When I talk to people about driving the speed limit, I get a lot of eye rolling and head shaking. A lot of people believe that speeding isn’t really illegal because everyone else is doing it. Which leads me to echo my mother, “If all your friends jumped off a bridge…” Although going with the flow of traffic is important, speeding is a dangerous habit to get into . Here are some interesting facts about speeding in Minnesota from the Minnesota Office of Traffic Safety:
- Illegal or unsafe speed is a leading contributing factor in fatal crashes. In 2006, 151 people were killed in speeding related crashes
- During the period of 2002-2006, fatalities resulting from speed-related crashes cost Minnesota over $929 million
- Younger drivers who speed are in grave danger — illegal or unsafe speed accounted for 30 percent of the factors cited in fatal crashes for drivers under age 30.
Speeding can increase the potential for loss of vehicle control, increase your stopping distance and cause greater crash severity leading to more numerous and severe injuries. Driving the speed limit is an environmentally and socially friendly action you can take for free to save money and energy and make our streets safer. Give it a try today!
[...] December 2008 I’ve touched on driving the speed limit on this blog a couple times (here, here, here and here), but I thought it might be nice to share my little personal testimonial on driving [...]
[...] Speeding = Actually Dangerous [...]
So, you mean to say that if you’re in a 45, and you go 55, you’ll be saving money?
(And why do I never see a 50 mph sign, or much less a 47 or something? I thought these things were supposed to be made according to some criteria about what speed is safe. There is no road with a safe speed that exists between 45 and 55?)
I think one of the problems is that people mean two different things when they speeding. When I talk about speeding, I’m talking about technically going above the posted speed limit.
I live in the DC metro area now, and almost everyone technically speeds–including the police. The few who don’t are usually going below the speed limit. That’s because our population hasn’t been ‘harassed’ about speeding yet. (It’s starting to happen now.) So everyone, pretty much drives at the speed they feel is safe. Very RARELY do you see “real” speeders who are going noticeably faster than the flow of traffic or weaving. Usually if you see a police car, you feel a little self-conscious and maybe just check to make sure you don’t go 10 mph over, but that’s about it. And then the police car passes you.
People here in Maryland ARE conscious about aggressive driving though, because we have laws or programs about aggressive drivers. This is really a subjective decision of the police officer who can pull you over for aggressive driving (which would include the dangerous kind of speeding) and ticket with heavy penalties. I have to say, it was encouraging to see such a fair system that seemed to work well.
When I lived in Colorado the enforcement attitude and consequently the driving attitude were very different. A lot of people there go the speed limit or 5 mph above. (For some odd reason 5 mph above is rarely enforced as if THAT speeding is legitimate legally.) So basically you had a bunch of people who felt like they should be going faster, but were afraid to do so. I also noticed that people there were much more likely to block the left lane than in Maryland. When I moved here I was delighted to see how everyone for the most part tried to cooperate while driving, even if they were a bit slow to do so. (Don’t get me wrong, I still love Colorado.)
In fact after being in different states and countries, I see a correlation with driving skills and attitudes with how the traffic laws are constructed and enforced. It’s a bit of the chicken and egg problem: are the traffic laws creating that behavior, or was that behavior what lead to those laws? It’s ingenuous of me to suggest that I know, even though I think it’s the former. There just hasn’t been a study done on it.
By the way, I find it hard to drive at 55 and I’m biased. It’s a bit low for 5th gear in my car with standard transmission, but it is definitely not cost-effective in 4th gear. The optimal speed for my car seems to be around 60 – 65 which is what I usually do on the highway.