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.
That being the case, I have a bold proposition for Senator Warner: Lower all freeway speed limits to 15 MPH. Millions, heck hundreds of millions lives saved. Problem solved. I’ll take my Nobel peace prize now...
...if everybody drove it. You are on crack if you think they will. I've suggested this: reduce the speed limit to 15 MPH.
More people will travel at a higher speed than 55 just like in the 70's and 80's. Thus the speed differential will increase because of sheer numbers of people going faster than 55.
Any government can make a law that makes you a criminal for just stepping outside of your home, so do not use the tired reply of "well then, everyone that goes over 55 is a criminal." Government control of our lives for our own good is NOT for our own good.
Do not get into the same static thinking that allows our politicians to say increased taxes cause increased government income.
Yes, it is a good analogy because applying linear mathematics to human actions does not work, ever.
As well as speed differential between vehicles and immovable objects. Running into a bridge abutment at 90, say, will demonstrate this.
Hitting a bridge abutment at 55 will kill you just the same as at 65-70. We are talking the current speed limits, not 90 MPH, which is ten MPH over the designed safety. Throwing this in is a dodge.
Expressways are generally designed so that a vehicle that's on path to hit a bridge abutment will chew up a lot of guard rail first. I'm sure that isn't going to be a pretty scene at 90mph, or even at 55mph, but optimal deceleration from 90mph into a 100ft guard rail would be about 2.7g. I'm sure that a guard rail wouldn't provide optimal deceleration, so the vehicle occupant would feel significantly more than 2.7g, but I'm sure it would be a lot less than the 80g the person would feel decelerating in one meter.