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OVERVIEW Americans tend to drive at about 70 mph, whatever the posted limit is Efforts by safety advocates to lower speed limits are unlikely to advance Advocates of higher limits note that highway fatalities are declining, despite higher speeds LINKS CITY CARS: Inside the New York auto show. Article PONY UP: Review of the Mustang V6. Article
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Fast Forward
By JOSEPH B. WHITE Left to their own devices, American drivers confronted with an open stretch of interstate highway tend to drive at about 70 miles per hour—whatever the legal speed limit happens to be. That’s the finding of an analysis of speed data gathered by TomTom, a marketer of GPS navigation devices. And it helps to explain why safety advocates and conservationists are losing the long-running debate over lowering freeway speed limits. The Virginia Legislature recently passed legislation raising the speed limit on rural interstate highways to 70 mph from 65 mph. The state’s new Republican governor, Bob McDonnell, put boosting the legal speed limit high on his list of priorities, and got action less than three months after taking office. Virginia becomes the 34th state to boost interstate speed limits to 70 mph or higher. In big, sparsely populated states such as New Mexico, Idaho and Nevada, posted limits on rural interstates can be as high as 75 mph. GRIDLOCK IN WASHINGTON TomTom collected speed data from 45 states and the District of Columbia, under agreements with customers who agreed to allow the company to collect the information anonymously to improve the quality of its route guidance.
The TomTom data suggest that most drivers tend to stay within a few miles per hour of the speed limit on major roads. In 31 out of the 46 jurisdictions, average freeway speeds ranged between 65 and 70.1 mph. TomTom found the fastest drivers, on average, in Mississippi, where interstate drivers average 70.1 mph, or a hair over the maximum posted limit. (The company doesn’t have speed data from some sparsely populated states, including Montana, says Nhai Cao, senior product manager for TomTom’s SpeedProfiles database.) Virginia drivers clock in at a law-abiding 65 mph. The slowest drivers are in Washington, D.C. Freeway traffic in the nation’s congested Speed limits and enforcement have taken a symbolic significance that goes beyond vehicle mechanics or highway design. The 55 mph national speed limit enacted in 1973 was justified as a means of conserving fuel in the midst of an oil shortage. In 1987, the law was changed to allow speeds up to 65 mph. But the Republican Congress elected in 1994 did few things more popular than repealing the limit altogether in 1995. Over time, the question of driving speed has become a platform for a larger debate about personal freedom versus government control. The argument for raising speed limits is fundamentally an argument for letting drivers use their own judgment. The argument for stronger speed control is that too many people behave badly behind the wheel. ‘BAD ON ANY ROAD’ Insurers and other safety advocates, including groups such as the Governors Highway Safety Association, have consistently called for motorists to slow down, and for state and local authorities to get tougher on speeding enforcement. “Higher speeds are bad on any road,” says Anne McCartt, vice president of research for the Insurance Institute of Highway Safety, a research arm of the insurance industry. The Federal Highway Administration estimates that in 2008, about 31% of the total 37,261 highway fatalities were related to speeding over posted limits. But advocates of relaxing speed limits point to federal statistics which show that both fatalities and fatality rates on U.S. highways are declining even as speed limits rise. The U.S. Department of Transportation recently reported that its latest estimate of highway deaths in 2009 is 33,963—the lowest number since the government began keeping these grim records in 1954. The fatality rate is estimated at 1.16 deaths per 100 million vehicle miles traveled. Modern cars and light trucks have an average of 225 horsepower under the hood and sophisticated safety systems such as traction control. They are designed to cruise comfortably, safely and efficiently at between 65 and 70 mph—if not faster, particularly in the case of German luxury brands. If gas prices spike again this summer, as some predict, the idea of dropping speed limits again may seem attractive. But Virginia’s decision and the powerful cars consumers are buying suggest otherwise.
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