Speed kills... selectively

[Jack Olsen]

Not strictly 911 tech, but I saw it referenced on Rennlist:

NY Times article on speed limits and death rates

[Fishcop]

Jack, the link only takes me to a front page, I then have to sign in or something like that?

[Stanley]

its free to sign up, and no email conformation

[Jack Olsen]

Yeah, the New York Times requires some sort of sign in.

The article talks about how, when speed limits are raised from 65 to 70 mph, death rates go down, but only for men under 65. However, the death rate goes up for women and those over 65.

[nostatic]

and that's a bad thing?

wait...who said that?

[Halm]

There was a lengthy article by Patrick Bedard in Car & Driver a couple of years ago about the very biased ways the Nat Traffic Saftey Council and the insurance industry reports speed related events. For example, a car passes through an intersection on a green light, but does so faster than the posted limit. The car is t-boned and driver killed by another car running the red light. This is classified as a "speed related" death. Go figure!

[zotman72]

Gee I always thought the death rate was fixed and constant for everybody.
One per person....

[dotorg]

Anyone who's driven within an hour of Boston will tell you, the problem is never speed, its deltas, just like the article said.

Speeds average north of 80 or south of 20 depending on time of day... and the real hazard when most people are driving 80 is the clods in the left lane doing 65 or 70. Thats when you get panic jamming on the brakes, or dangerous passing on the left.

IMHO, the real problem in the US isn't speed limits... its dangerous situations caused by unpredictable reactions to speed differentials. Driving in Maine is a pleasure most of the time -- people obey the more important law, that being to drive on the right and pass on the left. Drive in the left lane, from what friends who live there tell me, you'll be pulled over and ticketed for it.

I rarely, if ever, cruise in the left lane, unless my speeds are high enough that I'm passing everyone (not that I'd ever do that, of course) Things would be a lot safer if everyone did that.

[BGCarrera32]

I've always been a firm believer that stupidity kills, not speed.
You can kiss a windshield just as easy at 65 as you can at 80.
Funny how someone rear ends a vehicle at freeway speed after following a car length back in the rain or snow and they call it an "accident"...

[greenmonster]

Originally posted by dotorg
Driving in Maine is a pleasure most of the time -- people obey the more important law, that being to drive on the right and pass on the left. Drive in the left lane, from what friends who live there tell me, you'll be pulled over and ticketed for it.

One of the reasons for this is that ME posts "left lane for passing only" all over the place. It's a law in most states, but it's not aggressively posted (or enforced). In ME it is enforced, so they don't have to deal with the "left lane bandits". There is nothing more discouraging then to pull up to a long "train" because the lead car is going below the posted speed limit.

My other car is a vw bus, so I'm a firm believer in the "slower traffic keep right" campaign

[RoninLB]

Originally posted by dotorg

the problem is never speed, its deltas,.

I don't know if the article mentioned New Jersey. NJ just completed a long test of 65mph instead of 55mph on the NJ turnpike.. accidents went down because of smaller deltas.. now the left lane slow speed groups are pissed off that NJ is raising limits on other roads..
I wouldn't sign-in to the NY Times. they've taken left wing brain washing into high gear. and just because a column will contain $.25 words instead of $.10 words the left wing class quotes them as fact. if you ever want to shut up an educated east coast left winger simply say. "it sounds like you get your info from the NY Times"

[JeremyD]

Speed doesn't kill - more the rapid deceleration. Those in LA (Seems like everybody on this board sometimes) hurtle through space traveling 1043 mph - and that's just the rotational speed of the earth, not counting our passage through the solar system. Now if that came to an abrupt stop - then you are in for a world of hurt! (get it?)

[Superman]

Slow cruisers in the left lane have the effect of funneling faster traffic toward the right, into slower traffic. Anyone who, at highway speeds, can comfortably follow at a distance of one car length....does not understand the physics involved in motoring and should not be licensed to drive.

