Add to that the high levels of congestion, the trucks and very old dangerous drivers that inevitably get on the roads, the over-loaded, rickety trucks stacked with mattresses etc, and it is a recipe for disaster at the newer speeds.
No. It’s a recipe for disaster at any speed.
You need to stop treating the symptoms (accidents) and start treating the problem. (the situations you just discribed.) We need to regulate speed better, and the basic expectations should be you need to be able to drive safely at that speed or you are wrong for going on that road. There should be ticket for people going to slow as well as too fast.
I don’t remember exact numbers, but the stretch of the I405 through Huntington Beach is up for widening. It sees something like 300,000+ vehicle trips a day.
At 80% of the 300,000 trips being rush hour with an average speed of 15 miles an hour, the five miles going past Huntington Beach accounts for 7 wasted people-years every single day.