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Proposal to Increase the State of Connecticut’s Speed Limits Submitted to the Honorable John Roland Governor of Connecticut December 2, 1999 By Paul Gibson, Representative State Attorney Generals Office December 2, 1999 The Honorable John Roland Governor of Connecticut 210 Capitol Ave. Hartford, CT 06106 Dear Governor Roland: This is a proposal to increase the speed limits in Connecticut. These speed limits would include both highway and rural limits. Many studies have been conducted by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) and Insurance Institute for Highway Safety concerning this matter. The report will conclude that raising the speed limit will produce either negligible or no changes in current accident, average speed and death statistics. Respectfully, Paul Representative for the State Attorney General’s Office Table of Contents Introduction…………………………………….………4 Statement of Problem…………………………………..4 Proposed Options………………………………………7 Sources and Information……………………………….8 Conclusion……………………………………………..8 Appendix………………………………………………10 Introduction Many people do not follow the posted speed limit, regardless of whether it is a highway or rural street. Even law enforcement officials rarely drive at the speed that they are supposed to be enforcing. It is just a universal acceptance to ignore the posted speed limit. If someone drove 55- mph on Interstate 91 when that was still the speed limit, that person would inevitably be passed, as if they were standing still, by every other car. Most drivers will drive at what they deem a safe and comfortable speed for the road conditions. Some people think they would drive 10-15 mph over the limit but, in actuality, they will just drive with the speed of traffic. The only time where a driver may travel 10-15 mph over the speed limit is if there is hardly any traffic. But even then, unless they use cruse control you will find them driving a speed they feel comfortable at. Most drivers hardly ever watch their speedometer unless there are police around. Statement of Problem Many motorists feel that the 65-mph speed is still too reserved given today’s safety features in cars. Considering the whole reason for the original 55-mph speed limit happened 25 years, this seems true. The real reason for lowering the speed limit in the first place was to conserve energy, not save lives. It is now 1999, and we no longer have an energy crisis on our hands like we did in 1974. Connecticut was one of the last states to raise its 55-mph limit to 65-mph. This seems to be a mark of inefficiency considering that many other states already have 70 and 75-mph limits on some highways. Many organizations and individuals feel that if the speed limit increased to 75-mph,  More deaths would occur.  People would drive 85-mph, since many people drive 75 mph now that the speed limit is 65 mph. What ever the posted limit is, people will drive 10 mph over it. Both these points will be discussed further in this proposal. In 1992, the U.S. Department of Transportation Federal Highway Administration conducted many tests in various states. The purpose of these tests was to determine the effects of raising and lowering posted speed limits on a driver’s behavior and on accident frequency. Speed and accident data were collected in 22 states at 100 sites before and after speed limits were altered. 14 of the 100 sites were used to collect repeated measurements to study both short and long-term effects of speed limit changes. The results concluded that altering the speed limit in any way had little or no effect on the motorists’ speed. When the speed limit was lowered by as much as 20-mph, the majority of drivers did not lower their speed by 10 or even 5-mph. When the speed limit was raised by as much as 15 mph, the majority of the drivers did not drive 5-mph above the speed limit. This data collected indicated that a vast majority of posted speed limits are too conservative, and are well below the average speed of normal traffic. The study also concluded that lowering the speed limit did nothing to reduce the amount of accidents occurring, but it did increase the amount of violations of the speed limit. Ironically, raising the posted speed limit did not increase the average speeds of motorists, or increase the amounts of accidents. Most drivers are completely unaware of what the speed limit is for the street they are driving on. Most people drive at what they feel is a reasonable and prudent speed. Most rural and urban speed limits were 8 –14 mph below what 85% of the motorists actually drove. Although this study was performed on streets where the posted speed limit was between 35 and 55-mph, there should be no reason to deduce that 55 to 75-mph speed limits would produce similar results. As stated above, it is believed that raising the speed limit increases speeds and accidents. In 1995, when congress was arranging to take the federal government’s authority on speed limit, the NHTSA stated that deaths would rise 4750 per year. Now that every state but Hawaii has lifted the 55-mph limit what are results? In NHTSA’s 1998 report to Congress, it states that “increased speed limits