Joined: Aug 02, 2006
Posts: 705
Location: McLean, VA, USA
Posted:
Mon Mar 19, 2007 1:58 am
Popular belief Texas defensive driving style seems to be just that - Speed kills! With the meaning - higher than speed limit speed kills. And the popular remedy to road dangers is - Slow down stupid! That's how many homegrown defensive driving classes have it. However, most experts in the field and almost anybody who takes time to seriously think about the issue come to the conclusion that speed per se is not the cause of deadly accidents, i.e. speed does not kill.
How this could be possible? And who is right? Since I did some serious thinking about driving, I came to the conclusion that speed does not kill. Now you are going to prove me wrong with all the examples of horrible high-speed crashes, right? But wait, I can tell you that yes, speed sort of does kill, too.
Isn't it a paradox? How is it possible? Aren't I crazy making two conflicting statements in just one paragraph? Not really. It all depends on perspective. Let me give you an analogy to illustrate the point. If someone shoots somebody, who/what kills in this case? Bullet? Gun? The person who pulled the trigger?
One can argue any of those answers are true. However, two entities stand out - the bullet and the killer. The bullet does the actual job of killing - breaks the bones, destroys the veins, muscles, organs, and brain cells. The killer prepares and executes the murder by pulling the trigger. His decisions are the root cause of the murder.
And the law recognizes this in every jurisdiction on the planet Earth - nobody prosecutes bullets, prosecution is geared towards murderers. And what is the role of the gun? Hmmm - a middleman! Can we say that gun kills? Sort of. It has its role in the process, no doubt, but this role is far from decisive.
Now let's look at the car accident. What kills you, what is doing the actual job of killing? Surprisingly, in most cases it is your beloved car! Its parts crash your bones and tear your flesh. Can we say car kills? Yes, to the same extent that we can say bullet kills, kitchen knife kills, axe kills, and baseball bat kills... This does not help us a tiny bit in reducing the murder rate or the accident death rate, however.
Why? Because this does not address the root of the problem - what caused the car to kill you? If you follow my logic, you should not have any trouble answering this question - driver's decisions do. And what is the role of speed? To be a middleman, exactly as a gun! Can we reduce the accident death rate targeting a middleman? I really doubt.
Last edited by Misha on Sat Apr 10, 2010 7:42 pm; edited 3 times in total
Of course "speed is a factor" in every crash. You simply can't have one otherwise. But that doesn't stop the police trying to make an absurd and arbitrary distinction in order to justify equally arbitrary speed limits applying to vastly differing vehicle and road conditions.
For these and other many other traffic enforcement myths check out *link snipped*
Joined: Oct 05, 2008
Posts: 79
Location: Albuquerque NM
Posted:
Sun Oct 05, 2008 5:50 pm
Of course speed itself does not kill. However, driving at an increased speed makes it more difficult to deal with unexpected circumstances and can cause an accident for that reason. That should be obvious since the distance required for the brakes to stop the car increases with the square of the velocity. And, I assume that we would agree that one should not drive so fast that one cannot stop in the distance that one can see to be clear ahead.
If an accident does occur, one is more likely to be hurt or killed at higher speeds, or to hurt or kill someone else.
There are Australian statistics which show exactly how driving above the speed limit increases the risk of having an accident. However, I have not been able to determine how the statistics were calculated, so I don't know whether they are accurate.
Joined: Aug 02, 2006
Posts: 705
Location: McLean, VA, USA
Posted:
Mon Oct 06, 2008 12:38 am
Sure, this is your job as a driver to choose the speed that fits the current circumstances.
As for statistics - it's a very complicated matter. In your case it is probable that stats really shows correlation. But if you give it a thought, you will see that correlation is between the likelihood of accident and a speed difference with a prevailing traffic speed, not a speed limit. And if you drive slower than the traffic around, you increase your risk pretty much in the same proportion.
Joined: Oct 05, 2008
Posts: 79
Location: Albuquerque NM
Posted:
Mon Oct 06, 2008 12:51 pm
It is often true that driving at a speed different from the prevailing speed is more dangerous than driving at the prevailing speed, even if the prevailing speed is above the legal speed limit. That has been recognized for decades. However, much of the material written on safe driving is written more from a law enforcement perspective than from a safety perspective. That explains why driving manuals assert that one should not ever exceed the speed limit and why they neglect to point out the risks of driving more slowly than the prevailing speed. On the other hand, on multi-lane roads with very light traffic, driving at less than the prevailing speed probably does not increase the risk of causing an accident.
On a similar note, most driving manuals insist that one must never exceed the speed limit while passing. However, if one considers how much more time one must spend on the wrong side of the road while passing if one does not somewhat exceed the speed limit, it seems clear that it would be safer to exceed the speed limit briefly to complete the pass more quickly. These same manuals state that one should not pass unless the car in front is driving considerably less than the speed limit. But if one does not pass a car that is going less than the speed limit and as a result cars are continually passing multiple cars, it would seem safer to pass to avoid being put at risk by being continually passed.
Joined: Oct 05, 2008
Posts: 79
Location: Albuquerque NM
Posted:
Mon Oct 06, 2008 10:12 pm
I wonder whether it acutally claims any lives. It might if people actually followed it but it's my guess that almost no one would actually follow it.
My first new car was a 1994 Volkswagen with 40 HP and a top speed of 72 mph, which it seemed to take forever to reach. It left me feeling like a sitting duck.
Joined: Aug 02, 2006
Posts: 705
Location: McLean, VA, USA
Posted:
Tue Oct 07, 2008 3:19 pm
I think it does. I personally saw more than one person staying within speed limit when passing, and talked to many who think this is a right thing to do...
As for the feeling like a sitting duck - I had pretty much the same experience on my Jawa back in 70s
Tiredness, drunk driving and wrecklessness kill. You can drive fast without being any of those things and be perfectly safe. Within reason ofcourse. Good post!
Joined: Aug 02, 2006
Posts: 705
Location: McLean, VA, USA
Posted:
Mon Dec 15, 2008 9:37 pm
Well, yeah, in a sense. I would divide them though, and agree on recklessness, or I would rather say ignorance being the root cause of the vast majority of accidents.
While tiredness and being drunk are not the causes of accidents per se. They no doubt can contribute if you don't know how to deal with them - but this is ignorance once again
If you know how to account for being drunk or tired, and trained yourself to do this, you are as good as when you are fresh and sober...
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