I have a lot of respect for you but I must chime in on this one.
Since the 55 was dropped the death rate has steadily decreased and that is with a HUGE increase in miles driven per year.
Other forms of transportation:
Trains do not go where most people need to go and then they must rent a car if they need to get around. Many, including myself, cannot afford to rent cars all the time when they travel.
The cost of fuel is making airlines increase their ticket prices and then many, including myself, will not subject themselves to the degradation encountered while being strip searched at the airports by near brain dead government employees and then being treated like cattle and criminals by flight attendants. Plus you must get to the car rental thing again.
Buses? No way! Bus trips takes so long that almost nobody can afford the time it takes to stop at every little village to pick up riders. Plus the car rental thingy comes up again.
Sure, we are at war and quite a bit of the cash goes to our enemies but most people know it and are willing to trade that for now. Too bad Congress didn't do the right thing about drilling on our soil and off the coasts.
As an aside: AAA sponsored a 25 year long (If I remember) study that concluded speed limits were not the factor in accidents but “speed differential” between vehicles.
When the differential exceeded ten miles per hour the risk of accidents became much greater.
This study was published sometime in the 1990’s and was promptly buried by the media and AAA itself.
Highways were, and still are, designed for safety at the 80th percentile speed (the speed that 80 percent of vehicles travel) and are designed for 80 miles per hour. Remember that the designs were implemented when cars were not designed as well and did not have the great suspensions and tires they have now.
Studies have been published (I do not have time to find them but they are there) showing that 70 MPH was a comfortable speed for most drivers.
In the hundreds of thousands of miles I have driven on the interstates I can put in my anecdotal evidence that 65-70 is very comfortable for me and it seems that most of the people on the roads around me agree as I pass very few cars and get passed by few.
At 55 MPH I remember cars flying by at very large differential speeds and I still do not consider the speeders as criminals deserving of a ticket. They were law abiding citizens traveling at a comfortable and DESIGNED rate of speed and the limits were jacked down to promote a supposed savings but really became a huge source of income for governments and to let them chip away at our liberties.
55 MPH is not a comfortable speed. It makes for great extra income for Government though.
It may take a few years but cut the 55 talk and drill here, drill now. We will walk the razors edge until we can run on mostly our own oil.
Take care and thank you, sir.
With today's vehicles and highways if you dropped the speed limit to 55 the death rate would drop further still.
As an aside: AAA sponsored a 25 year long (If I remember) study that concluded speed limits were not the factor in accidents but “speed differential” between vehicles.
As well as speed differential between vehicles and immovable objects. Running into a bridge abutment at 90, say, will demonstrate this.
Cars have gotten steadily more crash worthy. Highways have been better and better designed, including redesign of highway barriers. As a result, the crashes per 100,000 miles have gone down. Still....
The higher the speed that an accident occurs, the higher the death and injury per accident. This is a matter of physics. The energy expended as the cars crunch to a stop, is a product of the weight of the cars and the square of the speed.
Having seen members of my family to their graves due to the combination of alcohol and cars, fifty-three years apart, I react strongly to statements about death rates from auto accidents that do not match the facts.
In terms of death per passenger mile, automobiles are the worst, trains are the least. For decades ago, I worked with transportation planners. Forms of transportation are partially price-elastic. They are also time-elastic.
I would vigorously resist the government TELLING anyone that they MUST use / not use a particular form of transportation. On the other hand, I do believe that scarce public dollars should be used in ways that encourage people to make their own choices in ways that benefit the public, especially in urban areas where both land and money are scarce commodities.
I remember a speech I read about, nearly half a century ago. An urban designer said of Los Angeles, “I've seen the future, and it doesn't work.” IIRC, one-third of all the land in Los Angeles was devoted to moving, storing, and feeding private automobiles. That is simply not a workable arrangement for any urban area, anywhere in the world, not just in the US.
John / Billybob