[JacobAziza]

Originally Posted by texanidiot25

My main point this entire time is traffic flowing along is safer than one jackass slowing down way below the limit to try and teach the other jackass a "lesson".

Only, no one here ever said the purpose of slowing down was to teach the tailgater a lesson. The purpose of slowing down is 1) because at lower speeds a crash does less damage and 2) it encourages them to pass (and allows them to do it more safely).
If someone were advocating "brake checking" tailgaters, you would have a valid point, but no one said that.

Also, cite your source on the 95% number. As the NHTSA claims much lower at 30%. NHTSA is a much sounder source than the air.

30% is just for speeding. I said "speeding AND aggressive driving" You know, like tailgating, or passing when it isn't safe. 5% of accidents are caused by equipment failures. Which leaves 95% to be caused by driver error. That 95% is all preventable, and, after not drinking and driving, going slower is the most effective way to prevent them.

The U.S. Department of transportation's Federal Highway Administration review research on traffic speed in 1998.[19] The summary states:

* That the evidence shows that the risk of having a crash is increased both for vehicles traveling slower than the average speed, and for those traveling above the average speed.
* That the risk of being injured increases exponentially with speeds much faster than the median speed.
* That the severity of a crash depends on the vehicle speed change at impact.
* That there is limited evidence that suggests that lower speed limits result in lower speeds on a system wide basis.
* That most crashes related to speed involve speed too fast for the conditions.
* That more research is needed to determine the effectiveness of traffic calming.

"risk of involvement in a casualty crash, relative to the risk for a car traveling at 60 km/h, increased at an exponential rate for free traveling speeds above 60 km/h [37mph]"

“First, the probability of a crash is approximately proportional to the square of the travel speed. Second, in a crash, injury risk is approximately proportional to the impact forces on a person, which in turn are proportional to the square of the impact speed. These two effects can be summarized in a general rule of thumb: When travel speed increases by 1%, the injury crash rate increases by about 2%, the serious injury crash rate increases by about 3%, and the fatal crash rate increases by about 4%"

http://www.lawcore.com/car-accident/statistics.html

http://casr.adelaide.edu.au/speed/exec.html

http://www.tsc.berkeley.edu/newslett...008/speed.html

Note that while they do say the oft repeated claim that driving slower than the flow of traffic does contribute to accidents, only speed is a significant factor in injuries and fatalities. Your risk of a MINOR crash goes up while your risk of the kind of crash that really matters goes way down. The net effect is still that it is ALWAYS safer to go slower. Even in the road rage instance where a tailgater deliberately rams his car into you, at 30mph you are better off than the case where the crash is an accident, but occurs at 70mph.

You keep coming back to "teaching someone a lesson", but its not about changing other peoples behavior, its about physics. No matter what other drivers do, it won't change the fact that twice the speed equals 4 times the braking distance and 4 times the impact force. I really don't care what the other guys emotional state is when our cars collide, I care about surviving.