In this country, you need to be 21 years old to drink a glass of wine, but if you're sixteen and can read an eye chart, you can drive a motor vehicle. It's a familiar theme. It's about money, folks. Commerce. Not society. Not security or so-called "freedom." It's about commerce. The auto makers and oil companies oppose the enactment of reasonable proficiency testing for motor vehicle operators. For obvious reasons. If we made sure that all motor vehicle operators were properly skilled, it is clear to me that many of today's drivers would not be behind the wheel. Safety would improve, accidents and fatalities would be reduced. Our dependence on fossil fuels would fall, as would maintenance costs for highways. Public transportation infrastructure would be built. Stress would be reduced. But unfortunately, revenues to insurace companies , oil companies and auto makers would fall. So, you can easily see why this would be a bad idea.

I've heard that speed is a prximate cause of nearly all traffic accidents. I assume this is because the vehicles involved were moving. According to my observation, 100% of all vehicular accidents are directly caused by bonehead decisions.

Since the WSP went on its revenue-generating crusade, I have seen more white plastic buckets drifting across lanes of traffic, more unassisted stranded motorists, more vehicles with only one remaining working brake light....the list goes on. Yesterday I saw a pickup truck pull away from the side of the freeway towing a disabled car with nothing more than a tow strap...again, this is on the freeway....RIGHT ACROSS THE STREET FROM A WSP TROOPER!!!!!!!!

Something's wrong with this picture. At least from the perspective of this left-wing liberal.

[Mr9146]

Speeding is fun ...

[JeremyD]

Amen Superman - In Florida they go on revenue generating field trips here too. The other day I was on one of the bridges coming to work. They were pulling people over that were speeding (Which everybody seems to do on the bridges (11 miles long, this one)

A guy in a beat up old truck was hauling dead branches and yard material that was falling off his homemade trailer all the way across the bridge. I mean big branches and such! Anyway - vehicles were swerving all over to avoid this crap - some obviously speeding, many almost getting in an accident trying to avoid.

So, did the guy in the truck get pulled over - NO - even after a pice fell off his truck 10 feet from one of the troopers giving tickets - only those that were doing 68 in a 55. Why? the people headed to work are making money to pay their ticket. Who was more dangerous? Of course the guy with crap falling off his truck!

[Mr9146]

I have to go to court next week for speeding AND exhibition of speed ... my violations were so bad that I wasn't even given the option to pay.

[RoninLB]

Originally posted by Jeremy964

. Why? the people headed to work are making money to pay their ticket. !

state budget deficits nation wide are huge..

[Halm]

Florida is reportedly one of the States that is not in a budget crisis. As a matter of fact, they have a budget surplus.

[emcon5]

For those who don't want to register:

2 Fast 4 Safety?
By WALTER KIRN

Out on the long, lonely highways of the West, the mythical backdrops for countless car commercials and millions of summer family vacations, the speed limits make criminals of everyone -- minor revolutionaries, even. Up ahead, nothing but sky and flattened jack rabbits. In the rearview mirror, ditto. How many more hours to Yellowstone National Park? With only the road signs themselves for landmarks, there's often no way to judge. And so, to convince himself that he's making progress, Dad kicks it up to 80, 85, and then -- as the kids start whining for a bathroom break -- to a solid 90; 90 feels right. Sure, it's against the law, but what's the law, particularly to an American with a V-8, an empty cooler and a full bladder? The law is a nag. The law is petty, irrelevant. Speed kills -- of course it does. But slowness tortures, particularly when the next town on the map (which may or may not turn out to be a town, in the sense of having a gas station or a store) is exactly 216 miles away.
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For anyone who has ever undergone such Western automotive agonies and reacted by putting human law aside and heeding natural law instead (Thou Shalt Reach Old Faithful Before Dark), no news could be more intriguing than the following: according to a recent academic study, raising speed limits to 70 miles per hour, and even higher, has no effect whatsoever on the death rates of young and middle-aged male drivers. That's right, guys: if you're under 65 and you find yourself cruising the great wasteland somewhere between Denver and Portland, say, you can rev things up with a clear conscience -- soon maybe even in Oregon, whose Legislature is considering upping its maximum speed limit from a poky, painful 65 to a brisk and wholesome 70.

