Speed and Crashes

Chapter 14 of William R. Black's Sustainable Transportation discusses the role that speed limits play in sustainable transportation.  Black discusses how motors consume more gas and produce more emissions as speeds increase as well as congestion.  What I think the most important part about speed and sustainability is the number of crashes, both fatal and nonfatal, that occur because of the speed limits.

First off I would like to preface this post by saying that as a writer I can not write this post from an unbiased perspective as I live in a family who has lost family members due to driving accidents and almost lost more that was directly due to speeding.  I also find myself speeding quite a lot so I am pointing out that I am a hypocrite in many cases.

From William R. Black's Sustainable Transportation chapter 14, page 165.

The above chart is a break down of fatal and nonfatal crashes on the various classifications of roadways in the US.  According to Black, no real connection between speed and fatalities can be made in most cases.  I for one though would have to disagree.  There are many cases in which drivers are driving too fast and can not control themselves when presented with an obstacle or a possible incident, thus crash.  One could then say that those drivers were probably speeding and going above the speed limit and I would attend to agree with this statement.  So the real question is not if there is a correlation between the speed limit and crashes, but if there is a correlation between crashes and drivers exceeding the speed limit.  I would certainly think that there must be a correlation between these two things, as it is one of the main reasons not to speed.  For example, my mother was in a major car accident that led to several injuries.  The accident only happened because a teenage driver was speeding at 45 miles an hour in a 25 mile and hour speed zone over a hill and could not see her stopped for pedestrians and rear-ended her.  If the driver had been traveling the correct speed, the one that was designed for the hill, then the accident would either not have happened or not have been as serious.

The question then is how can we better enforce speed limits.  I think there are a few ways that this can happen.  One is to make fines for speeding higher enforcement must go up.  By enforcement I mean not having a car parked in plain view of everyone because many times that causes cars to suddenly slow down to speeds much slower then they need to.  As someone who regrettably does speed, I know that I slow down if I think I am being watched and would certainly slow down if it meant several hundred dollars in tickets as opposed to getting a ticket for a "dirty license plate" which I did receive once.

What do you think about speed and safety?