Speed limits: Is faster safer? | Page 3 | GTAMotorcycle.com

Speed limits: Is faster safer?

Brian P said:
the cops can set about enforcing right-of-way, and not yapping on the phone, and all manner of other nonsense.
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That would require the police to actually do traffic enforcement, something that is far and few between in Ontario. As I mentioned (perhaps in this thread, or elsewhere, I forget) I drive a lot of miles on a daily basis and cover hundreds of thousands of kilometers every year as part of my job. Traffic enforcement here is lax at best, a joke at worst. I used to drive to and from Montreal on a daily basis and I would sometimes go WEEKS without seeing a speed trap anywhere along the entire corridor to the PQ line...although the PQ police are MUCH more visible in a traffic enforcement role.

People ***** and complain about the speed traps and county-mounties that blanket many southern states, but I'll tell you what, where there's a heavy police presence the drivers mind their P's and Q's.

Here, people don't give two craps because they rest comfortably assured that they don't have to worry about purpose placed speed traps or roadside traffic enforcement, just the occasional cruiser here and there headed to Point B that may or may not bother them, or even see their infractions to begin with.

How many idiots are still driving 140, 150 (or +) on the 401? How often do you see people do it scott-free vs getting caught? The ratio is very lopsided. THAT'S my point.
 
Brian P said:
Do you think the drivers in Utah are any better than those in Ontario? (I think not.)

Average traffic speed on certain roads in Utah did not significantly change when they raised the speed limit to 80 mph.
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View real data from MANY states on how travel speeds changed in response to speed limit increase there, along with the effect on fatalities and injuries. In most cases it is not what you are trying to have people believe. http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/Pubs/808-637.pdf
 
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View the results of a "ten-years-after" follow-up study. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2724439/

Methods. We used a Poisson mixed-regression model to assess changes in the number of fatalities and injuries in fatal crashes between 1995 and 2005 on rural interstates, where all US states have raised speed limits since the repeal, as well as on urban interstates and noninterstate roads, where many states have raised speed limits.

Results. We found a 3.2% increase in road fatalities attributable to the raised speed limits on all road types in the United States. The highest increases were on rural interstates (9.1%) and urban interstates (4.0%). We estimated that 12 545 deaths (95% confidence interval [CI] = 8739, 16 352) and 36 583 injuries in fatal crashes (95% CI = 29 322, 43 844) were attributable to increases in speed limits across the United States.

Conclusions. Reduced speed limits and improved enforcement with speed camera networks could immediately reduce speeds and save lives, in addition to reducing gas consumption, cutting emissions of air pollutants, saving valuable years of productivity, and reducing the cost of motor vehicle crashes.
 
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The problem is that people keep pulling "facts" out of their a, um, thin air.

These "facts" do nothing to enhance others opinions on what should be done, when they're shown to be misleading and untrue.

If you can't convince us of a good argument, you're going to have a real hard time convincing someone who has an entire bureaucracy, eagerly waiting to test the truth of any "facts" that you submit.


TLDR: Get your facts straight and together, if you want to have a hope in Hell of convincing someone.
 
Traffic+Fatalites+Chart.png
 
Brian P said:
Traffic+Fatalites+Chart.png
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More airbags, fewer drunk drivers, safer vehicles, better driver training, graduated licensing, lower speed limits, etc. Pick one, or some, or all!
 
Yes and if you ask police, EMS and ER doctors, many state that we see a lot less fatalities, due to much improved, vehicle safety features as well as treatment at the scene and in the ER. People who would have routinely been fatalities 10 years ago are now listed as seriously injured due to the treatment, and level of care/expertise of our medical system.

Brian P said:
Traffic+Fatalites+Chart.png
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hedo2002 said:
Yes and if you ask police, EMS and ER doctors, many state that we see a lot less fatalities, due to much improved, vehicle safety features
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Totally agree. People are getting hurt less and surviving more often because of better vehicles that are effectively band-aiding otherwise still crappy drivers.

Take away ABS, traction control, stability control, airbags, and hell, even automatic emergency braking on some high end vehicles and see where those statistics go. And that doesn't even take into consideration all the passive safety features built into cars now like roll cage structures, crumple zones, etc etc....all of which make major accidents far more survivable than even a decade or two ago before all the other electronic crutches.
 
