Your Gubbermint lies to you about speeding....

[Hawktel]

http://www.canada.com/montrealgazette/news/editorial/story.html?id=02ba28f0-86a5-4250-9bd2-d1c2ae606a5b&p=1

I screwed up the orginal URL, It was just the second page. Might want to read the first page. URL fixed.

[Porsche-O-Phile]

This is news?

[widgeon13]

I'm not sure what the purpose is in the post and don't know how accurate his research is. He comes from Nova Scotia, that's like never leaving South Dakota all your life. (No offense)

The speed limit in most states is 65 mph and cops will most likely not ticket if you are under 73-74 mph (and moving with traffic), which is somewhere between 120 and 130 km/h. So the guy wrote a letter that has no message in my view.

[Hawktel]

I fixed the URL.
This is the part I found most interesting.

"Following the 1973 oil crisis and the U.S. government's imposition of a national 55 mph (88 km/h) limit, statistical analyses indicate highway safety worsened. And when Congress finally repealed federal speed limits in November 1995, to much caterwauling from the "speed-kills" crowd, with dire predictions of 6,400 increased deaths and a million additional injuries, the actual effect was diametrically opposite. Traffic deaths dropped to a record low by 1997, including in the 33 states that had immediately raised their speed limits. Meanwhile, Americans saved about 200 million person-hours in terms of less time spent on the road, with a reported net economic benefit of higher speed limits of $2 billion to $3 billion a year. A U.S. National Research Council panel pegged the cost of the 55-mph limit at about one billion person-hours per year."

[flashgordon13]

The reduction in accidents with higher speed limits is no suprise. Speed doesn't cause problems, but rather the speed differential between cars. A higher closing rate reduces the time you have to make decisions and take evasive actions. Traffic flows much better with higher speed limits because there are less idiots who feel they need to drive faster then everyone else since the traffic is moving faster to begin with. Repealling the 55 mph limit is one of the best things our government has done in a very long time.

[red-beard]

My 1st wife, her mother used to set the cruise control at 53 mph on the Interstates.

This is the same woman who let an 8 yr old boy watch some pretty sick porn!

And is/was a school teacher!

[sammyg2]

I would check his sources. I remember when the 55 speed limit was adopted and repealed and remember just the opposite happening from what that author is saying.
My first instinct is that he is making it all up to further his adgenda.

[Zeke]

Aren't cars safer now?

[ianc]

Aren't cars safer now?

Cars are, but are drivers?

In the USA, you can get a driver's license in a crackerjack box, compared to, say, Germany, where the instruction required is quite rigorous.

The sensible course would be to raise speed limits and let the gov't reclaim their lost speeding ticket revenue by charging $$$ for mandatory comprehensive driver training.

Somehow, I don't think it's gonna happen...

ianc