:31, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

• Agreed. I am not editing the article for a few days to avoid any suggestion that the issue is personal, however I fully support (and indeed proposed) the rollback. See above for further discussion of the issue. PeterEastern (talk) 07:37, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

Please supply a reliable secondary source supporting the content linking WHO data and road safety with speed limits and I'll add the content myself to the appropriate section. As it is, unsupported, the association is your personal OR. -- de Facto (talk). 07:54, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

• I have clearly stated elsewhere that I am not editing the article for a few days to allow others to resolve this issue without suggestions that it is 'personal'. My conclusions from our discussions on overspill parking however are that the your version of 'reality' / 'POV' and mine are too different to resolve hence by recommendation for you to requested to not do further work on road-safety related articles.PeterEastern (talk) 08:31, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

• I'm not asking you to edit it, just to supply a reliable secondary reference supporting the content with respect to the association of the WHO data, road safety and speed limits that you seem to believe belongs, not in the article body, but in the lead itself. Or isn't there one, and it is just your own OR? You may wish that all your POV could be added without challenge, but thankfully that is not how Wikipedia works. It is open to all, including those with views other than yours - the benfit of that will be plain to those who care to look at the difference in the overspill parking since I got involved with it. -- de Facto (talk). 08:54, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

HiLo48, you are right we need to discuss this further. However, unsupported (and challenged) content should remain excluded until its inclusion is supported - not vice-versa. -- de Facto (talk). 07:59, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

Road traffic safety section

I have re-integrated the safety related content from the 'Safety and travel time' and 'Effectiveness' sections in a section call ed 'Road traffic safety'. On investigation of the 'Effectiveness' section the text that said that speed limits were ineffective (a question in 2003 in the UK House of Commons about the effect on the level of road accidents of 20 miles per hour (32 km/h) speed limits ... found that the speed limits alone had had no effect on crash rates and that travel speeds had reduced following their introduction by an average of only 1 mile per hour (1.6 km/h)) turned out to actually say that when combined with traffic calming speeds fell by 10mph and that the level of pedestrian casualties was reduced by 76%; the clear message being that changes to the physical road arrangement were also required which is now reflected in the article. I have removed the 'Effectiveness' section as it didn't really seem to have a role once all the safety related content had been removed.PeterEastern (talk) 13:55, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

A very convincing justification indeed for why we do need an 'Effectiveness' section. It is precisely because of the ineffectiveness of speed limits alone (the 20 mph limits talked about in Hansard had virtually no effect at all on traffic speeds) that other measures have to be used (traffic calming in the Hansard example). This article is about speed limits, not traffic calming, and we need to be honest about their effectiveness and not mislead the readers into believing that speed limits themselves generally have any real effect on traffic speeds, and thus on road safety. -- de Facto (talk). 14:26, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

• Can I suggest we wait for some other comments before performing further 'surgery' on the article, personally I think the article makes a lot more sense with at least a clear pointer to the main articles about physical measures to both accommodate high speed traffic and enforce slower speeds. Blindly saying that speed limits 'don't work' when there is a perfectly established way to make them work seems rather unsatisfactory to me (even more so when the method is detailed in the reference).PeterEastern (talk) 16:08, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

• They do not work - full stop. Traffic calming works without them - for the same physical measures you get the same results regardless of any speed limit in force. You (and certain other contributors) seem intent on pushing the POV that speed limits have some positive effect or use on their own, and suppressing the fact that actually they do not - why? -- de Facto (talk). 16:29, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

• The 2003 British Columbia report (detailed at the end of the 'Road traffic safety' section) gives many examples where speed limits were increased and crashes increased and where speed limits were decreased and crashes decreased, seems convincing to me! Generally however the question is about whether the article's scope is strictly 'legislated Speed limits' or more broadly on 'the limiting of vehicle speed' with a focus on legislated speed limits but also covering traffic calming and also Speed limiters in passing.PeterEastern (talk) 16:54, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

• The article is called 'Speed limit', which is generally accepted to be a number on a sign, it certainly excludes the methods implemented to limit traffic speeds that you list. An umbrella article titled something like "Controlling road traffic speeds", or similar could summarise all of the significant techniques in use and have 'main article' links to their individual articles. It wouldn't be practicle to roll them, and their issues, into one article. I'd certainly participate in the creation of that umbrella article. -- de Facto (talk). 20:53, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

• I haven't had time to find/read all the reports that the British Columbia report draws from, so I don't know the circumstances that led to the claimed effects, or their significance. I know from UK experience that many claim 20 mph zones as a triumph of the power of the speed limit, but we now know better don't we ;-) -- de Facto (talk). 21:03, 26 April 2010 (UTC)