Speed Kills "myth"

[2000neon]

Here's an interesting video... Seems to be mostly half a$$ed facts backed by solid opinions.
This Is The Best Takedown Of The 'Speed Kills' Myth You'll Ever See

[Xist]

Premise 1: The roads are safest when everyone is traveling at the same speed, and in the same direction and paying attention.

Premise 2: The majority of motorists will drive at a speed they consider reasonable and safe for road, traffic and environmental conditions. Posted limits which are set higher or lower than dictated by roadway and traffic conditions are ignored by the majority of motorists.

I should not even be in these forums, let alone watching a fifteen-minute video about speeding, but I completely refuse to accept that argument. People do not drive at the speed they consider to be safest. People drive at the speed that they want.

Period.

The guy argues that people ignore speed limits and that is mostly true, almost exclusively true, but how quickly do semis drive?

There will always be semis.

[cbaber]

Speed doesn't kill. Slamming your car into things kills. You want to live? Don't hit stuff with your car, and watch out for idiots that don't want to live...

I think driving culture is moving in a direction where drivers feel the technology around them is responsible for keeping them safe. Technology like automatic braking, sleeping alerts, blind spot monitors, etc. are all handicaps that give drivers the excuse to focus less on driving and more on texting. The safest drivers aren't the people with 18 air bags that go above the speed limit. It's the people that are focused on driving, and driving only!

[gone-ot]

Three words of peril: PEOPLE, BELL-CURVE, INTELLIGENCE

[darcane]

Speed hasn't killed anyone.

Ever.

The kid street racing his Civic that crashes into a wall didn't die because his car was going too fast. He died because he was driving recklessly. If "speed kills" there would be a specific speed you can go over and you just die. That doesn't happen. My brother regularly drives at 220+ mph and still seems to be doing just fine.

This forum has a strong background in scientific testing and making decisions on actual data. The studies show that setting speed limits at the 85th percentile is safer than setting them at artificially low limits. You can look up the studies referenced in the video and check yourself.

This forum is also strongly interested in reducing fuel consumption, so I can understand the bias towards low speed limits. But trying to set speed limits artificially low to force people to slow down based on "speed kills" 1) doesn't work and 2) is based on a lie.

[Xist]

Ask any girl that has dated me.

I have terrible reflexes.

We want people's lives to depend on them?

[P-hack]

Speeding reduces reaction time, increases likely hood of loosing control in evasive maneuvers, increases the energy upon impact or loss of control. We hold these truths to be self evident...

If the counter argument is "but others in the herd want to go faster", well that doesn't quite do it from a safety perspective.

[Xist]

Originally Posted by P-hack

Speeding reduces reaction time, increases likely hood of loosing control in evasive maneuvers, increases the energy upon impact or loss of control. We hold these truths to be self evident...

If the counter argument is "but others in the herd want to go faster", well that doesn't quite do it from a safety perspective.

As long as humans are driving, we will go different speeds. If they raised the speed limits 10 MPH, some would still speed, and I imagine that the guy who made the video would be one of the fastest ones on the road.

Would all of us need to match his speed for everyone to be safe?

The faster you drive, the worse mileage you get--air is out to get you!
I would think that every maintenance expense would go up the faster that you drive.

I have had several tires go out on me. I probably should have paid more attention to them, but I guess that I got as much use out of them as I could.

What kind of relationship is there between speed and tire failure? Is shredding a tire at eighty more dangerous than at sixty?

When I drive through the canyon, I do not keep my speed near the limit because I do not think that I can stay between the lines, but because I am afraid of blowing a tire while cornering at a high speed.

Interesting fact that I found:

Total paid in speeding tickets per year $6,232,000,000

http://www.statisticbrain.com/drivin...on-statistics/

They would need to recover that revenue somehow.

[user removed]

If there were no other cars on the road and no speed limits, I would probably drive 40-55MPH. The Fiesta downshifts out of 6th gear below 40.

Maybe I could dodge all them critters Frank talks about.

regards
Mech

[Frank Lee]

Your Fiesta is much quicker than the one guy's old Ranger! (and I wasn't gonna post in this thread...)