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      08-15-2013, 03:31 PM   #29
Titanium3er
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Quote:
Originally Posted by NemesisX View Post
I'd caution against reading too much into a study by CATO, as they have a vested interest in promoting a "hands-off" policy for philosophical reasons (CATO is a libertarian think tank). I know I might get some flack for trying to hold a study like this to the standards of scientific rigor, but shedding bias and encouraging peer review are feasible standards to strive for even at this level. And moreover, the second link Titanium3er posted actually contained a variety of miniature case studies with different results. A small case study in Michigan showed that increasing speed limits doesn't increase fatalities. A case study elsewhere showed that increasing speed limits does increase fatalities, albeit slightly.

In principle though I'm all for legally increasing speed limits. I have no problem with speeding in and of itself. What usually worried me was speed differential, though not in the absolute naive sense of the phrase (i.e. car 1 travels at 75 in a 70, car 2 travels at 90 in a 70, and I'm worried about 90-75 = 15 MPH). When I say "speed differential," I mean the following -

Car 1 travels at 75 in a 70
Car 2 (coming up from behind) is traveling at 95 in a 70
Car 1 expects car 2 (and all other cars, in fact) to drive within +/- 10 MPH of the posted speed limit.

It's the differential between the speed at which the average driver expects fellow drivers to be driving at and the actual speed they are driving at that worries me. And, I think the importance of paying attention to this difference is magnified on highly interconnected road networks with slower speed limits. People approach a T intersection and are trying to take a right turn and merge onto a 45 MPH street (for example). There's an expectation that fellow drivers around that blind curve aren't flying down at 70 or 80.
I don't think the fact that this study was done by CATO alone disproves it. If you had issues with the data they used or their methodology, that would be a different story. I actually find their positions in general to be pretty convincing. I'm sure this isn't the case for someone who disagrees with their libertarian philosophies.

Regardless of your feelings on CATO, it's widely accepted that the fatality rate decreased when the federal government allowed states to raise their speed limits to 65 mph in the late 80's. Whether or not this would remain true for an increase to 80 or 90 could be debated endlessly. Here is a study performed by UC Irvine under a grant from a much less controversial organization, AAA. They conclude that the decrease in fatality rates in states that enacted 65 mph limits was between 3.4 and 5.1 percent:

http://www.ibiblio.org/rdu/65-lives.html

I think that your point regarding speed variance and its correlation to safety is a valid one. Coincidentally, the UC Irvine study posits that the decrease in speed variance is one of the three possible contributors which led to our roads becoming safer.

It would be interesting to look at current speed variances in different parts of the country. Where I currently reside, a majority of people speed on the interstate. I know this because I find it amusing to set my cruise control to the speed limit (in the right lane of course and accounting for BMW's speedo skew) and watch as people fly by. I've done this in about 10 states on the east coast with relatively consistent results. If my admittedly unscientific observations are true, there is still more to be done in reducing speed variance. I'd guess that this could be achieved by increasing the limit between 5 and 15 mph depending on the road.

What the average driver expects the speed of others to be shouldn't be an issue. As it stands currently, emergency vehicles routinely exceed posted speed limits by 20 - 30 mph in order to get where they need to go quickly. Perhaps the lights and sirens would alert these drivers, but if you're talking about the same drivers I am, I wouldn't count on it.

The average American driver needs to put down the cell phone and Big Gulp and concentrate on the road. In my mind they are a much bigger danger than speeders paying attention.
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