A person is smart. People are stupid.
Raising the speed limit would be great for all of those rational, responsible people. Unfortunately, not everyone is like that.
A lot of things would be better if we were allowed to take things in our own hands and make rational decisions for ourselves, except I don’t think we can trust everyone.
To paraphrase: Works in theory.
Yes and No. Speeding has it’s places, only on the highway where there maybe other drivers around, but not pedestrians etc.
I do travel above the speed limit while I’m on the highway, I normally travel 75-80. Why because going 65 is 10-15 mph slower and over the long haul I will get there much quicker. When I’m going though town or where there maybe other hazards I DO NOT go above the speed limit by much, maybe 5mph.
I feel that the reason the police give more tickets for speeding is because it’s easier to get convictions, hence more money. Ohio and Virginia are really bad for this. I took a trip last July though Ohio and for the 400 or so miles I saw a good 20 cops on the road.
Last month, I think, Motorcycle Consumer News did a piece on speeding and accidents and showed a DOT study that showed that keeping up with traffice regardless of speed reduces the amount of accidents on the highway. Going 10 mph above or below everyone else greatly increases your chances of an accident.
I think that there should be limits in towns, near schools etc, but on the highway we should let the majority of traffic dictate how fast we should go.
Hey, you’ll get no argument from me about speed traps; in my town (Gainesville, GA; just north of Atlanta), there is a beautiful stretch of divided four lane with no pedestrian traffic on either side and big, wide breakdown lanes. It’s marked 35 mph, and is a top revenue generator for the city.
However, I strongly disagree with the OP. Driving a car is, in and of itself, an activity which carries a degree of risk. Driving a car really fast carries a larger degree of risk. Any experienced driver should readily understand that speed is a very important factor in the time required to swerve or stop, and is the single most important factor in the severity of any accident.
Certainly the maximum safe speed anyone can drive will differ depending on the ability of the driver (vision, reflexes, experience, judgement), the characteristics of the vehicle (suspension, steering, tires), the weather conditions, the construction and state of repair of the road, etc. Does it surprise anyone that in general the posted speed limit is somewhat below the maximum safe speed for the average driver / vehicle? To put it succinctly, DUH! I would certainly hope that this is the case; to post limits which are at or above the average maximum safe speeds would be incredibly irresponsible, don’t you think?
Now, a good case could be made for raising or even eliminating the speed limits on Interstates in rural areas (they’ve already been raised to 70 mph in many places). But let’s admit the pragmatic necessity of having limits in the first place. As LaurAnge said, a person is smart; people are stupid. In most high traffic areas, a speed limit is essential, and reduced speed limits can be shown to correlate directly with reduced fatalities.
Less speeding also = less fuel wastage (more available for us slowpokes to get from point A to point B) and less pollution. I also like the thought of fewer accidents involving speed demons, so that there are fewer monster tieups keeping me stuck in traffic.
I have no problem with providing more detail and yes I’ll look for a link for everyone. This happened 3 years ago so I’m not exactly sure but I think a local site where I live still has it somewhere. It was on a straight piece of highway, driver wasn’t drunk, and yes he did stick around after the scene of the accident. I’m not sure but I think his car wasn’t drivable after it happened. Well I am off to look for that link.
It really shouldn’t even be a debate that speeding is inherently MORE dangerous than just putting along with traffic. Im sure most of us can handle a reasonably roadworthy car at 70-80 even over 100mph. Thats not the point. Its simple physics. The faster you’re car is going, the less time you have to react to things. Your car also takes longer to safely stop because of both your shorter reaction time and the whole Isaac Newton inertia thing.
Anyway, I’m sure everyone already knew that.
One concept I heard somewhere was actually pretty interesting. It went a little something like this:
We want to reduce speeding yet we keep developing cars that reduce the perception of speed. Cars are bigger (well SUVs are), they handle much better at high speeds, and they ride much smoother. Combined with highways with design speeds of over 80 mph, the average car today handles better at 80mph than a car 30 years ago handled at 40mph (or something like that). Problem is that if something gets in your way at that speed (ice, deer, grandma) most people don’t realize how long the car takes to stop. Especially if it skids or goes out of control.
