i think the article is about highways and fast Intercity roads where pedestrians have no business to be and not local city communications. of course within city limits the speed should be as low as possible (most of EU is 50kmph, personally i would not mind even 35-40kmph) to discourage individual transport to motivate people to use public transport

and this should come together with ban of cars older than 10-15 years not meeting current safety standards and of course all cars should be checked for quality of their brakes and other parts before being allowed to drive