Like most studies that seem to grant us leave to indulge our lazy, bad habits, this one comes with an asterisk, unfortunately, that it would be cruel not to disclose (despite the fact that as a young male Westerner I'd love to bury the finding in a footnote): higher speed limits do increase the death rates of women and the elderly. The scientists can't agree on the reason for this discrepancy, and if they're wise they won't try, lest they end up confirming the prejudices of people like my old high-school buddy who cursed every time a female driver of any age had the nerve to appear in the mirrors of his Chevy Nova.

Common sense would suggest a straightforward correlation between higher speed limits and the risk of accidents, but common sense also suggests -- out West, at least -- that when there's nothing to have an accident with, it's not momentum that matters but simple alertness. A few years ago in Montana, my home state, there was no posted speed limit on highways, just a vague rule about driving in a ''reasonable and prudent'' manner. This haziness forced motorists to think, adjusting their speeds according to the conditions while hoping that lurking state troopers agreed with them. I felt flattered by this invitation to use my judgment and drove more consciously than I ever had. I felt like a grown-up. Then they changed the law, instituting a top limit of 75 m.p.h. Suddenly, I was a rebellious child again. Whether it was day or night, raining or sunny, I treated 75 as a new minimum -- as the opening bid in a floating poker game.

Seventy-five, you say? I'll raise you four. No sirens yet? I'll raise you six.

Montana's highway death rate did drop -- at first -- but now it's back up, to near its highest levels. No one knows why, but when I'm feeling contrary I wonder if it's because, in certain realms, responsibility for your own decisions sharpens the senses, while regulations numb them. Or maybe I'm just nostalgic for that day when I was crossing the Badlands at 95 and a trooper pulled me over -- not to write me a ticket but to warn me that I was a mile from the North Dakota border and might want to save myself a little money by easing up some. I felt like tipping the guy.

A friend of mine, Ross, a former Navy pilot who regularly drives between Phoenix and Seattle by way of empty Nevada, argues persuasively that velocity isn't as treacherous as it's said to be; the real risk is variations in velocity. ''When you're in the Navy flying formation at 350 knots'' he says, ''everybody's fine, but if one guy's going 340, you've got a problem.'' For Ross -- and I've heard of experts who agree with him -- unrealistically low speed limits widen the gap between law-abiding slowpokes and the restless majority, resulting in lots of risky passing maneuvers and general chaos.

So what's the answer? Over in congested, brainy Europe, some people think they've found it, and they're testing it: a computer gizmo that makes the car decelerate when it hits the maximum posted speed on any given stretch of road. The system is complicated, involving satellites and Global Positioning gear. It's a grand opportunity for new bureaucracies and the further infantilization of the public in the name of the greater social good -- objectives Europeans value as highly as Americans value four-wheel drive. Think of it: the automobile as governess, slapping drivers' wrists when they get sassy. The device should include a taped lecture on immaturity that automatically takes over the stereo when somebody turns up Eminem too loud. Over there, they might go for this system, but not here -- not west of Maryland, at least. Our cars are supposed to deliver us from our parents, our teachers, our rulers, not sit in for them.

There's a price to be paid for such liberty, naturally, although it's still unclear how high a price and how comfortable we feel paying it. That depends on which road you're on, I guess: one with a stoplight on every other block, or one that runs flat and straight to the horizon. A horizon that, no matter how fast we're driving, and no matter how often we reassure the kids that they'll spot Mount Rushmore any minute now, Americans know in our guts we'll never quite reach.

Walter Kirn is the author, most recently, of ''Up in the Air,'' a novel.

[arcsine]

Speed does not kill.
Speed difference does.