![]() Highway speed went up; deaths and injuries didn't. |
AS A sometime Young Man in a Hurry — I was once pulled over by a New Hampshire state trooper for driving at a speed he claimed to have clocked in the low triple digits — I absorbed with a pang the news of Montana's surrender to the forces of automotive correctness. Until last month Montana had kept its highways blessedly free of speed limits. State law permitted motorists to drive as fast as they liked during daylight hours, so long as their speed was "reasonable and prudent."
But the Montanabahn is no more. Earlier this year the state's Supreme Court struck down the law for vagueness, leaving lawmakers with little choice but to bridle their constituents with a speed limit. On May 28, the Montana Highway Patrol began pulling over drivers going faster than 75 miles per hour and giving them — ugh — speeding tickets.
In truth, even libertarian-leaning young men in a hurry don't object to speed limits per se — only to those that are too low. Most drivers on most roads will travel at the "reasonable and prudent" speed for that road regardless of the posted limit. Countless studies have shown that raising or lowering speed limits has little effect on the speed at which traffic moves. That is why average highway speeds climbed by only 3 miles per hour when the 55-mile-an-hour limit was repealed in 1995. Drivers were already moving at the higher speed; the repeal just meant that they were no longer doing so illegally.
"The 55 m.p.h. speed limit was arguably the most disobeyed federal law in American history," writes Stephen Moore of the Cato Institute in a new monograph. Its major effect, he concludes, was to create "a nation of scofflaws" — and to generate a booming trade in CB radios and radar detectors. Countless drivers objected to the law, and with reason. What sense did it make to tell motorists in Bozeman that they could drive no faster than motorists in Boston? You didn't have to be a states rights fanatic to believe that Washington had no business setting speed limits for every highway in America.
The repeal of the 55 m.p.h. limit was one of the most popular accomplishments of the new Republican Congress. The bill sailed through the Senate, 80-16; the House passed it unanimously. But from highway safety lobbyists, consumer activists, and the Clinton administration came dire warnings. "History will never forgive Congress for this assault on the sanctity of human life," Ralph Nader thundered. Transportation Secretary Federico Pena declared, "Allowing speed limits to rise above 55 simply means that more Americans will die and be injured on our highways."
They even specified the number of casualties. Judith Stone, the head of Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety, went on the "Today" show to foretell "6,400 added highway fatalities a year and millions more injuries." Over and over that figure was repeated: If speed limits went above 55, the annual highway body count would soar by 6,400.
It didn't happen. Speed limits have been raised in every state save Hawaii, yet highway fatalities last year totaled 41,480 — 337 fewer than in 1995, the last year the 55 m.p.h. limit was in effect. And those 6,400 additional deaths? "We never said it was going to happen overnight," Judith Stone told USA Today.
Moore points out that the lower number of auto fatalities actually understates the good news. Each year, more vehicles are driven and more miles traveled, so the meaningful highway safety statistic is not the number of automobile deaths, but the death rate — the number of fatalities per 100 million miles traveled. That figure has been dropping since the 1920s, and the recent rise in speed limits didn't arrest the trend. Between 1995 and 1998, the death rate fell another 7.5 percent. America's highways have never been safer.
And that is true for virtually every yardstick of safety. Injuries? There were 3.46 million auto-related injuries in 1995 vs. 3.25 million in 1998. Pedestrian deaths? Down 300 since the speed limits were raised. Car crashes? The 1998 data haven't been released, but as of 1997, the crash rate per 100 million vehicle-miles had fallen to 264 — a drop of more than 4 percent since 1995. There is no getting around it. Highway speed went up; deaths and injuries didn't.
A particularly bitter opponent of higher speed limits is the auto insurance industry, which has argued for years that faster speeds will mean more accidents, more deaths, swollen insurance costs, and higher premiums. "Yet during 1997 and 1998," reports Moore, "auto claims and auto insurance premiums have dramatically declined — reversing a decade of higher costs. Collision claims were down 3.1 percent in 1997, and bodily injury claims fell by a huge 4.7 percent." The drop in claims was so favorable that State Farm Insurance was able to rebate $900 million to policyholders in 1998.
So why do insurers denounce higher speeds so hotly? Could it be that what they really object to is not the higher limit but the fact that fewer drivers will be ticketed for speeding — and thus not subject to "unsafe driver" premium hikes?
The 55 m.p.h. speed limit was widely flouted and roundly resented, and not just by reckless young men in a hurry. Tens of millions of ordinary drivers routinely ignored the law. Turns out they were right. Three years after 55 was repealed, we're saving time, saving money, and saving lives. Who said speed kills?
Jeff Jacoby is a columnist for The Boston Globe.
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