in 1996 experienced approximately 350 more interstate fatalities than would have been expected based on historical trends.” They estimated a 9% increase above what was expected. A study released this year by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety stated that “fatalities increased by 15%.” These numbers may seem abhorred at first glance, but these organizations, as well as the federal government, are all working with numbers and statistics that only go up to the end of 1997. This would mean that these numbers are only based on, at most, two years of data collected since the increase in speed limit in most states; furthermore, most states have not even had the increase for two years. Not only is two years not enough time to establish a significant average, but the numbers are also inconclusive since most of the states have not even had the increase for two years. Another statistical flaw of the “more accidents” agreement comes following a severe accident. Organizations such as the NHTSA make a request to lower the speed limit. They base the argument on physics. The kinetic energy that a car possesses when it is traveling is equal to its mass times its velocity squared. It is true that if a vehicle is traveling at 75-mph instead of 65-mph that is makes a huge difference in the energy produced in the crash (75 squared is 5625 while 65 squared is a lower 4225). This increase in energy would also increase the likelihood of the victims being injured or killed. However, the speed of a vehicle does not have a significant impact on the chances of causing an accident. As noted by a number of researchers, the potential for being involved in an accident is highest when traveling at speed much lower or much higher than the majority of motorists. It is unrealistic speed limits that increase accident risks. Drivers who attempt to comply with the limit by driving slower or faster than the majority of other drivers are the ones who cause problems. Speed limits that are too conservative significantly decrease driver compliance. Most of our nation’s highways are more than capable of handling traffic driving at a speed up to 80-mph with no problem. Organizations such as the NHTSA also argue that if the highway speed limit were increased to 75-mph, that most people would go 85-mph. This is just not true. Research by Tignor and Warren (a paper of the National Motorists Association), and others over the years, indicates this common assumption is FALSE; people drive at whatever speed they feel comfortable and safe, irrespective of the posted limits. Many drivers were going 75-mph when the speed limit was 55-mph, so why would we expect them to go faster if that were the speed limit? These drivers have already established that 75-mph is a speed that they can handle safely without endangering other motorists. One could take an entirely different attack, by removing speed limits and letting people find their own speed that they feel comfortable at. Why should reasonable people need speed limits anyway? They will, of course, behave in a reasonable manner; reasonable would include making some allowances for others' behavior. Complete Summary of Results from the U.S. Department of Transportation Federal Highway Administration in 1992 The results of these tests were collected from various test sites on both urban streets and highways: • Based on the free-flow speed data collected for a 24 hour period at the experimental and comparison sites in 22 states, posted speed limits were set, on the average, at the 45th percentile speed or below the average speed of traffic. • Speed limits were posted, on average, between 5 and 16-mph below the 85th percentile speed. • Lowering speed limits by 5, 10, 15, or 20-mph at the study sites had a minor effect on vehicle speeds. Posting lower speed limits does not decrease motorist's speeds. • Raising speed limits by 5, 10, or 15-mph at the rural and urban sites had a minor effect on vehicle speeds. In other words, an increase in the posted speed limit did not create a corresponding increase in vehicle speeds. • The average change in any of the percentile speeds at the experimental sites was less than 1.5-mph, regardless of whether the speed limit was raised or lowered. • Where speed limits were lowered, an examination of speed distribution indicated the slowest drivers (1st percentile) increased their speed approximately 1-mph. There were no changes on the high-speed drivers (99th percentile). • At sites where speed limits were raised, there was an increase of less than 1.5-mph for drivers traveling at and below the 75th percentile speed. When the posted limits were raised by 10 and 15-mph, there was a small decrease in the 99th percentile speed. • Raising speed limits in the region of the 85th percentile speed has an extremely beneficial effect on drivers complying with the posted speed limits. • Lowering speed limits in the 33rd percentile speed (the average percentile that speed was posted in this study) provides a noncompliance rate of approximately 67 percent. • After speed limits were altered at the experimental sites, less than one-half of the drivers complied with the new posed limits. • Accidents at