[Talk-us] User randomly adding speed limits across the US

[James Mast]

I'm just curious, but can anybody verify the speed limits that user msheerin17 [1] has been randomly adding across the US?  He seems to fond of adding a lot of 'maxspeed=55 mph' tags to ways in completely different areas (he does add other speed limits, but well over 60% have been 55 mph).

I have tried to contact this user about all the speed limits he's been adding and did get a response back from him only once (back on October 15th).  In that response, he claimed he was getting the speed limits from "our customers", but at no time did he mention what company he was working for or what app was generating the input from people of the 'correct speed limits'.  He even told me to let him know if I had any more questions, but he's never responded to any other messages that I sent him after that asking about that info.

I do know one changeset [2] was at least was partially correct (was for a small segment of PA-28 and I could verify that since I live near it), however, a small part he tagged @ 55 mph is still officially 45 mph (the NB bridge over PA-8 is posted @ 45 mph still, not 55 mph).  However, there are other changesets out there that he did where there is no way possible the speed limit he added could be correct. [3]

So, if anybody lives near any of his changesets were he's added the maxspeed tag and can verify if they are either correct or incorrect, I'd appreciate it.  If he's been adding a lot of incorrect speed limits, we need to nip this in the behind fast before it gets too out of hand.  If most of them are incorrect (being 15+ over the actual posted limit or more in some places), it could seriously cause problems with the routers that use OSM data, especially in areas where we don't have any active mappers to verify said speed limits.  Heck, it could even lead to bad press if somebody gets a speeding ticket and they try to blame OSM for it because of the incorrect speed limit in the database.

-James

[1] - https://www.openstreetmap.org/user/msheerin17/history
[2] - https://www.openstreetmap.org/changeset/24355862
[3] - https://www.openstreetmap.org/changeset/26366111

 		 	   		  
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/talk-us/attachments/20141111/1b1b580c/attachment.html>