Is there an easy way for non-privileged users to determine an interface's speed?

I think the current answer is they can't but I also wanted to confirm it with this list.  I had hoped I might be able to find it in /proc, /sys or with a utility like ethtool or even ifconfig, but alas it's nowhere to be seen.  So if I'm correct, that leads to the second question of why not?  Would it be that tough to put it in under /sys/class/net/*?  One of the reasons I ask is that I'd like to be able to tell if a network pipe is nearing its capacity and so be able to alert someone about it when it occurs.
-mark