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Mar. 9, 2005 Elsewhere on this site, an essay points out that speed laws can be enforced. But SHOULD THEY BE ENFORCED? Evidence gathered since the 1940s suggests not! Paul Kearney's piece in Popular Science in the 1940s indicated that speed laws were ineffective. Grant S. McClellan's book in the 1950s on highway safety studies tabulated results from speed law enforcement studies in Indiana and elsewhere, and the conclusion was that lowering speed limits and vigorously enforcing them tended to INCREASE the speed traveled. Another study indicated that people were, on rural highways, 3 times as safe traveling 60mph as they were at 35mph. That is, traveling faster is not necessarily more dangerous. Joan Cimino of the National Highway and Traffic Safety Administration did a study in the 1980s which indicated that speed laws and their enforcement showed no demonstrable benefit in reducing traffic accidents. You've heard of this exhaustive study of course. Well, no, you haven't. The powers that be immediately threw it into the shredder. There is no mention of it nor of Mizz Ciimino which I can find on the internet. Luckily, I had a hard copy of the data. Unluckily, I have misplaced it in subsequent moves. An insurance company actuary did a study which showed that THE SAFEST DRIVERS WERE THOSE WHO TRAVELED 10MPH FASTER THAN THE AVERAGE TRAFFIC. You have read this study, of course, and insurance companies have stopped raising rates for people who were ticketed for speeding. No? Of course not! They continue to charge people more even though the people they are charging may well be the safest drivers on the road. The highway death rate, around 1920, was 24 deaths per thousand miles traveled. It is much, much lower today, even though we are traveling at much higher speeds. Focusing on speed is not only wasted effort, it is harmful effort. Highway deaths are a result of alcohol, inattention, and plain stupid decisions such as running red lights. More people are probably killed by dropped CDs and baby bottles than by speeding. More deaths occur at 45mph or less than at higher speed, and more deaths occur at intersections than on the open highway. It is simply that setting up a radar gun and ticketing speeders IS EASY AND GENERATES REVENUE FOR GOVERNMENTS. It has nothing to do with highway safety. If it were about highway safety, the police wouldn't be manning radar guns; they would be watching intersections for stupid behavior. But stupid behavior is harder to prove than the numbers on a radar ticket. So they would rather not bother. ------------ About the author Brooks A. Mick: 63-yr-old physician, still practicing medicine but retired from the US Army. Write just for the fun of it, but working on novel in the vein of Tom Clancy's politico-military genre. Email: brooks15@cox.net ------------ All articles are EXCLUSIVE to Useless-Knowledge.com and are not allowed to be posted on other websites. ARTICLE THIEVES WILL BE PROSECUTED! |
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