“Speeding is a national health problem and a big reason why this country is increasingly an outlier on traffic safety in the developed world. More than 1 in 4 fatal crashes in the United States involve at least one speeding driver, making speeding a factor in nearly 10,000 deaths each year, in addition to an unknowable number of injuries.
“Thousands of car crash victims are on foot, and speed is an even more crucial determinant of whether they live or die: The odds of a pedestrian being killed in a collision rise from 10 percent at 23 mph to 75 percent at 50 mph.
“And we’re now in a moment of particular urgency. Last year, when the pandemic shutdowns lowered total miles traveled by 13 percent, the per-mile death rate rose by 24 percent—the greatest increase in a century, thanks to drivers hitting high velocities on empty roads.”
(Henry Grabar. “The American Addiction to Speeding.” Slate. December 15, 2021.)
Slate's Henry Grabar reports that this carnage has not prompted a societal response akin to the movement elicited by drunk driving in the 1980s. Part of the reason is that Americans love driving fast and have confidence in their own abilities. About half admit to going more than 15 over the limit in the past month.
Meanwhile, drivers do generally regard their peers’ speeding as a threat to their own safety, and so we have wound up with the worst of both words: Thousands of speed-related deaths on the one hand, and on the other, a system of enforcement that is both ineffective and inescapable.
Grabar says …
“The nation’s most disobeyed law is dysfunctional from top to bottom. The speed limit is alternately too low on interstate highways, giving police discretion to make stops at will, and too high on local roads, creating carnage on neighborhood streets.
“Enforcement is both inadequate and punitive. The cost is enormous. And the lack of political will to do something about it tracks with George Carlin’s famous observation that everybody going faster than you is a maniac and everybody going slower than you is an idiot. The consensus is: Enforce the speed limit. But not on me, please. Because while it would be nice to save 10,000 lives a year, it sure is fun to drive fast.”
(Henry Grabar. “The American Addiction to Speeding.” Slate. December 15, 2021.)
We all know speeding has developed as a social attitude. We simply refuse to regard speeding with the seriousness it deserves-just as we once refused to see drunken driving for the evil it is. It`s fun; we`ve all done it; don`t be such a party pooper. That`s the litany.
Another reason speeding is prevalent is that we don`t realize there is an alternative. If you want a car that is quick and responsive at normal speeds, we assume, it has to have the power to attain abnormal speeds.
Research shows small speed increases can have huge effects on crash outcomes, as shown in new crash tests by the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) and Humanetics. The safety organizations conducted crashes at three different impact speeds (40, 50 and 56 mph). They found the slightly higher speeds were enough to increase the driver's risk of severe injury or death.
Speed limits? Drivers often travel faster than posted speed limits, but when officials raise limits to match travel speeds, people still go faster. Today, 41 states allow 70 mph or higher speeds on some roadways, including eight states that have maximum speeds of 80 mph or more. A 2019 IIHS study found that rising speed limits have cost nearly 37,000 lives over 25 years. AAA and IIHS urge policymakers to factor in this danger from higher speeds when considering speed limit changes.
(Joe Young. “New crash tests show modest speed increases can have deadly consequences.” Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. January 28, 2021.)
Well, if you believe that desperate times require desperate measures, read one person's idea about how to help cure motorists' addiction to speed. Back in 1991, Stephen Chapman of the Chicago Tribune reported on a possible aid to saving lives …
“Thanks to the electronics that are part of today`s vehicles, it`s possible to take a car that goes from 0 to 65 faster than you can say ''Porsche 944S2 Cabriolet' and, without slowing its acceleration, render it incapable of going faster than, say, 65. Some high-performance cars already have factory-installed governors, though they`re set at preposterously high speeds …
“It would be smarter to substitute a reliable form of prevention for this ineffectual cure.
