Rethinking Speed, Safety, and Productivity
Before we argue about speed limits, speed cameras, or driver behaviour, we need to step back and ask a more fundamental question: what are the streets of a city actually for?
Are they primarily corridors for cars to travel at the maximum possible speed? Or are they public spaces designed to make it possible for all residents—drivers, pedestrians, cyclists, businesses, workers, children, and seniors—to be productive and participate fully in city life?
Transportation, even fast transportation, should not be the goal in itself. Streets are not highways cutting through empty land. In cities, streets are tools. Their real purpose is to support a productive city: enabling people to get to work, allowing businesses to function, creating places where commerce, social interaction, and daily life can happen safely and reliably.
Once we frame the conversation this way, the debate about speed begins to look very different.
Speed as a Means, Not an End
For decades, transportation planning treated speed as a proxy for success. Faster travel times were equated with efficiency, progress, and economic productivity. Defenders of maximum vehicle speed often point to the aggregate savings in time—arguing that, at a national or regional scale, shaving seconds off individual trips adds up to enormous productivity gains by keeping people from getting stuck in traffic.
At first glance, this argument sounds compelling. But it breaks down under closer examination.
The costs of designing streets for maximum speed are very real: increased collision severity, reduced access for pedestrians and businesses, higher infrastructure costs, and streets that function as barriers rather than connectors.
Designing urban streets primarily for car speed rarely delivers meaningful time savings for individual drivers. In most city trips, the difference between a fast, car-oriented street and a calmer, human-scaled one is often 15 or 20 seconds—sometimes even less. Traffic lights, intersections, turning movements, and congestion quickly erase any theoretical advantage of higher speeds.
Supporters then multiply those seconds by thousands or millions of drivers and present the result as a massive pool of reclaimed time. But this is a mathematical illusion. Time does not become productive simply because it is added up on a spreadsheet. Each driver still experiences those savings in isolation, and a handful of seconds does not translate into real, usable time.
No one meaningfully “gets work done” with an extra 20 seconds. At best, that time is absorbed invisibly—perhaps another glance at a phone, another moment of idling, another scroll through social media. It does not create economic output, improve quality of life, or strengthen communities.
Meanwhile, the costs of designing streets for maximum speed are very real: increased collision severity, reduced access for pedestrians and businesses, higher infrastructure costs, and streets that function as barriers rather than connectors. In chasing negligible time savings, cities often sacrifice safety, reliability, and long-term productivity.
In urban environments, reliability matters more than raw speed. A trip that takes two minutes longer but happens consistently, safely, and without disruption is far more valuable than a marginally faster trip that depends on risky design choices.
Speed, in this context, is not an end in itself. It is merely one variable—and often the least important one—when the true goal is a city that functions well for everyone.
A street where cars move quickly but people feel unsafe crossing, where storefronts struggle because foot traffic avoids the area, or where collisions regularly disrupt traffic is not a productive street. It may move vehicles quickly in isolation, but it fails the city as a whole.
Urban productivity depends on reliability, safety, and access, not just speed. A slightly slower trip that happens consistently, without collisions or fear, is often more valuable than a faster trip punctuated by congestion, crashes, and enforcement conflicts.
Is Driving a Right—or a Privilege?
This reframing brings us to another uncomfortable but necessary question: is driving, and by extension driving fast, a right?
Legally and practically, driving is a privilege. It is granted under the assumption that drivers will operate vehicles responsibly in a shared environment. Unlike private property, streets are public assets. They must serve many users simultaneously, not just those inside vehicles.
When speed limits are reduced or enforcement increases, the backlash often suggests that something essential has been taken away. But what is really being challenged is not freedom—it is the expectation that personal convenience should override collective safety and productivity.
A privilege carries responsibilities. In a dense city, one person’s speed can become another person’s injury, delay, or loss. That reality demands limits.
Is It Too Easy to Get a Driver’s License?
If driving carries such responsibility, it is reasonable to ask whether we take licensing seriously enough. In many places, obtaining a driver’s license is relatively easy compared to the potential harm a vehicle can cause.
Testing often emphasizes technical skills—parallel parking, signaling, stopping at signs—while giving far less attention to judgment, risk awareness, and context. New drivers may pass without truly understanding how speed changes risk in residential areas, near schools, or in poor weather.
As cities become more complex, with more people moving in different ways, the expectations placed on drivers should evolve. A license should represent not just mechanical competence, but an understanding of shared responsibility in a busy urban system.
Subjectivity and Trust in Driver Evaluation
At the same time, the licensing process suffers from another problem: subjectivity. Road tests are administered by human examiners, and despite standardized criteria, evaluations can vary. A hesitation viewed as cautious by one examiner may be judged as incompetence by another.
This inconsistency can undermine trust. When people feel the system is arbitrary or unfair, respect for its outcomes—including traffic rules and speed limits—erodes. A system perceived as legitimate and consistent is more likely to produce drivers who accept responsibility rather than resist it.
Speed Enforcement and the Problem with Monetary Punishment
Speed cameras and fines were introduced to improve safety, particularly in places where speeding poses the greatest risk. Yet over time, many drivers have come to see these tools not as safety measures, but as revenue generators.
This perception did not arise in a vacuum. Governments frequently emphasize the amount of money collected rather than the injuries prevented or lives saved. Tickets arrive weeks later, disconnected from the moment of behaviour, offering punishment without learning.
When enforcement is framed primarily as a financial penalty, it breeds resentment. People feel targeted, not protected. Trust declines, and even effective safety tools become politically controversial.
This is not because people reject safety—but because they reject systems that feel extractive rather than purposeful.
A Better Approach: Designing Streets That Match Their Purpose
There is a more effective and less divisive way to manage speed: design streets so that safe speeds feel natural.
Road design has a powerful influence on behaviour. Wide lanes, long sightlines, and forgiving geometry invite higher speeds regardless of posted limits. Narrower lanes, street trees, raised crossings, curb extensions, and visual complexity encourage drivers to slow down instinctively.
This approach shifts responsibility from constant enforcement to thoughtful design. Instead of asking drivers to fight the environment, the environment guides them toward safer behaviour.
Crucially, this also restores trust. When a street’s design clearly communicates its purpose—whether it is a main corridor, a commercial street, or a residential neighbourhood—people are far more likely to accept appropriate speeds without resentment.
From Speed to Productivity
When streets are designed around productivity rather than speed alone, the benefits ripple outward. Businesses thrive when customers feel safe arriving on foot or bike. Workers benefit from predictable travel times. Families gain freedom when streets are safe enough for children and seniors.
In this framework, slowing down is not a loss—it is an investment. A city that works well at human speed is often more economically resilient, socially connected, and environmentally sustainable.
Changing the Conversation
The debate about speed does not need to be a battle between drivers and regulators. It can be a shared discussion about what kind of city we want to build.
If we start by asking what streets are for—not how fast cars can move, but how cities can function—we open the door to solutions that make sense. Driving remains a privilege, enforcement becomes fairer and more trusted, and design does the heavy lifting.
Ultimately, the goal is not to slow cities down, but to make them work better.