Quote:
Originally posted by gr8fl4porsche
No. You may have been reading too many MADD reports.
The majority of car accidents are from inattentive drivers.
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I'd agree with that for urban areas, and the interstates around them. According to the stats I've read, the biggest factor tends to be weather for accidents while driving on the highway: snow, rain, ice, fog, etc. Speed is always lumped in under "driving too fast for conditions" as a contributing factor because politicians like the revenue generated by a "speed kills" public mindset.
But I think we could increase the speed limits in extra-urban areas because 1) the roads are less crowded and 2) people tend to drive better on the highway at speed, where there are fewer distractions inside and out of the car.
This is a lot of the reason most accidents happen near the home - people are less attentive, focusing on either where they're going or where they just left, or attempting to multi-task. On the open road during a 5-hour road trip, the driver gets to just
drive.