🚀 go-pugleaf

Walt Horning wrote in message <36ce2eb9.7839874@news.pipeline.com>...
>Oscar Voss <ovoss@erols.com> wrote:
>
>>Dan Nagle wrote:
>>>
>>> Hello,
>>>
>>> Hear, hear!
>>>
>>> Note that Va.'s wonderful Gov can't decide to send money to
>>> Northern Va to fix the roads, but can order a full-press
>>> on speeders on I-81.  Shee-yit.
>>
>>Actually, I-81 is so often congested with trucks that it's usually hard
>>to build up speed.  I'm not sure extra enforcement will make a lot of
>>difference there.
>
>Three points:
>
>More speed for cars eases congestion and actually makes it safer. This
>was proven when Maryland raised limit from 55 to 65 and the death rate
>actually went down.

Did not both the accident rate AND the number of fatalaties drop
dramatically in the year following Maryland raising its interstate speed
limit to 65 mph?  Notably, this occurred on the roads where the speed limit
was raised, rather than all "highways" or public roads where the speed
limits were unaffected, such as 25-45 mph residential streets, as was the
case with the imposition of the 55 mph NMSL during the fuel shortages of
late 1973, early 1974, when, for instance, pedestrian fatalities nationwide
declined by roughly 1,500, to which groups such as the National Safety
Council propagandized were part of the 9,000 fewer "highway" fatalities then
attributed to the then new speed limit.

Less congestion, means less interaction, means
>less accidents, and higher speeds ease congestion (to a point, well
>above our existing speed limits).


This is suggested in federal government statistics that I saw at the
National Highway Traffic Admistration in late 1991 while conducting reserach
for a paper on the topic of the relationship between traffic clustering and
speed limits on freeways (as a Graduate student the School of Justice Law
and Society at the School of Public Affairs at the American University in
Washington, D.C.).  The statistics, between 2 basic types of accidents --
single car versud multi car -- showed a roughly 60/40 percent split annually
with the 55 mph NMSL (with 60% of the accidents as multi-car, and 40% single
car PRIOR to the allowance of a rural interstate 65 mph speed limit starting
in 1987), shifting to 40% accidents as multi- car/60% single car.   To my
understanding, these figures were for all types of roads, and not broken
down between say, limited access divided roads versus undivided ones.
However, notably, this drastic shift in the accident profile did not occur
with the backdrop of other factors that would significently lower the number
of accidents, such as a fuel shortage that drastically affected driving
habits.

The main points were those that you have done a good job in dc.driving,
about the influence of speed limit underpostings upon drivers' behavior that
engender "clustering", e.g. the fear to pass another vehicle (or to do so as
perhaps slowly as possible, out of fear of receiving a ticket for
"speeding."

>Europeans "show no fear" passing trucks. Americans, long used to a
>"pampered" life, lack the guts to pass a truck at all. All they do is
>"hover" for their perceived own safety, but cause huge
>bumper-to-bumper backups that are twice as dangerous as expeditious
>passing. >

This is consistent with my long held observations, and those of others who
remember how the 55 mph speed limit subverted safety upon our highways.

Douglas A. Willinger
Takoma Park Highway Design Studio