Anyway, I think the recomendation was to build cars that were safe at 80mph but gave a greater perception of speed so you don’t feel like your standing still at 50mph.
Y’know, I like to drive fast too (largely because I’d rather be at my destination instead of wasting time getting there), but even I think that raising or eliminating speed limits is a bad idea.
Like most people, I consider myself a better-than-average driver, and feel confident that I can maintain control of my vehicle at higher speeds. However, also like most people, I consider the other drivers on the rod to be frickin’ idiots. Giving those guys a higher speed limit is just begging for trouble.
So, to summarize: unlimited speeds for me, strict speed limits for everyone else. Sounds great! 
Tiki God said:
umm, I do not think speeding had anything to do with the result. Some states have speed limits at 75 mph. I am pretty sure if someone is hit by someone going the speed limit or ever 10 less then the speed limit. The same result would result. You do not need to go above the posted speed limit to kill someone.
A lot of these posts are dealing with different speeds not speeding, which is the question. Yes there is greater stoping distance between 35 and 30 mph. But, what if the speed limit is 35, then you are not speeding.
Planman said “that it isn’t speed that is the problem, but the difference in speed between the fast driver and slower drivers”
This is true and can be proven without speeding. If the legal speed limit is 75 and somone driving 55 on the highway changes lanes into someone dringing 75 (not speeding), the ending result would not be plesent. And this is without speeding.
Do you disinguish between speeding in residential areas and speeding on highways? If not, why not?
Yes, I think there is a difference. In theory, nobody should be stopping on the freeway. Everyone is going a relatively constant speed and going the same direction. Sure, there is people that go overboard. But, in general, everyone is the same. The difference between someone going 55 and someone going 60 is still only 5 mph. If you drive 60 and tap into someone going 55, the damage is not very hight, unless the other person loses control.
Residential is a whole different issue. First, not everyone is going in the same direction. Second, as stated before, pedestrians. Being a child does not matter. A death is a death. Third, everyone could be going vastly different speeds. Example, someone traveling at 50 mph and hits a guy stoped at a stop sign or light.
salreus you got the one point, that damage to humans from cars increases with speeds (by the way, most of that discussion was relative to damage to humans in cars, not necessarily out of them)
But, the other point, which explained why the Troopers’ death was brought up, is that highways/streets are designed with a certain speed limit in mind - the curves of the road, the hills/valleys etc all come into play. that’s why on some exit ramps from the highway, the speed limit is about 45, others it’s 35 or even slower - the bank of the curve may make it more dangerous to go faster.
The Trooper was killed while standing on the side of the road, assisting a motorist. (I did find some links, but they weren’t very descriptive of the accident). The point that was being made was that, even on the highway, where you don’t really worry so much about a stray child chasing a ball, stuff does happen that you need to react to quickly. And if you’re going faster than the posted speed limit, you may not have sufficient time to both see and react to the obstruction.
David B: *I had said to Stoid: “Um, okay. Then get the stupid kids, blind grandmas, drunks, and other plain fools off the roads and let those of us who know how to drive, drive.” She replied: “And how do you suggest that be achieved?” Gosh, I dunno. Maybe through enforcing traffic laws that actually endanger people rather than worrying about speed violations. *
I’m gonna read that last sentence as “…enforcing traffic laws against motorist behaviors that actually endanger people…”, 'mkay?*
The blind grandma one is the most obvious, since they shouldn’t even have a driver’s license.
No argument on that one, but Kimstu the Broken Record still has to chime in with her perennial observation on the inevitable problem of road safety in a heavily automobile-dependent society: to wit, you’re always going to get a lot of people driving cars who really shouldn’t be doing so because the way our lives and communities are set up makes most people perceive driving as an absolute necessity. If we want to get the bad drivers off the road, we have to do more than just enforce the laws that forbid them to be there: we have to provide them with enough alternatives to driving so that their tremendous resistance to relinquishing their driving privileges will be lessened.
