Citation

Pilkington GB. Transp. Res. Rec. 1976; 601: 53-55.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1976, Transportation Research Board, National Research Council, National Academy of Sciences USA, Publisher SAGE Publishing)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

An immediate reaction to the energy crisis by highway engineers was a proposal to summarily reduce design standards, expecially design speed. This paper discusses why such a reduction should not be effected. Factors that should be considered before standards are reduced are (a) AASHTO definition of design speed, (b) possibility of 88-km/h (55-mph) speed limit being temporary, (c) the effect reducing design speed could have on multimodal corridors, (d) higher order of safety provided by higher design speeds, (e) increased use of smaller cars, (f) liability of highway engineers, and (g) current research on situational design criteria.