Abstract: Systems and methods are directed to providing speed limit context awareness during operation of an autonomous vehicle. In one example, a computer-implemented method for applying speed limit context awareness in autonomous vehicle operation includes obtaining, by a computing system comprising one or more computing devices, a plurality of features descriptive of a context and a state of an autonomous vehicle. The method further includes determining, by the computing system, a context response for the autonomous vehicle based at least in part on a machine-learned model and the plurality of features, wherein the context response includes a derived speed constraint for the autonomous vehicle. The method further includes providing, by the computing system, the context response to a motion planning application of the autonomous vehicle to determine a motion plan for the autonomous vehicle.