🚀 go-pugleaf

"Douglas A. Willinger" <dougwill@idt.net> wrote:

>
>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.
>

Good information. Just one thing to add.

Its is undeniable that higher speeds translate into a higher
probability of death in an accident. However, in congested areas,
higher speeds can reduce the accident rate significantly enough that
the fewer number of accidents more than offsets the probability of
death so that the net effect is to save lives. Of course there is an
upper limit on this.

Seems the Germans found unlimited speed resulted in no more deaths per
miles driven than with speed limits on their autobahns
(superhighways). One survey put the German death rate at about 1/10 of
one percent lower than the U.S., and this was back when the limits
were 55 mph in the U.S., despite them driving 100-130 mph typical
(160-200 kph).

>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
>