THE NATION'S PULSE: Does Speed Really Kill?
Peters, Eric
THE NATION'S PULSE ERIC PETERS Does Speed Really Kill? ~ *-S AN AIRLINER DOING 500 MPH "SPEEDING"? Does the a c t ~ o f driving faster than a number posted on a sign neces~ s a r i l y mean...
...Clearly, speed doesn't kill-at least, not necessarily...
...Most of us, he points out, seem to feel perfectly comfortable "speeding," as we do routinely, without endangering ourselves or others, as evidenced by ever-declining accident/fatality stats...
...They know it, and we know it, even though we must still bow and genuflect when ensnared in a radar trap...
...Drivers exceeding the 85th percentile speed would be traveling noticeably faster than the flowand close to the objectively established safe "limit" (giving the posted limit the informational value most posted speed limits currently lack...
...Yet many of us (including police officers) "speed" just about every time we drive...
...the "high average," if you like...
...After the various jurisdictions began realizing how much money they could make [by writing traffic tickets], they got on board pretty quickly...
...If posted limits were set according to the 85th percentile, radar trap pickings would be slimmer-and "revenue" for state and local governments would go down...
...Offered without context, nuance, or qualifier, the contention has become a mantra as simplistic as it is wrongheaded...
...Posted limits reflected these design specifications, until they were lowered to 55 mph in the wake of the oil shortages of the early '70s...
...The recommended speed limit, according to MUTCD guidelines, should fall within the so-called "85th percentile," an engineering term for the speed at which 85 percent of the traffic is normally moving...
...Commercial airliners routinely streak through the air at very high speeds-yet air travel is among the safest means of travel there is...
...In fact, our roads are safer today than they have ever been (lowest-ever fatality rates per million Vehicle Miles Traveled), even though we're driving much faster than we used to...
...Enforcement of artificially low, dumbed-down speed limits continues apace, justified by the same contrived and convoluted "speed kills" chant that propped up the 55 mph NMSL for 20-plus years...
...Follow the money," says Valentine...
...It's a question of appropriate speed for a given road, and given conditions...
...So the limit is typically set below the observed 85th percentile, transforming the average motorist-by fiat and at odds with rational traffic safety engineering principles-into a "speeder...
...FEBRUARY 2006 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR 53...
...Eric Peters is an automotive columnist and author of Automotive Atrocities: Cars We Love to Hate (MB1...
...And, of course, vastly increasing the potential pool of ticketable drivers...
...The 55 mph limit-"the original unfunded mandate," according to Valentine-is the most obvious example of this disconnect...
...Does the a c t ~ o f driving faster than a number posted on a sign neces~ s a r i l y mean you are driving dangerously...
...Though originally touted as a "temporary" fuel conservation measure, the 55 mph NMSL quickly morphed into a "safety" issue, and formed the ideological basis of what might be called the Revenue Collection State...
...Something doesn't parse...
...The self-styled (and sel!-,,appointed) safety lobby ~L.has for decades asserted that speed" always and necessarily "kills...
...T - - ~ UT WHILE PEOPLE ARE FREER to drive at more r e a - ~__l_,P)sonable speeds on the highways again, secondJ__ ary roads are another story...
...When in 1995 Congress finally repealed the 55mph limit, many states quickly raised their highway maximums to 60, 65, 70, or (in the case of Texas and a few other lucky areas) 75-80 mph, all without the much-predicted uptick in highway fatality rates...
...However, drivers exceeding the 85th percentile are few and far between on most roads, because by definition, most of the traffic is moving at or near the observed 85th percentile...
...As with the NMSL, this chronic under-posting is ostensibly done for our "safety...
...Says Valentine: "The threatened loss of federal highway funds for states that didn't comply with the new law sucked states into aggressive enforcing...
...The cops themselves have, to an appalling extent, become pedantic, rule-spouting automatons hiding in cutouts with their radar g u n s - "Harassing and Collecting" more than "Serving and Protecting...
...In the meantime, countermeasures are available and legal everywhere (except the People's Republic of Virginia...
