U.S. Department of Transportation
Federal Highway Administration
1200 New Jersey Avenue, SE
Washington, DC 20590
202-366-4000
The management of speed through appropriate speed limits is an essential element of highway safety. Appropriate speed limits are a prerequisite for effective and sustainable speed management. In terms of traffic law, speed limits should reflect the maximum reasonable and safe speed for normal conditions. That is speed limits should be acceptable as reasonable by most drivers and separate high and low risk speed behavior. If lower speed limits are desired, then engineering and other measures should be implemented that reduce speeds to a level that would support a lower limit.
The Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices (MUTCD) is the national standard for signing on all highways. Sections 2B.13-16 address regulatory speed limits and Section 2C addresses advisory speed signs. School zone speed limit signs are discussed in Section 7B and work zone speed limits in Section 6C.
USLIMITS2 is a web based tool designed to help practitioners set credible and consistent speed limits for specific segments of roads. It is applicable to all types of roads ranging from rural local roads and residential streets to urban freeways. The original USLIMITS was developed under NCHRP Project 3-67 in 2006. FHWA recently adopted the program with enhancements and made it available with user/customer support on the FHWA server at http://safety.fhwa.dot.gov/uslimits/.
User-friendly, logical, and objective, USLIMITS2 is of particular benefit to local communities and agencies without ready access to engineers experienced in conducting speed studies for setting appropriate speed limits. For experienced engineers, USLIMITS2 can provide an objective second opinion and increase confidence in speed limit setting decisions. Users input factors including route type, section length, annual average daily traffic, 50th and 85th percentile speeds, statutory speed limit, and terrain, among others. They receive a recommended speed limit and a list of issues that might be further investigated. Users can save their project file and/or create Word and Excel versions of their reports.
