Expurgation of our Speed Demons

Living where I do, I’m no stranger to unsafe driving. A wreck seems to show up at least once a week just in the places I want to drive, I can count at least 3 different places I can see evidence of a crash, and I’ve seen at least two dozen cars pass me going 85+ in a 55 zone in the dead of night. This doesn’t mean that this is how it needs to be, however. There are more than enough ways to help alleviate the dangers of the road while still keeping society the way it is.

The biggest thing I believe needs to be done when it comes to road safety is speed awareness and support. This comes in two phases: showing people the dangers of speeding and creating a cultural movement to stop it, and creating more places for people to both practice good speed habits while also having other places where people can alleviate their need for speed.

It isn’t an easy thing to incur a national movement, nor is it a fast process, but what steps could be taken to push us in the right direction? Some simpler ways to push the movement would be using a martyr or by bringing big awareness to wrecks caused by speeding, sideswiping (as those are commonly due to speed differences), overturned trucks, etc. Other ways could be bringing up statistics of the average speed in an area and pinning that in congruence with when accidents happened in said zone (a hidden speed trap on a highway or major road could be useful here) or encourage large groups of people to drive in areas at speed limit to help all drivers practice driving at the limit.

Trying to encourage people to do something won’t instantly create the solution. There are several roads in my area people will actively do upwards of 10 miles over the speed limit but since everyone’s doing it, it sets a standard. This is alleviated by setting NEW standards. Traffic, albeit annoying, is a valid method (even if unintentional) to slow down a part of a road. Having people practice giving them extra time to get to their destination will help reduce their need to speed. I also propose a new type of business where people are given a large area to drive in and as long as they stay away from the edges (they would be fenced in while also given some steep safety measures such as large rumble strips and emergency tire traps) they would be able to drive as fast as they wanted with whatever vehicle they were using. This would allow people to alleviate their need for speed while also helping stimulate the economy further.

Speed management is a two way street, so the driver needs incentives to be encouraged to drive slower as well. This to me can be done with incentives such as gas and symbols. There’s a fairly consistent graph you can find on speed vs fuel economy: the faster you go, the less distance your gas will go. While less noticeable with some speeds, largely within the legal ranges, once you pass 60 mph the economic range begins to decrease. This also translates into slow speeds: going too SLOW also is a decrease in your fuel economy. What does this mean? Every speed will have a range for highest efficiency. Many people who speed are going to do it not for pleasure, but for a desire to get to their destination as quick as possible, which they associate with efficiency. By fixing this misconception by educating on the optimal speeds per speed zone, this will encourage this demographic to follow them more closely. On top of this, many cars nowadays will have fuel efficiency meters in their car. Making these a larger focus will help people and their dopamine, since when numbers go up, we are satisfied. Some newer cars have the local speed limit somewhere on their dashboard as well; the optimal fuel efficient speed could also be put onto these.

When protecting people against speeding, it’s not about the speed limits being broken, it’s about the speed limits being misused. As we still see many people exceeding speed limits, we need to re-educate and reinvent the concept of speeding laws. We don’t need more police to encourage the laws, they don’t want to! They have places to be too, meaning the enforcement of the current system isn’t popular, easy, or feasible. By changing the system, we change expectations. By changing the expectations, we change the feasibility. By making speeding enforcement more feasible, we make the roads safer, and with safer roads, we have safer lives.