IJ Reilly said:
Unless you can provide a source for this claim, I will have to assume it's a total fiction. It is a physical impossibility.
Ah, someone who's never taken Physics, eh? Physics has absolutely nothing to do with it, despite what you may feel. RD posted a study showing that raising the speed limit had no effect on fatalities, which from your response I can only assume was dismissed simply because it doesn't fit in with your beliefs, especially given your argument that "speed kills". In a study Montana did between posting a 65/75 speed limit, and completely removing the speed limit showed that the years without speed limits had no affect on the accident rates on their 4-lane divided highways, and a reduction in accidents on their 2-lane highways.
They agree with the commonly-held engineering principals that "people don't automatically drive faster when the speed limit is raised, speed limit signs will not automatically decrease accident rates nor increase safety, and highways with posted speed limits are not necessarily safer than highways without posted limits."
http://www.hwysafety.com/hwy_montana.htm
When the limits were re-enacted do to their "as fast as prudent" law was determined to be too vague to be constitutional, fatal accident rates increased 111% from the previous year.
http://www.hwysafety.com/hwy_montana_2001.htm
Here in Ohio, raising the speed limit had no effect on fatal accident rates whatsoever.
If you're the type who likes lots of support, here's a bunch you can read. The site itself may be biased, but I checked out the first 4 journal articles myself and they all appear to be well-developed studies and the quoted statements were not taken out of context.
http://www.sense.bc.ca/disc/disc-09.htm
IJ Reilly said:
In any event, you can change the laws of the road, but you can't alter the laws of physics, or human physical and cognitive abilities. All other things being equal, faster is more hazardous.
In fact, the exact opposite of this is true, within reason. The drivers travelling the slowest are at the greatest risk for being in an accident. Those driving at, for example, 10mph below the average speed are in far more danger than those travelling 10mph above the speed limit (David L. Harkey, et. al., "Assessment of Current Speed Zoning Criteria," Transportation Research Record, no. 1281).
I think that that should be sufficient... besides, we've been backing up our arguments... your support for your opinion so far has been "because I say so".
robbieduncan said:
In that case you must record accidents differently in the US than they are recorded in the UK. Here accidents causes can be recorded as speed related whether or not the vehicle(s) involved in the accident were speeding. iirc it's recorded as inappropriate speed. In most accidents there would be no proof that those involved had been speeding at the time anyway.
No, that's how they're recorded here, too. In any accident where speed is a factor it is marked on the little checkbox as affecting the accident. If you've been following the thread, my 10mph tap of the guardrail (which the cop witnessed) that was far below the posted speed of 45mph was attributed to speed on the ticket. Our records just have a list of factors that contributed to the accident, and one of the checkboxes is for speed... others are precipitation, visibility, etc...
