[OSM-newbies] Highway Types and Speed Limits

[Stefan Monnier]

> I disagree. I think standard speed limits can also be useful to
> include, for several reasons:
> * to denote to other volunteers whether someone has bothered checking
> the speed limit already so that when five people are checking speed
> limits in the same region, they are not all checking the same roads

That's a rehash of the "how to tag names that don't have a name".
If you prefer to tag it as maxspeed=default or maxspeed=nosign, that's
fine by me.

> * because default speed limits vary by jurisdiction
> * because people may differ in the way they map their regional highway
> types onto the ones of Openstreetmap, so that two roads may both have
> the default speed limit for their type of road, and have the same
> classification, and yet have different speed limits
> * because speed limits on the same type of road may differ - in
> particular they are often lower in cities and towns than on the
> countryside

All the above points just hint at the fact that figuring out the default
speed for a given road may not be trivial and may involve a whole bunch
of rules.  I do not deny it.  But the OSM data should have those rules
(or something morally equivalent) rather than duplicating the default
speed everywhere.
To me the golden rule is still "all the tag info should be visible right
there on the spot" (another way to say "tag based on what's on the
ground").  For the same reason, I thing that maxpseed should use kmh or
mpg (or whatever other funny unit local governments may come up with)
depending on what the sign uses.


        Stefan