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  • 2023-11-30
  • Why so many U.S. drivers think that speeding is perfectly safe, and do we understand the magnitude with which vehicle speed increases chances of fatal injury for pedestrians, cyclists, and motorists themselves?
Why so many U.S. drivers think that speeding is perfectly safe, and do we understand the magnitude with which vehicle speed increases chances of fatal injury for pedestrians, cyclists, and motorists themselves?

According to an anonymous survey of 2,500 motorists conducted by the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety, only 46.5% of U.S. drivers consider going more than 15mph over the speed limit on the freeway to be "extremely" or "very" dangerous – with just over 40% openly admitting to doing it at least a few times in the last 30 days.

Yet in residential areas, Just over 60% considered exceeding the speed limit by 10mph to be especially deadly, with near 28% acknowledging they'd done so more than once in the prior month. (And since those numbers are based on self-reported insights, it's likely that reality is even worse.)

Did you know that a pedestrian struck by a vehicle traveling at 25mph is more than twice as likely to survive than a pedestrian struck by a vehicle traveling just 10mph faster at 35mph.

In this article from Streetsblog, the author details the "unfortunate truth" about U.S. transportation culture—from the width of our driving lanes to advertising that glorifies a car's 0-60mph pace. Meanwhile, decades of federal policies have encouraged road designers to set speed limits based on how fast motorists instinctually travel rather than how likely those speeds are to kill. Even common sense policies to use technology to physically throttle vehicles below local limits have been met with fierce opposition.

Continue reading on Streetsblog.

 

Source: Streetsblog


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