the 58 experimental sites where speed limits were lowered increased by 5.4 percent. The level of confidence of this estimate is 44 percent. The 95 percent confidence limits for this estimate ranges from a reduction in accidents of 11 percent to an increase of 26 percent. • Accidents at the 41 experimental sites where speed limits were raised decreased by 6.7 percent. The level of confidence of this estimate in 59 percent. The 95 percent confidence limits for this estimate ranges from a reduction in accidents of 21 percent to an increase of 10 percent. • Lowering speed limits more than 5-mph below the 85th percentile speed of traffic did not reduce accidents. The study therefore concluded that speed limit changes on the all the test sites resulted in average driver speed changes to be small and negligible. Proposed Options Increase Speed Limit on all Roads A good public policy can only be as good as the level of voluntary compliance by society. The only reason laws exist is to accommodate those who do not represent what is considered the norm of society. If everyone conformed to what a normal society deems “acceptable”, than there would be no reason for laws. One only needs to drive down any freeway, urban or rural, to know that a vast majority of the cars are traveling at speeds between 70 and 75 mph, not the posted 55 or 65-mph. People drive at a speed where they feel comfortable, not the speed posted on the side of the freeway. Automobiles have been reengineered. Shoulder belts, mandatory child restraints, air bags, anti-lock brakes make the cars of today much safer than their counterparts of twenty years ago. Most of this nation’s freeways were designed to accommodate speeds of 70 to 80-mph. Most town and city streets have speed limits that would just cause a safety hazard if one car were following, while all the others went at least 10-mph above it. No one slows down to 15-mph while driving through a school zone, and no one drives 5 or 10-mph through a parking lot (unless you are looking for a parking space). Three factors, a general disregard for the speed limit, safer cars, and freeways that can accommodate speeds of 80-mph, make raising the speed limit good public policy. Eliminate all Speed Limits Since it has already been determined that motorists drive a speed that they are either comfortable at to match the speed of other traffic, it would make sense that eliminating speed limits would do nothing to change that. Of course, there will still be those chronic speeders who drive 100-mph, but did the 55 or 65-mph speed limit stop them? These types of people will drive that fast regardless of the speed limit. However, most motorists will just continue to drive at the speed that traffic is moving at. Safety experts have been claiming for years that the lower speed limits save lives. This is simply not true. There will be accidents even if everyone drove no more than 45-mph. How would that argument explain how drivers still manage to get into accidents in parking lots, or even with a parked car? Speed does not kill – careless drivers do. From 1995 to May 28 of this year, Montana had no daytime speed limit for cars. Drivers were told to drive what they thought to be “safe and prudent.” Montana did not have any significant changes in the average speed of motorists. In fact, fatalities dropped the first year the limit was lifted, from 215 deaths in 1995 to 200 deaths in 1996. But, the Montana Supreme Court ruled that the speed limit rule was too vague. As of May 28 of this year, Montana has a 75-mph limit. Sources Speed Related Argument Database. 2 December 1999 /metalab.unc.edu/rdu/arguments/spar0002.html>. Effects of Raising and Lowering Speed Limits. Martin R. Parker & Associates, Inc. 2 December 1999. < http://metalab.unc.edu/rdu/sl-irrel.html>. Bedard, Patrick. “We Drive 75, and the Safety Experts Die of Embarrassment.” Car and Driver December 1999: 23. Comment on the Speed Limit Policy. Senator Douglas Carl. 2 December 1999. /www.coast.net/~misenate/rep/carl/prs/BANNERSP.html>. Conclusion The most important conclusion of this proposal is that raising the speed limit on Connecticut’s roads and highways will have no significant impact on current driver speeds. The above study concluded that drivers at test sites used for research did not decrease or increase their speed as a result of either lowering or raising the posted speed limit by 4, 10, or 15-mph. Motorists do not adjust their speed to conform to speed limits they note as being unreasonable. Secondly, the study also found that speed limit compliance decreased they were lowered and accidents tended to increase; moreover, compliance improved after speed limits are raised and accidents tended to decrease. A tertiary conclusion of this proposal would be that most roads and highways have speed limits that are set 8 to 14-mph below the 85th percentile speed. This would automatically make the majority of motorists “speeders.” Appendix Graph One This graph clearly shows how adjusting the speed limit had little or no significant impact on drivers’ average speed. Graph Two The graph provides a visual depiction of the NHTSA’s data on accident frequency and speed limit alterations.