[OSM-talk] Highways tagging vs Polygon

[Stephen Hope]

2009/5/22 Richard Bullock <rb357 at cantab.net>:
> Am I missing something, or can we not just assume that e.g.
>
> each highway=residential has a speed limit consistent with urban areas in
> that country - unless explicitly tagged otherwise
>

Actually, that wouldn't work where I live in Australia.  Each state
can have it's own 'default' speed limit, not the country as a whole.
And in fact, different areas in the same state can have different
default speed limits.

For example, Queensland traffic law says that on any unsigned, built
up road, the speed limit is 60 kph.  Except for the SE corner, where
they decided a few years ago to make it 50 kph instead. (this is about
a 150 by 100 km rectangle).  All the main roads leading into this area
have signs pointing this out, but otherwise 50kph signs are few,
you're just supposed to know.  They may decide to make it cover the
whole state at some point, but not yet.

Stephen