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Speed limits usually have been set by data, it's just bad data or badly used data. Like one of the actual ways they determined speed limits was to see how fast people actually drive through an area and then set it so 15%of them are above it.

Of course, much of this was done a half century ago or more. Now most roads have speed limits set by simply choosing one of the 'standard' numbers.

But the real main issue that some studies have shown is poor road design. A road needs to be designed to make the driver adjust to the appropriate speed. A wide road with wide clearance on either side encourages higher speed. A road with trees very close to the road and narrow shoulders encourages you to slow down.

Design roads to encourage the speed you want, a d you'll mostly get it.

But there's also a cost benefit here ... people may feel comfortable driving at speeds that are more likely to cause deadly accidents. Even if you can drive that fast, the outcome is so bad if you make a mistake, that you shouldn't.

Can definitely agree they need to be context based, dunno how the situation there is in the US precisely.

I can also say from experience though that no speed limit doesn't mean there aren't tons of overtakes, and speed changes when overtaking isn't possible. Not everyone is comfortable with the same speed. If you have a 6 lane highway without speed limit here, you have trucks going 80 km/h on the rightmost lane, some cars following them at the same speed and other cars going around 100 that often use the rightmost lane too and then overtake every truck. Then cars going around 120 in the middle lane except some go 130 and others 110 so lots of overtakes happen. Then you have the leftmost lane where everything from 140-220 tends to be (def skews to the lower end though) and you can guess the result.