“The remedy is to simply require that all new and late-model cars be equipped with electronic governors that prevent them from going faster than the highest posted speed limit in the country-or, if you want to be generous, 5 or 10 m.p.h. faster. That wouldn`t eliminate all speeding, all reckless driving or all traffic fatalities, but it would eliminate a lot.”
(Stephen Chapman. Finding a cure for motorists' addiction to speed.” Chicago Tribune. March 14, 1991.)
But, of course, despite saving lives, you know how the idea of governors would go over in the U.S. Mr. and Mrs. Freedom-loving Citizen would claim that the devices “infringe on a hallowed American freedom – the right to use a two-ton assemblage of metal to endanger other people for one`s own amusement.” Chapman's idea has produced no results.
Who Speeds With Frequency?
Who typically speeds?
Cluster analysis (2011 National Survey of Speeding
Attitudes and Behavior)
identified three distinct groups of
drivers with similar overall behavioral tendencies and, among those
categorized, 30% are nonspeeders, 40% are sometime speeders, and 30%
are speeders. Driver type is a powerful predictor of norms and
attitudes toward speeding behavior, speeding countermeasures,
experience with sanctions and crash experience.
Drivers who speed tend to be younger than drivers who don't, and male drivers are more likely than female ones to speed. One-half of the drivers 16 to 20 years old were classified as speeders, as compared to 15% of drivers 65 or older. Speeders were also more likely to have higher household incomes; 42% of drivers with annual household incomes exceeding $100,000 were classified as speeders, while only 25% of drivers with annual household incomes of $30,000 or less were in this driver type category.
(Schroeder et al., “2011 National Survey Of Speeding AttitudesAnd Behaviors.” U.S. Department of Transportation. 2013; Preusser et al., 1988; Williams et al., 2006).
And, the Ohio Department of Transportation has found more drivers going at extreme speeds at the hours with the most traffic on the roads.
“We noticed that there were a lot more extreme speeders during the afternoon commute than at any other time of the day. A close second was the morning commute,” ODOT spokesman Matt Bruning said.
If you’re surprised by extreme speeding at rush hour, you’re not alone.
“Historically, that is when we’ve seen fewer speeders because you see more traffic and people aren’t able to go as fast,” Bruning said.
“I can’t think of any time there’s an excuse for that,” Willoughby Hills Police Chief Matt Naegele said.
The chief wonders if more drivers got into the habit of going really fast when there was less traffic out at the height of the COVID-19 outbreak.
(Ed Gallek. “When are drivers most likely to go extreme speeds on highways? The I-Team finds out.” Fox 8 Ohio. November 9, 2021.)
What's COVID got to do with speeding? “Though speed management has been a problem for decades, speeding became even more acute during the COVID-19 pandemic, as less traffic has prompted some motorists to drive at high speeds on highways and city streets across the nation,” says Governors Highway Safety Association Executive Director Jonathan Adkins.
“Enforcement challenges, rising speed limits – which Insurance Institute for Highway Safety research confirms have cost thousands of lives – and public acceptance of speeding create a demand for new strategies.”
Why are we in such a hurry – and what did COVID-19 have to do with it? The Insurance Institute asked drivers why they sped much more often than normal early in the pandemic. Here are the five most popular reasons:
66%: The roads were not congested, so I felt it was safe to drive faster than posted speed limit.
46%: I’m a good driver, so I felt I could drive safely, even at high speeds.
34%: It seemed like there was far less law enforcement out, so I felt I could speed without getting a ticket.
25%: In general, I think posted speed limits are slower than necessary and I prefer to drive faster.
17%: The empty roads were a good opportunity to see how fast my car could go
(Raychel Adiutori. “Survey: The Top 5 Reasons Why Drivers Speed 2021. Erie Insurance. October 21, 2021.”
Conclusion
I know how speed can thrill a person and create unusual feelings of power. Back in 1969 I owned a Mustang 289 Hypo convertible that provided me with all of that and more. But, I was young and very foolish then. How stupidly I drove and how immaturely I operated by juvenile brain. Thinking back, I was very fortunate to survive the dumb antics and crazy feelings of being ten-feet tall and bulletproof.
