The federal government’s 1995 decision to allow states to set speed limits higher than 65 mph caused almost 14,000 additional deaths over 25 years on interstates and freeways, according to a new study by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.
That average of 560 deaths a year ”is really a big deal,” said Charles Farmer, the author of the study and a vice president of the Insurance Institute, which is funded by the insurance industry. However, it’s about 10 percent of what federal officials and some safety advocates predicted in 1995, when they opposed Congress ending the national 65 mph limit.
The study maps the speed limits of the 50 states and District of Columbia. It says 41 states now have limits of 70 mph or higher. That includes six states with 80 mph limits and Texas, which allows 85 mph on some roads. Eight other states have limits of 65 mph and Hawaii’s is 60 mph.
There’s a high price to pay for getting somewhere faster, said Farmer.
A five mph increase in the speed limit increases the number of interstate deaths about eight percent, according to the study. A 10 mph hike would increase the number of deaths by 17 percent.
“But it’s actually an exponential relationship, so things start to spread out after that: a 15 mph increase yields a 27% increase in fatalities,” Farmer said.
Subscribe to receive occasional alerts in your inbox
And, Farmer said, drivers probably overestimate how much time they save by going faster: Driving 100 miles at 65 mph takes only seven minutes longer than driving at 70 mph.
The study also estimated that higher speed limits have resulted in 23,000 additional deaths on other types of roads–for an increase of 37,000 speed-related fatalities altogether. However, Farmer said that data was “a little bit murky because we didn’t know specifically what was going on with speed limits on those roads.”
Farmer said the primary focus of his work was the interstates and freeways because they have the higher speeds and there is precise information on when and where speed limits changed.
“But there is some carryover effect. People get used to going fast on the interstate, they may go a little faster on a secondary road and some of the secondary roads have had their speed limits raised,” he said. “We have seen over in many studies that when you raise the speed limit on one road you also see increases on other roads,” he said.
Speed clearly kills and hopefully the study will increase the focus on reducing speed-related deaths and injuries, said Jason Levine, the executive director of The Center for Auto Safety, a consumer advocacy group founded by Ralph Nader.
“Speeding has become almost a forgotten issue in traffic safety discussions, and clearly we’re losing any sense of limits,” Darrin Grondel, chair of Governors Highway Safety Association executive board, said in a statement.
A spokesman for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said that while speed limits are controlled by the states, speed is a major concern for the agency. “For more than two decades speeding has been a critical factor in approximately one-third of all motor vehicle fatalities. Speeding endangers everyone,” he said.
The rise in speed-related deaths has come at a time when total crash fatalities have dropped from about 40,000 in 1993 to 37,000 in 2017, the years covered in the study.
A Los Angeles freeway (George Clerk, iStock photo)
During that time safety officials have worked on issues such as drunken and distracted driving as well as making vehicles significantly safer. Design improvements include better protection for occupants in a crash and the ability to avoid a crash thanks to electronic aids that can correct skids, warn of impending collisions and automatically apply the brakes.
States didn’t always have the right to set their own speed limits.
In 1974 Congress set the limit on interstates at 55 mph as a fuel-saving strategy in response to the Arab Oil Embargo.
In 1987 – responding to complaints about the 55 mph maximum–Congress gave states the right to increase the speed limit to 65 mph.
Then, in 1995 Congress got out of the speed limit business, accepting the argument that states should have the right to decide. That decision angered and dismayed some medical and insurance groups as well as safety advocates such as Ralph Nader, who told The Washington Post it was “an assault on the sanctity of human life.”
Speeding is also getting the attention of the European Union. It is working on a plan that – starting in 2022 – could require all new cars to have a device that will warn the driver when the speed limit is exceeded. It has yet to be approved.
Later this month, the Insurance Institute and Governors Highway Safety Association are holding a conference in Virginia to discuss strategies for controlling speeding.
“Speeding is still a problem,” said Russ Martin, the safety association’s director of policy and government relations. “It’s been a problem for a long time.”
I agree with the previous two comments for the most part regarding the IIHS and what I consider its velociphobia in opposition to speed limits above 55 and 65 mph.
However, I see no real need for 80 and 85 mph speed limits posted in some states on rural Interstates. For example, the 85 mph speed limit on the Texas 130 toll road, in my opinion, needlessly dangerous, frightening away motorists and truckers needed for it to succeed, resulting in its bankruptcy. I believe if it had been posted from the start at a more reasonable 75 mph, Texas 130 would have been a profitable, money-making enterprise, or would have at least broken even financially.
This to me is the one instance where the highest speed limit in the United States was, and is, bad for business as well as safety. What reasonable and prudent motorist or truck driver would pay a toll to risk their lives on this road?
Why doesn’t the Texas Department of Transportation and Department of Public Safety release the death and injury statistics for Texas Highway 130 so we can see just how dangerous this 85 mph speed limit is?
IIHS study checklist:
– Self-published
– No peer review
– Statistical obfuscation and nonsense
– Not actually a new study
– Supports a position that criminalizes as many reasonable motorists as possible
– Protects multi-billion dollar insurance surcharge business of its corporate masters
Looks like they covered all the bases.
To the Staff of FAIRWARNING:
If you want to do genuine watchdog journalism on this issue, you need to research the IIHS enough to understand they have massive conflicts of interest in keeping posted speed limits on highways set far below the safest levels that the super-majority of drivers find to be safe and comfortable. This is to facilitate more speed trap tickets to drivers driving very safely for the actual conditions, which then facilitates more unfair and unjustified insurance premium surcharges to some of the safest drivers on the roads, the ones with the lowest statistical risks to be in accidents.
The IIHS is as far away from a neutral research organization on this issue as any group could possibly be. Their “reports” and “research” are pure public relations & advertising advocacy to support higher profits for their member insurance companies.
The fatality rate in 1974 was 3.60 fatalities per 100 million vehicle miles traveled when the counter productive and largely ignored National Maximum Speed Limit of 55 mph was first proposed (to save fuel with the first Arab Oil Embargo). Today it is 1.16 per 100 M VMT or over two-thirds safer per mile traveled. We drive 3.2+ trillion miles a year in the US. If you are in a vehicle for about 15,000 miles a year, you will be in an auto accident involving a fatality of a pedestrian, cyclist, or vehicle occupant about once in every 5,700 years – roughly once since the start of Stonehenge on the Salisbury Plain in the UK.
When the Interstates were first planned and built in the late 1950s and early 1960s, states were required to design for and post the speed limit in most rural areas for a minimum of 70 mph. The actual travel speeds of the slowest 85% of the drivers (85th percentile speed) were at or below about 70 mph in most areas. Today the slowest 85% of the drivers tend to be at or below 78-82 mph in most rural areas, indicating the safest limit to post in most rural areas would be 80 mph. It is perfectly logical and true that 80 mph in a modern car today is much safer than 70 mph in a 1958 Chevrolet Belair or a 1962 Plymouth Fury.
There are many things the US could do to improve traffic safety for pedestrians, cyclists, and vehicle occupants. Following the IIHS wishes to grow the profits of their member insurance companies by punishing safe drivers for “the dastardly crime of driving safely for the actual conditions” is NOT one of them.
Regards,
James C. Walker
Life Member, National Motorists Association
Board Member and Executive Director, National Motorists Association Foundation
http://www.motorists.org