Otherwise, there will always be more grandmas (and grandpas) refusing to consider the possibility that they don’t see well enough to drive anymore, and teenagers who are sure that they can still handle the car, and partygoers who dismiss the notion that they might have had a few too many to be safe. Giving people basically only one transportation option is simply begging them to go into denial when they have to evaluate whether they’re currently competent to use that option. In other words,
Stoid is right: shit happens on the highways;
I’m right: the drivers who cause the worst of the shit are not going to be eradicated as things are now set up;
and msmith and Nurlman and xenophon and kabbes etc. are right: when shit does happen on the highways, it’s a lot more dangerous if you’re going very fast.
*Is anybody else wondering a little bit whether the “David B” posts in this thread were actually even written by David B? He is usually both entirely coherent and extremely cogent about the facts, IMHO.
kabbes said:
Actually, I’d say that you’re the one being a bit disingenuous here. I don’t answer your statistic about children because you’re talking about pedestrians. As you, yourself, noted in an earlier message: “And yes there is a difference between speeding on the autobahn/mortorway/freeway and in a residential area. The difference is that you don’t get many children wondering out from between two parked cars on the a/m/f.” So, since I’m very clearly talking about speeding on the highway, I’m not sure why you’re even bringing this up.
For some of the rest of you (since many of you said the same thing, there is little point in replying to each), yes, obviously increased speed carries an increased risk. However, this does not equate to “speed kills.” The question is how much “risk” is involved. There is more risk when you go 35 than when you go 30. What about 25? Maybe we should all go 20 on the highway?
Why is it safe to go 65 in one state but only 55 in another?Most speed limits on highways have been arbitrarily assigned by the government and have little to do with what is actually safe there. That is why I clearly said that there is a difference between the highway and local roads, where the limits make more sense (this is also true for exit ramps, where you ignore the posted limit at your own peril of flying off the curve).
But using pithy little slogans like “speed kills” adds nothing to the discussion.
I infact agree with David B on this one. He’s got a very good point. I never said speed kills I just mentioned that IMHO it carried a risk with it. I think the whole differentiating speed limit in states is an odd thing. Should we have one set speed limit for all of the nations highways? That is a tricky question. It seems a bit odd to restrict people that can drive at that speed to say the speed of a complete moron behind the wheel of the car because we all know that intelligent drivers can drive safely at higher speeds than the posted limit. There is no way to restrict one persons speed while letting another drive 10mph faster. I just think there are too many variables that can be thrown into this equation to get a really good answer on it.
I’m not seeing much indication in these discussions that posters have read the articles I linked to in the OP.
Would those of you who follow the “speed kills” school of thought please read the Car and Driver article I linked to in the OP?
That article discusses the statistics that are used to back up that claim. Those statistics are sloppily collected and ambiguously reported. If pharmaceutical manufacturers collected and reported test data that sloppily, drugs would never get approved by the FDA – too many questions, too many blank spots.
After you read the article, you may be willing to reconsider, even briefly, whether that “speed kills” argument is as valid as you think.
Jeyen
jeyen - my statistics are based on studies by the British government. Visit http://www.detr.gov.uk to read more. Personally as someone for whome statistics is a profession, I believe them.
David B - so just for the poor Englishman here, are “highways” not just the same thing as “roads”? In the UK at least the words are synonymous.
The fastest roads are known as “motorways” over here so I think I’ll stick with that for this post at least to avoid further mistakes.
Just to throw something else into the mix - I’ve noticed that often on the motorways the most egregious speeders are the exact same people who will drive about 2 yards from the driver in front. This because the driver in front is only going at 90mph rather than the 110mph that they want to drive. Need I point out that the faster you drive, the more space you need to leave? So in this case faster speeds are causing more danger - that 2 yard clearance would be a lot safer at 50mph than 90mph.
pan
I’m interested as to what these “ridiculously low speed limits” are. I’m presuming that some research went into the decision to choose that limit, so claiming that it is ridiculously low is quite an interesting argument from your point of view.
Given that at 20mph the survival rate for children is 19 in 20, whereas at 30mph it is more like 10 in 20, do you think that 20mph just outside a school is “ridiculously low”? What about in a residential area where it is known that children play regularly?
