Driving at a safe speed will help your teen maintain control of the vehicle, but it’s not always obvious what exactly a safe speed is. The road conditions, surrounding traffic, and even the condition of the vehicle can affect the right speed for your teen, not to mention the posted speed limit. Use these tips to help your new driver learn to gauge the correct speed for the conditions. Understand Speed LimitsSpeeding is an enormous problem on our roads, one that makes every driver mistake more dangerous. Speed limits are meant to protect road users by keeping traffic to a safe speed for the conditions, but many drivers exceed them. Teach your teen to regularly check for changes in the speed limit and to stay under them, no matter what the surrounding traffic is doing. Speed limits may change quickly in construction zones or near certain structures, such as schools and hospitals, so make sure your teen knows to take these changes seriously. Judge Speed for the ConditionsBeyond speed limits, your teen must learn to adjust his or speed based on the surrounding conditions. Rain and snow can make steering and stopping much more difficult, so your teen should drive much slower than the posted speed limit in these situations. The same goes for times of limited visibility, such as driving at night, in the fog or on curvy roads. On busy roads, your teen should also drive at a speed that leaves enough distance between his or her vehicle and the vehicle ahead to account for sudden stops. Finally, your teen should judge the right speed for the vehicle. In a newer vehicle, your teen might not realize how fast he or she is going, so encourage your teen to always keep an eye on the speedometer. Practice: During driving lessons, watch your teen’s speed and regularly ask him or her to name the posted speed limit. This will help your teen get in the habit of focusing on speed and making corrections as it changes. You can also practice accelerating from a stop to help your new driver get a sense of how long it takes to reach certain speeds, as well as how long it takes to safely brake and come to a complete stop.
Speed limits are chosen through a mixture of science, practicality and public expectation. Speed limits are frequently not a good indication of a safe speed on a particular stretch of road, so drivers still need skill to negotiate their way. Recommended speed limits are negotiated and set by territory, e.g. VicRoads has a different set of criteria than Queensland’s Department of Transport and Main Roads which uses part 4 of the Manual of Uniform Traffic Control Devices. A default urban and open road speed limit is always established. This is 50km/h and 100km/h respectively. These limits are legally enforceable without road signs, which avoids the need for excessive signage. Speed zones are applied to discrete sections of road where the limit can be varied and signposted, or a limit might be variable based on electronic signage that responds to weather conditions. Note: these are different from advisory or suggested speed limits which are for one corner or set of corners. If we take Queensland as an example, they set a standard procedure for establishing speed limits which involves engineers, a person who approves the implementation of any recommendations from a speed limit review (a ‘responsible officer’), a speed management committee and a speed limit review panel. The speed limit review process looks at a road, determines whether a consistent speed limit is applicable due to it being relatively unchanging through its length and, if not, breaking it into homogenous segments which can be evaluated separately. There are minimum lengths for speed zones to avoid confusion among drivers and to reduce the number of signs. For example, a school zone has an absolute minimum length of 0.2km long while a 100km/h limit is a minimum of 2km long. Speed limits of 50km/h, 60km/h and 110km/h. A process is followed when identifying the need for a speed limit review: Criteria-based speed limits work through a set of questions to determine base risks, e.g. is the speed zone a shared zone or is it unsealed? A risk-assessed speed limit is based on crash risk, infrastructure risk, environment (e.g. urban, semi-urban or rural) and road function (e.g. local street, collector street, trunk collector road, sub-arterial road or motorway). Suggested speed limits are based on a matrix of the above risks. Speeds will also be evaluated along with data of the mean speed drivers already are using for that street to determine whether they are appropriate. While the process is quite scientific, there is room for variation and there are many factors that could contribute to the final decision, which we’ll look at now: Accident rate: if a road has a high accident rate due to speeding, the speed limit may be reduced and traffic calming measures introduced pending other plans to reduce the risk. This might not decrease the overall number of accidents, but the basic laws of physics say that it will most likely reduce the severity. Fuel economy: while not an explicit choice in individual road speed zones, speed limits have been used in the past to reduce fuel usage. Vehicle manufacturers tend to optimise their vehicles to get the best fuel economy at around 80km/h. Road characteristics: along with the width and road surface, the sharpness of the bends and the number of driveways and adjoining roads will affect the safety of road users. Road construction: as faster traffic means more wear and tear on the road, local authorities could reduce the speed limit to reduce maintenance costs. Road user type: if the road has a heavy cycle presence, is near a school, has a high number of slow agricultural vehicles or has a large number of pedestrians, the limit may be reduced. Noise: higher speeds mean more noise. Residents can exert pressure on local government to have speed limits reviewed based on whether the noise produced is a nuisance. Driver and vehicle ability: overall speed limits are set based on the abilities of the average driver and the average vehicle. It’s not unusual for a reaction time to be two seconds, by which a vehicle travelling at 100km/h has covered 55m. Heavy vehicles can take a long distance to stop when the road surface is wet. Pedestrians need to be able to judge the approach speed of other vehicles. SUDHIR SURI
Before driving I consider the following factors Condition of road ,To assess the breaking distance.Slower speed for wet surface. Then I consider the signage(illumination level) on road and my reaction time to see the signage. Conditions of car tyres .Older the car tyres lower the speed. Any other suggestions to make me wiser. My dad once told me to determine my speed based on the flow of traffic. I understand what he meant, but my curiosity remains. How do you know how fast to drive? Wow—it seems like your old man gives some solid advice. Still, there’s a lot more to determining speed than the flow of traffic. Luckily, you’ve come to the right place. The conditions that should dictate your speed when driving include:
Most importantly, exercise good judgment. To remain vigilant on the road, you should assess the conditions accordingly before turning the key and pressing the gas and reassess frequently as you drive. Find the right insurance at your speed with the car insurance super app Jerry. A licensed broker, Jerry does all the hard work of finding cheap quotes from the top name-brand insurance companies and buying new car insurance. Jerry will even help you cancel your old policy. No hassle. Just savings. WHY YOU CAN TRUST JERRY Jerry partners with more than 50 insurance companies, but our content is independently researched, written, and fact-checked by our team of editors and agents. We aren’t paid for reviews or other content. |
What are the conditions that determine the speed you drive?
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