It's the people who don't drive with the flow of traffic that cause accidents. If speed was ultimate factor in vehicle deaths, no one would survive the Indy 500. The main factor in traffic safety is driving skill which incompasses common sense, knowing your limits, the limits of the road, your vehicle, road conditions, etc. Competant drivers know how fast they should drive.
Link: Safe at Any Speed.
We now have 10 years of evidence proving that the only "assault" was on the sanctity of the truth. The nearby table shows that the death, injury and crash rates have fallen sharply since 1995. Per mile traveled, there were about 5,000 fewer deaths and almost one million fewer injuries in 2005 than in the mid-1990s. This is all the more remarkable given that a dozen years ago Americans lacked today's distraction of driving while also talking on their cell phones.
Of the 31 states that have raised their speed limits to more than 70 mph, 29 saw a decline in the death and injury rate and only two--the Dakotas--have seen fatalities increase. Two studies, by the National Motorists Association and by the Cato Institute, have compared crash data in states that raised their speed limits with those that didn't and found no increase in deaths in the higher speed states.
Jim Baxter, president of the National Motorists Association, says that by the early 1990s "compliance with the 55 mph law was only about 5%--in other words, about 95% of drivers were exceeding the speed limit." Now motorists can coast at these faster speeds without being on the constant lookout for radar guns, speed traps and state troopers. Americans have also arrived at their destinations sooner, worth an estimated $30 billion a year in time saved, according to the Cato study.
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Just after posting that, I run smack-dab into another story that reinforces my point. A confused old man plowing into a crowd of people, injuring 27, at the ghastly speed of 15 MPH.