In words I’ve so often seen you employ to others, I’d like a cite please.
pan
kabbes said:
That is correct.
As with other examples given, this does not really pertain to a discussion about speeding, per se, but about bad driving habits in general. I have been tailgated when going 70; I have been tailgated when going 50; I have been tailgated when going 30. I generally use my left foot to push gently on the brake pedal (enough to make my brake lights go on, but not enough to make the brakes actually go into effect), and this usually causes the tailgater to back off.
In an earlier message, I had said: “That said, there are still some ridiculously low speed limits in some ‘residential’ areas.”
Kabbes responded:
I should clarify what I said. I was not so much complaining that the limits, themselves, were any lower than in other residential areas. My complaint was with the designation of “residential” when they obviously were not. For example, in the city where I live now, there are stretches of four-lane road that are designated as residential and marked with a speed limit of 30 even though there aren’t any residences (or schools, or whatever) around. This is the part that I called ridiculous. Another example is a stretch of road (including a bridge over a motorway) in the city where my wife used to live, where the limit is 25 for, apparently, one reason: It’s a speed trap, and the cops nail quite a few people there.
So it turns out in the end that I don’t have much argument with what David B said. For this I am grateful - I’ve always found his position enlightened and thoughtful before and reading what I perceived to be his speed-freak message shook my foundations.
Kimstu seemed to sum it up really - David B, were you feeling less than coherent that day? 
Just for my interest though, is there a difference between a freeway, a highway and an interstate?
Over here we have, in order, motorways, A-roads and B-roads which I’m guessing correspond. Can anyone enlighten me?
pan
Re: the tailgating thing. I too have been tailgated at all manner of speeds. The point is that the tailgating is fundamentally more dangerous at higher speeds, since more thinking distance is required to stop. From this point of view, the speed itself is dangerous. Should a fatal accident result from tailgating in this manner, one could indeed say that “speed kills”, whilst at the same time also noting that “tailgating kills”.
Furthermore, encouraging speeders by tacitly accepting that 100mph+ is acceptable is to encourage tailgating. I say this since a driver will feel that it is their right to drive at the higher speed and feel frustrated to be stuck behind a “slow” 80mph driver. By their nature, 100mph+ drivers tend to be more aggresive drivers and hence more prone to tailgating. I don’t see that you can isolate the speed alone and suggest that if it wasn’t for everything else, the speed would be fine - psychology is a little trickier than that.
Nothing exists in isolation. Sure, dangerous driving is the true villain. But dangerous driving in the context of speed is even more dangerous. And speeding can itself be dangerous driving, if for no other reason that it makes consequences more severe.
Just for my interest though, is there a difference between a freeway, a highway and an interstate?
Well, I looked up, and found out a interstate is the same as a freeway but connects states together. This I do not agree with. In Ohio, our outer belt (I270) is a circle, and does not connect two or more states. So, here is my definition.
Freeway and interstate are the same type of road. You enter through intrance and exit ramps.
A highway is a streach of road that has no stops. But, it has intersecting roads for turn offs. I say “has no stops” I know of one road (35) that is a highway and has signs that say highway ends in 1 mile. The road continues for several miles then becomes a highway again. The only thing different in the stretch of roadway that it is not a highway is that it has stop lights.
From anecdotal observation, it seems that drivers who smoke are more likely to be speeders, and have other bad driving behaviors. I had been thinking about this for some time, noticing that when I’m tail-gated or cut-off, the driver usually has a ciggy in their hand or lips, and a really intense look on their face. This applies to both men and women. It was really brought home when I took my daughter to Driving School for an accident (non-smoker, don’t know if the driver who ran into her was, or not - she was a brand new driver at the time) - most of the class was clustered outside puffing away, right up to class time.
Don’t know if it is the distraction of smoking, or the personality type that chooses one risky behavior - smoking - despite overwhelming evidence, will also choose another risky behavior - bad/fast driving. My guess goes with the second choice.
I hope this is not straying too far from the thread, if so, ship it off, and accept my humble apologies.