Speeding with intent to go faster

2005.06.22 — Culture | Technology | News | by Derek Jensen

USA Today ran an article on speeding in their June 14 issue called "Speeders' 5-10 mph 'free pass' costs lives, report says." This is another example of USA Today's crack reporting, which mostly involves rewriting press releases from shady organizations.

USA Today is a lousy newspaper. But thanks to its inclusion in most hotels, airports, and similar locations, it is a widely-read newspaper. And this pile of journalistic waste was a front page story.

This report is from the GHSA, the Governors Highway Safety Association. Altho the GHSA web site says its members are highway safety managers appointed by state governors and territories (does American Samoa have any highways?), it also mentions that "[a]ssociate membership is available to organizations, associations and businesses whose interests are compatible with GHSA." Do you think that might include insurance companies and the makers of radar guns and red-light cameras?

Let's keep in mind something very basic that gets lost in the debate about speeding: the purpose of transportation systems such as the interstate highway system is to get people from one place to another as quickly as possible. Safety, like economy and ecology, is strictly a secondary concern. There are much safer, cheaper, and greener modes of transportation available.

If we built our roads and highways primarily for safety, they would look very different, with far fewer intersections and far more guard rails. And we would all ride horses.

Any rule that allows safety to trump speed is like requiring guns to use smaller bullets: it may help, but only by defeating the purpose of the tool.

Let's take the article's basic points one at a time.

Cops allow motorists 5 to 10 mph over

The study found that motorists in most states get a free pass from police for driving 5 to 10 mph above posted speed limits.

We're starting out kind of slow here. This isn't much of a shock. Most people regard the speed limit as something of a suggestion for the optimum speed. If cops didn't allow people a 5 or 10 cushion, they'd all be writing 2,000 tickets a day.

Speeding is a major factor in traffic deaths

Speeding is a major factor in about one-third of the 42,000 traffic deaths a year in the USA. Not a cause, mind you, but a "major factor."

This is a fairly meaningless statistic, and not just because it's not defined for us and is the completely subjective judgment of highway patrolmen. How is it that speed isn't a "major factor" in all traffic deaths? Are there a lot of in-car drownings?

My guess is that this merely means that at least one vehicle was traveling faster than the speed limit at the time of the accident. Is that a surprise? Nearly everyone speeds nearly all the time; a fair percentage are going to be speeding at the time of an accident.

But what does it matter if the driver is going 65 in a 65 or 65 in a 55? It's speed that can be a factor, not breaking the speed limit. If we all drove 5 mph, hardly anyone would be killed on the highway. There is a basic trade-off between safety and speed, and the vast majority of Americans believe that it's around 75 or 80 mph on a major highway.

Imagine a study that said that height is a "major factor" in ladder deaths. Does that help you decide not to climb very high on a ladder? The purpose of a ladder is to allow you to climb to high places. My recommendation: don't climb drunk.

By the way, that 42,000 traffic deaths is comparable to the "carnage" created every year by nephrotic syndrome. Do you even know what nephrotic syndrome is?

There's been no decline in speeding-related fatalities

Jim Champagne of the GHSA (a lieutenant colonel of some sort), says: "We should have experienced a significant decline in speeding-related fatalities, given the tremendous gains in safety-belt use coupled with the increasingly safe design of vehicles."

We haven't experienced a significant decline in the raw number of speeding-related fatalities because the number of highway miles driven continues to rise. Any study that touts raw numbers instead of ratios is blowing smoke.

Speed's toll hasn't changed

A chart in the print edition shows "Speed's toll": Speed-related fatalities were 32% in 1995 and 31% in 2004.

Now this is a completely meaningless statistic. We haven't experienced a significant decline in the percentage of speeding-related fatalities vs all traffic fatalities because other safety programs have caused other types of traffic fatalities to decline at the same time. So speeding contributes to 31% of fatalities, and that hasn't changed for ten years. So what? All that means is that people are still breaking the speed limit at the same rate they always have been.

Traffic fatality rate is a record low

The nation's traffic fatality rate last year was a record low of 1.46 deaths per 100 million vehicle miles traveled, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

This is the only number that matters: fatalities per mile. All traffic fatalities as a ratio to miles driven are way down, largely due to safety features like air bags but also to anti-drunk-driving programs. And look at that figure again: fewer than 3 deaths for every 200 million miles driven. You'd have to drive about 73 million miles before you'd actually be likely (better than 50% chance) to die in a traffic accident. Want to know your chances of dying of heart disease?

Riding in a car is unusual because it is the most dangerous thing we all do all the time (now that few of us smoke). The fact that it is actually not very dangerous (compared to, say, over-eating or mountain-climbing) somehow gets lost in the shuffle.

It's like drunk driving

"If we are going to reduce the carnage on our roadways, speeding must be given the same level of attention that has been given to impaired driving," says Champagne.

Impaired driving causes fatalities, and with a high likelihood for any given instance. Speeding can only be said to "contribute" to them. And all speed, from 2 mph to 200 mph, "contributes" to fatalities, not just just the 10 mph between a legal 65 and an illegal 75. As I said in the beginning, the purpose of a roadway is to drive fast from one place to another. Anything that slows us down had better pay off big.

And what "carnage"? By their own admission, speeding "contributes to" 14,000 deaths per year out of 2.44 million total. That's a little more than one half of one percent of all US deaths. And it's not causing the fatality; it's only a "major factor."

Red-light cameras would help

The GHSA called for "expanded use of radar guns, red-light cameras and other equipment to nab speeders."

Whoa. How did red-light cameras get in there? They don't stop wrong-doers, they just take their picture and fine them (well, the vehicle's owner) later. You can drive thru a light at 100 mph and not get your picture taken... as long as it's green. So what does running a red light have to do with speeding? Are people driving so fast that they can't stop?

...Or does the GHSA membership somehow benefit from red-light cameras?

And what poverty-stricken cops don't have enough radar guns? If they wanted to, cops all over America could write speeding tickets all damn day. But that would make motorists so angry that they would demand that the laws be changed. Instead, legislators keep speed limits low enough that everybody speeds and encourage cops to write just enough tickets to fill the state's coffers without raising public ire. There's a word for that; it's taxation.

Practically everyone speeds

At the end, USA Today allows in the voice of reason, this time in the form of John Holevoet of the National Motorists Association: "At best, maybe one-quarter of the people are following a speed limit at a given time. Practically everyone speeds. They're going to try and say this is causing highway deaths. (But) we are looking at the lowest fatality rates ever."

Americans like to be safe. We've given up our rights to act dangerously by not wearing seatbelts or motorcycle helmets. But we have also made individual decisions that driving 75-85 mph on a divided highway is quite safe. And insurance companies, radar-gun salesmen, and revenue-enhancing state bureaucrats should lay off.

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