...And this was back in the '50s, assuming 1950s-era car technology, including brakes, suspensions, tires, etc...
...Traffic safety engineers consider the 85th percentile speed to be the "common sense" speed, because this is the speed a clear majority of drivers seem to be comfortable with, and therefore the safest speed for any given road...
...Valentine explains that the typical secondary road is posted anywhere from 5 to 15 mph (sometimes more) below the rate of speed at which most of the traffic naturally flows-a situation nearly identical to the way things used to be on U.S...
...That means if the observed 85th percentile speed is 45 mph, an appropriate limit would be 50 mph, or just slightly faster than the average flow of traffic...
...Yet highway accident and fatality rates have gone down, not up--despite the dire scenarios ("as many as 6,400 added deaths" annually, according to former National Highway Traffic Safety Administration head Joan Claybrook) peddled by the safety lobby...
...Driving faster and driving safely are not mutually exclusive," he says...
...And so the ugly little farce continues to play out all across the land, with traffic cops compelled to meet de facto "performance goals" (i.e., quotas) in order to maintain favor with their departments and secure advancement...
...Just as the 55 mph limit was held in contempt and routinelyignored, most of us continue to travel at considerably faster speeds on secondary roads, regardless of the posted maximum...
...Our Interstate system was designed to accommodate average speeds in the 70-80 mph range...
...Lawfld highway speeds in many states today are 10-15 mph higher than they were during the 20-year regime of the 55 mph"double nickel" speed limit...
...In short, Valentine says, "Speed limits have lost their informational value to motorists...
...Either most of us are kind of nutty or the limits are themselves silly and treated accordingly...
...The average speed of traffic is observed and noted, along with such factors as density, visibility, the presence of intersections, school zones, and so on...
...Unfortunately, posted speed limits in our country often have little relevance to safe, appropriate speeds and are thus routinely ignored...
...According to MUTCD, the posted limit should be set within 5 mph (rounding up) of the observed 85th percentile speed...
...Some say these "speeders" deserve to be ticketed because they are driving dangerously and imperiling us all...
...For Mike Valentine, who developed and marketed the original Escort radar detector just after the 55mph National Maximum Speed Limit (NMSL) became the law of the land in the mid-I970s, this is a very important distinction...
...Valentine's reply is that it doesn't stand to reason that so many of us--who are ordinarily sensible folk-become willfully reckless or indifferent to our own safetybehind the wheel...
...See www.valentinel.com for practical help dealing with the Revenue Collection State and its minions...
...After all, says Valentine, "the cop has the gun, the badge'-and the full weight of the state in his corner...
...Then we all pretend...
...highways before the 55 mph NMSL was dropped...
...A LTHOUGH WE MANAGED to get rid of the much/__~ reviled NMSL, the canker-like legacyof"speed ~X_ ~ l k kills" double-talk remains...
...Most of us don't buy that, though, if our driving is any reflee52 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR FEBRUARY 2006 ERIC PETERS tion of our true beliefs...
...Valentine asks, "How is the aggregate opinion of all those drivers out there, who are voting with their right foot, any less sensible than the random diktat of a magistrate...
...Perhaps the day will come...
...THE NATION'S PULSE ERIC PETERS Does Speed Really Kill...
...I fervently hope that my generation will be allowed one day to drive as fast as my grandfather's generation," says Valentine, cautiously optimistic that creeping common sense may ultimately reform the nation's traffic laws...
...Unless there's a cop around...
...The systematic fleecing of motorists has among other things opened a rift between otherwise lawabiding Americans and the police-who have become enforcers of a corrupted set of laws whose main purpose is clearly the generation of large sums of "revenue" for state and local governments, not the enhancement of highway safety...
...N THEORY--BECAUSE IT IS RARELY APPLIED in practice-the appropriate speed limit for any given J [ road is determined after a traffic survey is done by qualified engineers, in accordance with a book of rules, regulations, and procedures called the "Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices" (MUTCD...
Vol. 39 • February 2006 • No. 1
