About a year ago, I heard that "unlimited speed" highways were being built in China. Recently, there has been new news about this highway. According to the news, the first unlimited speed-limit Hangzhou-Shao-Yong Expressway in China has come to the late stage of construction and is expected to open to traffic this year.
To briefly recall, the 161-kilometer-long Hangshao-Yong Expressway is built based on the standard of unlimited speed of German highways. In addition, in addition to the speed will break the upper limit of the traditional high-speed, this high-speed itself has many domestic first technologies, which can be called the "road of the future". At the beginning of the construction, the person in charge of the project said that the highway can generate electricity through solar power and road photovoltaic power generation, as a supplement to the power of plug-in charging piles, and provide charging services for electric vehicles. In addition, Hangyong Expressway adopts a number of intelligent control systems, through the coordination of people, vehicles and roads, it may also support automotive autonomous driving in the future.
It is foreseeable that when this Hangshao-Yong Expressway is really opened to traffic, it will play a major symbolic role for the Chinese government in building an "intelligent road". So, will this milestone be the beginning of unlimited speed on China's highways? Perhaps in the new traffic regulation policy in 2022, it has brought some speeding up.
If you pay attention to the 2022 new traffic regulation issued by the Public Security Traffic Management Bureau at the end of last year, you will know that the biggest change in the new traffic regulation is the "speeding relaxation", from the original speeding below 10% without deducting points, to 20%. If calculated according to the current statutory maximum speed limit value of 120km/h in the high-speed section, after the implementation of the new regulations, the maximum driving speed of the high-speed section is 143km/h, and no points are deducted, which will significantly improve the traffic efficiency of the high-speed section, and to a certain extent, it can alleviate the congestion and slow driving of the high-speed section on holidays.
Returning to this "unlimited speed" Hangshaoyong Expressway, in fact, the "unlimited speed" it refers to is not completely unlimited speed. It was the first to announce a maximum speed of 150 km/h, but it is indeed higher than the general speed limit of 120 km/h on highways and 143 km/h after the relaxation of traffic speeding. Everyone may be a little disappointed to see here, but everything has two sides, and the higher the driving speed, the higher the requirements for driving technology.
If you have watched the national traffic education film, you will definitely see the phrase "nine times fast in ten traffic accidents" pop up at the end of the video. In fact, speed is linked to fatal car accidents, at least in Germany, where it is difficult to get a driver's license in the world. On germany's speed-limiting highways, there are 0.95 fatal accidents per 1 billion kilometers. When it comes to sections with no speed limit, this figure starts at 1.67, which is 75% higher than the section with speed limit.
In the mainland's current traffic regulations, the penalties for speeding are indeed constantly updated and refined. However, for the behavior of driving below the minimum speed limit, it has been in an embarrassing state of "not following the law" and "not strictly enforcing the law" for almost a long time. The danger of vehicles slowing down on the highway or even stopping and reversing occurs repeatedly, but the number of fines is often few, and more offenders are able to get away with it.
There is a set of data worth mentioning that the average speed of China's highways is much lower than that of Europe and the United States, but our accident rate is much higher than that of Europe and the United States, because the vehicle changes lanes too frequently on the highway, and an important reason for frequent lane changes is that there are too many slow cars, and you have to change lanes to overtake. In addition, if a car is too slow on the highway, it will become an obstacle in the traffic flow, which can easily lead to rear-end accidents.
Nowadays, when the speed is relaxed to 143km/h or above, safe driving is also a problem due to the speed difference caused by the speed of some vehicles. According to the statistics of the traffic management department, in 2019 alone, there were 12,000 traffic accidents caused by "turtle speed" vehicles in China, of which 33,000 casualties were caused, which shows the degree of harm caused by "turtle speed" driving on highways and urban expressways. However, fortunately, in the 2022 new traffic regulations for the majority of car owners have long hated the "turtle speed car" problem put forward clear provisions, the speed of the vehicle on the highway below the minimum speed limit of the road will be punished by 3 points, which may be able to alleviate the "turtle speed car" problem on the highway to a certain extent.
Whether on the mainland or in developed countries or regions, "slow driving to the right" is the basic principle of driving on the road. For example, on high speeds in Europe, you'll see signs for "Keep Right Except To Pass" or "Slower Traffic Keep Right", which are "Unless overtaking, drive on the right" and "Slow right". At the same time, they also require drivers to try to follow the maximum speed limit of the current road. Under the "double attack" of traffic signs and traffic regulations, highways in Europe generally have safe and efficient traffic rates.
In fact, you can imagine that on the highway, everyone drives normally according to the maximum speed limit, which will not affect traffic safety. At present, the maximum speed of passenger cars running on the road in mainland China can exceed 120km/h, and the braking distance of most vehicles of 100km/h-0 is about 40m, and vehicles with excellent performance can even be controlled within 34m. In other words, most vehicles have the ability to travel safely at a speed of 120 km/h.
If everyone goes their separate ways, the probability of a traffic accident will be greatly reduced. Unfortunately, due to the chain reaction of the mainland driver's license examination, driving awareness and other series, the quality of drivers and driving habits are uneven. Around the world, a German driver's license is said to be one of the hardest and most expensive driver's licenses in the world. To obtain a German driver's license, you need to go through two parts, theory and practice, you must also pass the vision test before registering, although the process is the same as in China, but there are more courses to learn how to first aid.
Similarly, driving in German cities is the most difficult part of the actual driving test. During the test, the instructor was in the car, and the in-car assist function could not be used. If the coach intervenes in any way, the result is failure. Under a series of requirements, the pass rate of German driver's licenses is quite low, and a set of registration, testing and study costing 1500-2000 euros, which invisibly raises the threshold. With harsh exams and high exam fees to make drivers more aware of safety, coupled with the innate rigor of its nation, Germany's unique unlimited speed motorways remain the roads with the lowest mortality rates in the world.
The uncivilized traffic behavior in China can be said to be diverse, and it is common to change lanes at will, slow down for no reason, and large cars occupy the fast lane for a long time. Therefore, even if the speed limit is not limited or the speed limit is relaxed, it does not mean that everyone can drive the fast car unscrupulously on the high speed. Just as the so-called "heart of defense is indispensable", on the highway with relaxed speed limit, how to define which behaviors may endanger other vehicles, and how to effectively stop these behaviors, is also a problem that needs to be considered in traffic laws. (Image source network, invasion and deletion)