Baggsy said:
Here's something from 2013: http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2013/may/13/speed-limits-reduce-number-road-deaths
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This relates to that article, and provides more data on the effects of speed limits on certain sections of the Autobahn.

http://archive.etsc.eu/documents/copy_of_Speed Fact Sheet 1.pdf

The pro-higher or pro-no limit people will not like it. While they are arguing that there would be no significant increase in fatalities with higher speed limits, the sample data from Germany's Autobahn looks at it from the other direction - the effects of REDUCING speeds on crashes and fatalities.


  • In December 2002 a 130 km/h limit was introduced on a 62km section of the Autobahn 24 between Berlin and Hamburg. This is the longest section on a German Autobahn on which a speed limit has been introduced in the past decade. The number of injury/material damage accidents decreased by 48% and the numbers of casualties decreased by 57% (comparing the 3 years before and 3 years after introduction)
  • In Rheinland-Pfalz, a 130 km speed limit was also introduced on a 167km section of the A61 in 1991 and has been retained since then. This measure was combined with a ban on overtaking for heavy good vehicles. The impact of these two measures was a 30% reduction in fatal and severe injury accidents (comparing one year after and one year before their introduction – Rheinland-Pfalz Ministry of Transport).
  • one field trail in the Land of Hesse from November 1984 to May 1987, the speed was limited at 100km/h on some motorways, bringing down the number of accidents with deaths or injuries per billion vehicle kilometer by 25% to 50%. A field trial on the Autobahn A2 during 1992 and 1994 also showed a 50% decrease of the accident rate per billion vehicle kilometers.
  • The road safety impacts of speed limits were evaluated in 1984 by the Federal Highway Research Institute. The study estimated that a general limit of 120 km/h on the Autobahn network would lead to a 20% reduction of road deaths, a limit of 100 km/h even to a 37% reduction.

This data is from where they already have higher limits, and what happened when they LOWERED them.

More to the point, this data comes from a place where driver licensing, vehicle maintenance, and traffic enforcement standards are much higher that here. In other words, the cream of the driving crop driving the cream of well-maintained vehicles on the cream of well-engineered and maintained autobahn highways.

What makes anyone think that higher limits would do any better here in Canada?
 
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nakkers said:
This report is old. What about the last 10 years?


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See my next post after that - a 10-years-after study.

Results. We found a 3.2% increase in road fatalities attributable to the raised speed limits on all road types in the United States. The highest increases were on rural interstates (9.1%) and urban interstates (4.0%). We estimated that 12 545 deaths (95% confidence interval [CI] = 8739, 16 352) and 36 583 injuries in fatal crashes (95% CI = 29 322, 43 844) were attributable to increases in speed limits across the United States.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2724439/

More that isn't said in those numbers - this increase in highway fatalities related to raised speed limits comes during a period of rapid improvements in vehicle safety systems, better airbags, introduction of vehicle stability control, better highway crash barriers, better fire and paramedic first response capabilities at crash scenes, and better medical care once at hospital.

In other words, what would the fatality increase have been without all those improvements working to reduce fatality rates?
 
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PrivatePilot said:
'

By that logic we need not waste any money changing all the signs on the 401 then...because everyone is already basically driving 20% over (120) and when was the last time you ever saw someone get pulled over for driving 120 on the 401? I don't care what the signs say, I do care what the law says. If it is accepted by the police that driving 120 on the 401 is safe and they don't stop you, then why when you get convicted for doing 130 the penalty is not only on 10km/hr? but you pay for 30km/hr. Again when the request is to legalize the current speed people are already driving at and cops have no problem with.

But I guarantee you if you increased it to 120 a large percentage of the population will interpret that as an invitation to push that to 140. If the logic is that the "hard enforcement" line will move to 120 if the limit is increased to 120 (and the 20 over buffer will no longer be tolerated as it so clearly is now), then again, this all seems like a lesson in wasting a few million dollars changing all the signs on the 401 for absolutely nothing. This is your OPINION and it goes again't what studies on provinces like BC say.
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For the most current fatalities rates in the USA:


http://www-fars.nhtsa.dot.gov/Main/index.aspx

Historical data from 1994 until 2013. Looks like America's roads have been getting safer.


Isn't the point of travel to get from one point to another the quickest way possible as well as doing so safely?

Indeed, there has been improvements with vehicle safety and design. There is also the focus on DUI, distracted driving and seat beat enforcement. (Canadians generally buckle up when compared to our neighbours to the south)

We also have competing technologies such as GPS and smart phone taking the attention away from the task of driving.

