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Re: Speed Kills



Bennet George (georgeb@ur.msstate.edu) wrote:

: I'm a little grumpy this morning from missing breakfast to go tend to the 
: wounds of the occupants of two cars involved in a wreck. I'm a volunteer 
: firefighter and EMR. [ ... ]

[ detailed stories excised ]

: My proposal is to let neither the lawyers nor the engineers set the speed 
: limits. Let's let the firefighters and EMTs do it. And the family members 
: of fatal wreck victims.

: Please, friends, slow down and buckle up. I don't want my face to be the 
: last one you see.

Point taken.

But, and naturally I have no scientific data to back this, I submit that
speed limits have nothing to do with accident rates.  A tire will blow
out whether the little sign says 55 or 70.  A sleepy driver is a hazard
both above and below the speed limit.

Accidents are caused by something or somebody operating beyond capacity,
whether it's the capacity of the tire to adhere to the road, or the
capacity of the inebriated (or fatigued) brain to relay instructions to
the hands and feet, or the capacity of the vehicle's safety engineering
to protect its occupants from serious harm.  There are lots of factors
involved, including the speed of the vehicle, and the interplay of the
factors is different for each particular vehicle/driver combination.
These, coupled with the driver's familiarity with hir own capacities as
well as hir vehicle's, are what gives you grumpy mornings.

Not speed limits.

Drivers must learn to operate their vehicles at safe speeds.  This
probably means no more than 50mph for the nearsighted lady in the
Chevette, or it may mean 95mph for the physicist in the Benz.  Abnormally
low speed limits have conditioned most American drivers, much like
children at a slumber party, to see what they can get away with.  That's
idiocy.  I am not completely opposed to the idea of abolishing all speed
limits and letting St. Darwin intervene.

Followups to rec.autos.driving, as this now goes beyond MS.

--

Todd Mullins
todd@nutria.nrlssc.navy.mil	On the lovely Mississippi (USA) Coast

"A life lived in fear is a life half lived."


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