Then, I had four children and worried myself to death about their turning 16 and learning how to drive. It was terrifying letting them finally solo and hit the highways. After that came grandchildren who reached driving age, and the worry continues to this day. Who cannot say speed is likely the number 1 caution for concerned loved ones?
Back into my geezer mode, made possible by my present age of 70, I conclude my own racy driving days are over … and for good reason. Speed doesn't excite me any more. On the contrary, it actually frightens me.
One trip on Interstate 270 (I-270) is enough to give me the shakes as seemingly thousands of people fly past me while swerving in and out of lanes at speeds well-above the speed limits. In the middle of the traffic I feel as if I'm in a combat mission or in one of those newfangled computer games. I feel threatened, 'buked and abused, and way, way too old creeping around in my '94 Cadillac hoopty. Lord, get me back to slower motion, alive, please!
Believe me, with my stiff joints and muscles, strong glasses, and slower reaction times, I'd rather ride the merry-go-round than the roller coaster. Take me to Kings Island and I'll be content to sit on a bench, sip lemonade, and people watch while you younger folks get your kicks … Does anyone even say that now? … on the Diamondback or the Beast. Yep, Pappaw's now officially a pussy. But, just possibly a smarter cat in many respects.
If you – like me – are looking toward science for answers during the pandemic, you may do so with studying the relationship between speed and auto crash severity. The Federal Highway Administration Research and Technology concludes in it “Summary” of January 2018 …
“Based on the findings of the studies summarized in this guidance report, a relationship exists between speed and safety on moderate- and high-speed rural highways. For crash severity, higher vehicle operating speeds are associated with more severe crash outcomes. However, the relationship between crash frequency and speed is not as clear. There is some indication that increasing posted speed limits is associated with an increase in expected crash frequency; however, the relationship between operating speed and crash frequency has yet to be well established.
“When applying the self-enforcing design concepts described in chapter 4 of this report, figure 2 and figure 3 may be used to predict how the expected frequency of various crash types may change. To do so, either observed or expected operating speeds for two different conditions can be used to compare the expected safety performance of the two different conditions.”
Table 2. Effects of speed increases on severity of crashes. (Kockelman et al. 2006)
|
Increase in Speed Limit |
Change in Probability |
Total Change in |
|---|---|---|
|
55 (88.6) to 65 (104.7) |
+24 |
+28 |
|
65 (104.7) to 75 (120.8) |
+12 |
+13 |
©TRB. Reproduced with the express written authority
of the TRB. Excerpted
from the TRB publication NHCRP Web-Only
Document 90 (Project 17-23).
Table 3. The increase in probability of a fatality and injury due to an increase in speed limit determined from accident-severity models. (Malyshkina and Mannering 2008, table 2)
|
Model |
A 1% Speed Limit Increase |
A 1% Speed Limit Increase |
|---|---|---|
|
Rural Country Road |
1.61 |
1.20 |
|
Rural Country Road |
2.77 |
2.35 |
|
Rural Country Road |
0.24 |
0.19 |
|
Rural State Route |
11.9 |
1.32 |
|
Rural State Route |
5.79 |
5.36 |
|
Rural State Route |
3.34 |
— |
|
Rural City Street |
1.46 |
1.12 |
|
Rural City Street |
— |
— |
|
Rural City Street |
— |
— |
|
Rural U.S. Route |
— |
— |
|
Rural U.S. Route |
3.12 |
2.28 |
|
Rural U.S. Route |
— |
— |
©TRB.
C = cars; LT = light trucks; HT = heavy
trucks; (C-LT) + (C-LT) = crash involving a car or light truck and a
car or light truck.
—No data.
(“CHAPTER 2. RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN SPEED AND SAFETY.” Self-Enforcing Roadways: A Guidance Report – FHWA-HRT-17-098. Federal Highway Administration Research and Technology. January 2018.)
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