One of the leading principles for road design is the notion of Self-Explaining Roads (SER). According to this notion, the design and layout of the road environment automatically should elicit the behavior that is appropriate for that type of road. The current study investigated the effects of the road environment (i.e., the presence of particular road elements) on driving speed choice in the Netherlands in- and outside the city limits (ICL and OCL). A total of 462 participants (all car drivers) were exposed to either 152 ICL or 152 OCL pictures of road environments for either 300 or 1500 ms and indicated as fast as possible which speed they would drive given the road environment they viewed. All images were labelled with respect to the presence or absence of particular road elements. A linear mixed model was used to determine the effects of road elements on speed choice and response time. The results showed that the presence of particular road elements impacted the speed chosen. For example, inside the city limits, a bicycle lane painted on the road reduced driving speed while a separate bike lane increased the speed chosen. Also, central line markings (relative to no line marking) and a road made of asphalt (relative to pavers) were associated with higher speeds. Outside city limits, having multiple lanes (versus one lane) was related to higher speeds and having two driving directions without separation (versus a one-way road) was related to lower speed choices. Importantly, exposure duration (300 versus 1500 ms) only had a marginal effect, indicating that road users generally only need a brief glimpse of the road to be able to decide what speed to drive. Consistent with the principles of SER, we conclude that categorization and the associated speed decision is fast, operating within a single glance and is impacted by the road elements present in the environment. Finally, we believe our method constitutes a valuable tool in road design, as it allows one to efficiently and effectively gauge the impact of various road elements in large population samples.