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> 55 saves lives. Actually that's not true. [1] In 1995 the Republican Congress repealed the 55-mile-per-hour federal speed limit law. At the time, the hi
by IncRnd 5y ago
> 55 saves lives.
Actually that's not true. [1]
In 1995 the Republican Congress repealed the 55-mile-per-hour federal speed
limit law. At the time, the highway safety lobby and consumer advocacy
groups made apocalyptic predictions about 6,400 increased deaths and a million
additional injuries if posted speed limits were raised. Ralph Nader even said
that “history will never forgive Congress for this assault on the sanctity of
human life.”
But almost all measures of highway safety show improvement, not more deaths
and injuries since 1995. Despite the fact that 33 states raised their speed
limits immediately after the repeal of the mandatory federal speed limit,
the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration reported last October that
“the traffic death rate dropped to a record low level in 1997.” Moreover, the
average fatality rate even fell in the states that raised their speed limits.
Higher speed limits have not caused one million more auto injuries. In fact,
in 1997 there were 66,000 fewer road injuries than in 1995, the year before
the speed limits were raised. The injury rate per 100 million vehicle miles
traveled fell to its lowest level ever recorded in 1997. If the injury rate
on the roads had been as high in 1997 as it had been in 1995, approximately
17,000 more Americans would have been injured on the roads.
[1] https://www.cato.org/policy-analysis/speed-doesnt-kill-repeal-55-mph-speed-limit https://www.cato.org/policy-analysis/speed-doesnt-kill-repea...
- davidjade 5y agoBut how much of that is due to safer automobiles? How has the accident rate been affected?
- voakbasda 5y agoThe effects were measured right before and after the speed limits were change, and cars did not magically get a lot safer at that exact same time. Thus, automobile safety seems to be an irrelevant variable in the quoted study.
- Someone 5y agoIf cars, on average, last 20 years, 10% of cars get replaced in two years time. That can be significant. I also would think cars that get replaced are driven a lot more kilometers per year, so chances are a lot over 10% of all kilometers driven were in newer cars. ⇒ I’m not convinced increasing the speed limit didn’t make roads less safe. Reading https://www.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/pubs/pdf/pa346.pdf https://www.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/pubs/pdf/pa346.pdf, fatality rate dropped from about 1.7 to about 1.6. That’s about 6%. Eyeballing figure 1 in https://www.euro.who.int/__data/assets/pdf_file/0015/43314/E92789.pdf https://www.euro.who.int/__data/assets/pdf_file/0015/43314/E..., I see a drop that could be of similar size in the EU, too. ⇒ I’m not convinced increasing the speed limits made the roads less safe, either. In general, highways are about the safest roads, anyways, so you probably would have to look at safety only on those roads with higher speeds to be able to answer the question whether safety went up/down/nowhere.
- mikestew 5y agoThere's a two year difference between measurements, as described in the quoted part of the above comment. Cars didn't change that much in those two years*, nor did everyone go out and buy new cars. * Airbags were already mandated in the U. S. at that point, and though I oddly can't find a reference, I believe anti-lock brakes were mandatory at that point, too.
- saila 5y agoReading through this, it doesn't sound like ABS was required in 2009: https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/811182 https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/.... Another source says it's been required (federally) as of 2013: https://knowhow.napaonline.com/what-does-abs-mean-on-a-car/ https://knowhow.napaonline.com/what-does-abs-mean-on-a-car/.
- mikestew 5y agoMan, I could have sworn ABS became mandated standard sometime in the 90s. Thanks for going to the trouble to find references.
- yardie 5y agoHow many are attributable to widespread airbag installment. Introduced in the 80s, common by the 90s, mandatory by 98.
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- IncRnd 5y agoI searched a little and saw many references to 15,000 reduced deaths in the 20 years from 1980 to 2000 due to air bags.
- m463 5y agoIt's been long known (yet unpopular to report) that speed variance is what is dangerous, not speed. Basically the difference between the "common sense speed" for a road and the posted speed limit correlates to accident rate.
- dubbel 5y agoI skimmed through the analysis. Figure 1 is pretty funny, given it's x-axis of 1.5 to 1.7 it on first glance seems to show a 50% drop in the deaths per 100M vehicle miles traveled in between 1996 and 1997 (1.7 to 1.6). That is even though they do show the exact numbers (1.69 and 1.64). But let's blame that on the word processors of the time (1999). The difference in deaths per 100M miles of vehicle travel between 1995 and 1997 of all States that Raised Speed Limits is -5.6%, while it's -6.3% for the states which kept the old one.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]