The Montana Department of Transportation has implemented posted speed limits lower than engineering recommendations on several roadways, and would like to quantify the effects of this practice on vehicle speed and safety. Current research regarding speed and safety performance on roadways with posted speed limits set lower than engineering recommendations is limited. To account for this limitation in the published literature, this review broadly considers the relationship between various speed measures and safety. The literature review begins with a discussion of speed concepts, including the relationship between posted speed limits, operating speeds, and design speeds. Issues related to speed compliance and enforcement are then described. The literature review concludes with a brief discussion of the effects of speed on safety. (Author/publisher)
Abstract