I don't know folks. We all know that stats lie depending on who is providing them and what purpose they are intended for.


I think we can all agree that the current culture in Canada has the vast majority of traffic exceeding the posted speed limits. Is enforcement to blame? What drives the focus of law enforcement?

I have no problem with setting proper limits and having zero tolerance. I'd rather that than, basically giving LEO cause to stop the vast majority of drivers because they are all breaking the law.

Edit: just thought to add Canadian stats considering it's more relative.

Looks like the same trend.

http://www.tc.gc.ca/media/documents/roadsafety/cmvtcs2013_eng.pdf




Anyhow......time for a ride.
 
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Good Post
nakkers said:
For the most current fatalities rates in the USA:


http://www-fars.nhtsa.dot.gov/Main/index.aspx

Historical data from 1994 until 2013. Looks like America's roads have been getting safer.


Isn't the point of travel to get from one point to another the quickest way possible as well as doing so safely?

Indeed, there has been improvements with vehicle safety and design. There is also the focus on DUI, distracted driving and seat beat enforcement. (Canadians generally buckle up when compared to our neighbours to the south)

We also have competing technologies such as GPS and smart phone taking the attention away from the task of driving.

I don't know folks. We all know that stats lie depending on who is providing them and what purpose they are intended for.


I think we can all agree that the current culture in Canada has the vast majority of traffic exceeding the posted speed limits. Is enforcement to blame? What drives the focus of law enforcement?

I have no problem with setting proper limits and having zero tolerance. I'd rather that than, basically giving LEO cause to stop the vast majority of drivers because they are all breaking the law.

Edit: just thought to add Canadian stats considering it's more relative.

Looks like the same trend.

http://www.tc.gc.ca/media/documents/roadsafety/cmvtcs2013_eng.pdf




Anyhow......time for a ride.
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ZX600 said:
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Trying to find your B.C. studies.
All I can find is a CBC documentary, for which you've quoted the pro limit increase side.
Maybe you can post a link or two. ;)
 
Baggsy said:
Trying to find your B.C. studies.
All I can find is a CBC documentary, for which you've quoted the pro limit increase side.
Maybe you can post a link or two. ;)
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Here's a link.... http://www.theprovince.com/transpor...peeding+says+unacceptable/10982162/story.html

"B.C.’s Minister of Transportation Todd Stone admitted on Friday to recently being pulled over by police and fined $196 for speeding, an incident he described as unacceptable but in no way a reflection of his ability to serve in cabinet.

Stone, the MLA for Kamloops-South Thompson, said he was pulled over three weeks ago while speeding along the Patricia Bay Highway en route to the Swartz Bay ferry terminal. He said he was going 29 km/h over the posted 80 km/h speed zone."

"It is not the first time Stone has been ticketed for speeding. In 2000, he said his licence was suspended for 1-2 months as a result of five speeding tickets he received in a single year. Since then, however, Stone said he has only been ticketed twice — the last time being three weeks ago."
 
Baggsy said:
Trying to find your B.C. studies.
All I can find is a CBC documentary, for which you've quoted the pro limit increase side.
Maybe you can post a link or two. ;)
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Go find in on the stop100 page, plenty of information, sorry i don't care enough to go dig out 10 year old links like Griff2.

I also posted a link to the article where the BC minister of Transportation was quoted mentioning the studies or something like that.

If you guys believe our current 100 speed limit is appropriate and that increasing the legal speed limit to 120 is going to make our roads unsafe, there is nothing I can do to change your mind, so have fun... I better don't see you going over 101 ;) but I guess you would never do such a thing, it is unsafe!
 
Well, I used to think that the speed limits were too low, but after this argument, I'm not so sure anymore.
 
If all factors remain the same as today and simply increase the limits, I agree there would be increased collisions and fatalities and injuries.

The limit could be 120, everyone would drive 140 or higher, LEO would ignore everyone going less than 140.

But that wouldn't happen.

The speed limits would increase, people would travel the same speeds. Less people would abruptly slow down at the sight of police vehicle parked at the side of the road. Improved traffic flow. Tickets would be issued for violators 10 and above.

Increased number of law abiding citizens automatically.

Ain't gonna happen.

But, looking forward to legalized pot.

So many things we could change to affect the entire province but, just ain't gonna happen. Lol.




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