Need for Speed Pt 2: Speed isn't the cause

Every festive season, road death tolls mount and the police go all out in operations to prevent speeding and keep the fatalities down. But is speeding really the cause of these deaths?

Malaysia is one of those countries where speed limits are "liberally" applied, but one has to ask: how do the authorities set these speed limits? Did they conduct studies to determine the best speed limit to set that would encourage safety and minimise accidents? The answer is an astounding no. Road authorities work on the assumption that

speed = accidents + deaths

So of course, it makes sense to them that

- speed = - accidents - deaths

Unfortunately for them, studies show that the link between speed and accidents aren't all that straightforward.

(Source: SENSE - Is speed killing us?)

As a matter of fact, when the US increased speed limits in December 1995, accident rates fell (Source: NHTSA-NCSA). Researchers in US have also found that:

• Increasing speed limits by 15m/h (24km/h) had little effect on speeds and reduced accident rates.
• In states that adopted a new 65m/h (104.6km/h) limit, as opposed to 55mph (88.5km/h), fatalities dropped by a whopping 29%, the total accident rate fell by 4%, and the injury accident rate fell by 5%.
• Lowering speed limits to below the 50th percentile of average speeds does not reduce accidents but increases driver violations of speed limits.

(Source: Star Bulletin).

What about all the statistics on accidents caused by speeding that keeps appearing in newspapers and the news? In most countries, accidents caused by speeding include:

• improper lane changes;
• following too closely;
• unsafe passing;
• inattention;
• reckless driving;
• high speed chase;
• erratic speeds;
• driving too fast for conditions not necessarily above the limit; and
• driving less than posted minimums.

(Source: Star Bulletin, Speed Check Services)

That being said, these arguments are not a licence to speed. Notice that the optimum speed mentioned for safety is about 105 km/h, after which accidents increase exponentially with every increase in speed. Malaysian speed limits sit at about 120km/h. The purpose of me writing this entry is to make people aware that slow driving isn't necessarily safer. As a matter of fact, driving slowly can increase the number of accidents that occur (Source: Federal Highway Administration). Speed isn't necessarily the cause of accidents - rather it's the way you drive that's the issue. The message in this entry is to please be careful when driving.