> Do they really drive that slow... Or just, like, the speed limit? Or generally safe(r) driving speeds? All things equal, slower is safer!

So i have no idea about Waymo, but man i can only imagine how much drivers will rage over them the more of them there are. God knows they'll go the speed limit, and so many drivers absolutely loathe that.

As it is, i drive 5 over just to reduce the insanity of people passing/etc. Which, i still get aggressively passed quite a bit, but that 5mph matters. I'm used to drivers going ~10-15mph over the limit, and every mph under +10 is a significant problem for them.

I look forward to these on that point alone. The more cars there are on the road normalizing ideal speeds (whatever they may be) the better. People are far too aggressive on the road in my experience. At least as a WA native.

As a nitpick that I'm sure varies from state to state... All things can't be equal if you're going slower than the rest of traffic since by definition there's a speed differential relative to the vehicles around you. In drivers-ed in California for example the advice from the dmv is actually to go the speed limit /or/ keep with the flow of traffic. If everyone around you is doing 80 in a 65 zone then you should still speed up at least a little or move into a lane where the flow of traffic is slower. Automated vehicles interestingly are an odd case because no company is going to tell their vehicles to break the law even if social norms encourage otherwise.

I expect it'll help - though. Ie reduce the average, making more lanes of traffic safer by body blocking the speeders.

Though, I do expect there to be an initial surge of aggression when people are forced to reduce their speeds by 15mph.

they drive conservatively but at reasonable speeds