I don't expect much challenge from car enthusiasts when I argue that enforcement of speeding laws constitutes the greatest wholesale miscarriage of justice known to most Americans and, I suspect, the motoring citizenry of the rest of the world.
Oddly, this is nothing new. It is recorded, for example, that in 1906, the village of Birmingham , Mich. , then a water-mill town and rail stop between Detroit and Pontiac , fined Mr. S. J. Serrell of Pontiac the sum of $10 ($205 in 2005 money) for speeding eight miles an hour along Saginaw Street -today's Old Woodward-in his White steam car.
This raises several questions: How was Serrell's speed calculated, since this was ages before radar guns or even precision speedometers? How was he caught, since the village constable likely was on foot or at best on a bicycle? And how was the issue of 8 mph being an offense arrived at?
These are not issues unfamiliar to anyone who's ever been pulled over for the sin-make that crime-of speeding.
The unfortunate truth is, that while speeding should be related to safety (see below) the actual limit may have been set unscientifically by politicians, usually of the local yokel variety, either to placate citizen complaints or, more likely, strictly as a revenue source.
Misrepresenting safety
It shouldn't be that way. To be sure, speeding is a safety issue, though statistics are sometimes misrepresented. According to a 2005 National Highway Traffic Safety Administration study of the most extensive data on motor vehicle accidents available, the Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS), 32 percent of all vehicle crash fatalities in 2002 were speed-related. Speeding was defined as too fast for conditions, exceeding a specified limit or racing, as reported by a police officer.
The proportion has changed little over 20 years, although a peak of 37 percent was reached in 1986. Between 1983 and 2002, New Jersey had the lowest overall proportion of fatalities that were speeding-related while South Carolina had the highest.
Most speed-related fatal crashes occur on local and collector roads with relatively low speed limits, often involving only single vehicles on curves. Overall, Saturday in particular and weekends in general were the most common for speed-related fatalities, while peak hours for such crashes were between 9 p.m. and 3 a.m.-no surprises there. What often doesn't get mentioned by advocates of lower speed limits, though, was that 41 percent of intoxicated drivers in 2002 fatal accidents were speeding, versus only 14 percent of sober drivers. Fatal speeding drivers also, disproportionately, were males under 25 years old, again as expected.
All these facts suggest that speed limit enforcement on both main highways and urban streets by and large is unrelated to preventing fatal accidents.
Since 1995, at the U.S. federal level, there have been no limits set for passenger car speeds. Generally speed limits are set at the state, county or local level, but three times in American history, there have been exceptions. During World War II, to conserve gas and tires, speed limits were set at 35 mph. In 1974, in reaction to the Arab Oil Embargo, President Nixon decreed a limit of 55 mph to conserve fuel. Amidst protests by what David E. Davis Jr. has tagged the Safety Nazis, Congress in 1987 lifted the 55 limit to 65 mph on Interstate-level highways, but kept it at 55 for urban areas.
Before World War II, on America's mostly two-lane highways, it yoostabee that speed limits were 50-55 mph. After the war, with increasing mileages of four-lane, limited-access roadways, limits edged up to 60-65 mph. There were exceptions: for example, in hilly, winding-road Connecticut when I was in college in the early Fifties, limits were 45 mph even on the Merritt Parkway. Just before Nixon's crackdown, speed limits were either non-existent or pegged at 80 mph on the Interstates of many western states. Indeed, in general, U.S. western states with their long distances traditionally have had higher limits than urbanized eastern states.
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