Posted on 07/16/2009 7:26:44 PM PDT by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
THURSDAY, July 16 (HealthDay News) -- Deaths and injuries on America's interstates have increased since the repeal of the federal 55-mile-per-hour speed limit in 1995, a new study finds, and some believe it's time to slow down again.
Researchers tracking fatalities attributed 12,545 deaths and 36,582 injuries in fatal crashes to higher speed limits implemented during the 1995-2005 study period.
"Our study clearly shows that policy can directly result in more deaths as well as reducing deaths on our country's roads," said lead researcher Lee S. Friedman of the division of environmental and occupational health sciences in the School of Public Health at the University of Illinois, Chicago.
Their results show that seemingly harmless policy decisions can have long-term repercussions, the researchers said. They called for implementation of a national speed management policy that would include a maximum speed of 55 mph and development of camera networks to curb speeding.
The report is published in the July 16 online edition of the American Journal of Public Health.
For the study, Friedman's group examined deaths and injuries in fatal car crashes on rural interstate highways, urban interstates and non-interstate roads.
They found a 3.2 percent increase in deaths because of higher speed limits on all types of roads in the United States. The largest increase -- 9.1 percent -- was on rural interstates, followed by urban interstates at 4 percent. "These roads were the main locus of raised speed limits," they noted.
Some states had imposed a 65 mph limit. Others went to 70, and still others, 75. The solution, said Friedman, is to bring back the 55 mph speed limit.
(Excerpt) Read more at health.msn.com ...
“The solution, said Friedman, is to bring back the 55 mph speed limit”
Nanny state moonbat bump!
National heath care will insure that we all will be forced to slow down ‘to save health care costs’.
That's wrong, plain and simple. Studies conducted in Maryland of all places for the first year or two that the 55 limit was relaxed showed serious accidents and injuries DECREASING when you got rid of the bunching which the 55 limit caused. The 55 limit was an abomination.
Watch fatalities sky rocket when government mandates force the auto makers to build even lighhter vehicles to meet the 35 mpg standard by 2012.
It’s Jimmy Carter all over again
Hay jerk Lee S. Friedman if I want any sh** out of you I’ll squeeze your head!!
There is no way in hell that I will drive 55 mph on a highway designed to handle higher speeds.
It isn’t the higher speed limits that are killing people. It is the CAFE standards.
bookmark
make it 15 and you’ll save even more lives.
heck soon we’ll need a travel permit to expend the energy necessary so it wont matter
Just another excuse to slap folks with speeding tickets, generating more revenue for Big Government.
Eliminate cars.....wait, Obama is slowly doing that already.
using flat numbers and not per capita numbers, is the mark of someone playing with stats
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I’m in Arizona with a speed limit of 75. I’d never get anywhere!
Exactly, it’s the smaller cars that are killing people ,not the speed limits.
These people preconceive what they want their study to say then they run their study and come up with:-—surprise surprise, what they wanted it to say.
Since 1994, automotive fatalities have dropped from 31,998 to 26,689 in 2008. Motorcycle fatalities rose from 2320 to 5290.
Overall, the fatalities have remained consistent since 1994 with only a light rise until 2008.
Traffic safety was actually 36% better overall, with fatalities per 100 million miles traveled dropping from 1.73 in 1994 to 1.27 in 2008.
Put simply, this report is bullsh$t.
Health care terms will replace the "It's for the Children" argument.
Yep. I drove cross country from Cleveland to Arizona.
Thank God for the areas with 75 mph speed limits (or even 70), and I’m not a speeder. We made wonderful time.
55 mph is just plain silly.
I think we should go with a 5 MPH speed limit. That way no one will hurt themselves.
No kidding - Captain Obvious story here.
Just like: “Death, injuries increase when seat belts not worn.”
Just like: “Death, injuries increase when texting while driving. Or being on the phone while driving.”
Anything that diminishes reflexes or turns you into a projectile in a crash increase the chance of injury or death.
Surprised they have re-tread this worn out story again, it’s not like it was a slow news day.
Agreed, but Nixon gave us 55.
I don’t believe it.
Cool, where did you find this? that is amazing.
Yeah, that and lines of truckers taking forever to pass each other at 56 mph in protest of the limit.
The biggest help would be if people would be more patient, leave on time and be more willing to follow the speed laws already on the books. In this case, maybe there is a nanny state problem because too many Americans act like children on the highways who need a nanny.
“They called for implementation of a national speed management policy that would include a maximum speed of 55 mph and development of camera networks to curb speeding.”
“They” should be tarred and feathered. Or beaten senseless.
If “they” is too big a pussy to handle an automobile at decent highway speeds then “they” should stick to the side streets and leave the rest of us the hell alone!
I have just about had it with all these freedom hating nanny staters. At some point we the people WILL fight back.
By the way, anybody here have a link to that website that shows how the Brits handle the speed camera epidemic in their country? There is a lesson there for us.
Don't forget that every ticket you get gives the insurance company a reason to raise your rates as well. Everybody profits (except you).
D’ont make jokes about 15 mph ,we may all be peddling bikes before the Kenyan is finished.
Not only is it the smaller cars, it's the slower drivers. People who drive either or below the speed limit cause people to pass them, and passing by going into the other lane on a 2-lane road, or even on a 4-lane road, cause people to run into other cars.
So the mean people obeying the speed limit laws forces the innocent driver to pass them. In most cases, what really causes the speeder to pass is his own impatience.
This new “study” was so easy to discredit.
When the first set of comprehensive reports came out about the increased speed limits, traffic fatalities went DOWN. And Democrats had nothing to blame on Republicans.
Lots more graphs here:
http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&q=speed+limit+highway+fatalities&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wi
The solution is simple. Just require everyone to use Segways on the highways and interstates. Since they only go 12 mph, the actual speed limit is irrelevant.
Since it will take longer to get anywhere, you can spend more quality time with your family members (as long as they stay close by on their Segways), and really get into whatever scenery you drive through.
Plus, they are electric vehicles, so we can all be green and feel smug, just like Prius owners do now.
/do I really need the sarc tag?
Hey genius, if low death rates are the goal, make the speed limit 10 MPH... Or heck, just ban cars all together... That will “solve” the problem...
And just wait until lighter cars that have to meet higher efficiency standards start being used widely... The death rate is going to soar... So what if you have to kill a few hundred thousand people over time to “save the planet”... Just wait until they find out it was all a lie and they sacrificed, for some people everything, for nothing.
Toward the end of the article (beyond the excerpt) is an assertion that states, such as Maryland, that kept speed limits at 65 saw a decline in fatalities. States that went above that speed saw significant increases.
I did wonder how many more cars there are on the road now as opposed to 10 years ago.
They want to write more speeding tickets
Always follow the money trail..
Its not about safety.
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