Is Every Speed Limit Too Low?

Re:Is Every Speed Limit Too Low? by cheald on Monday August 04, 2014 @04:05PM (#8133718)

Very interesting. How well do you think that 65 MPH internalized limit (during R&P) mapped to the 85/15% split as described in the original article?

Do you have any other insights into other factors that might have contributed to the change in fatalities, or do you think it was just as simple as "people are driving 10 MPH faster on average", with correlated increases in fatality rates?

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Re:Is Every Speed Limit Too Low? by tmp1234519029 on Monday August 04, 2014 @04:52PM (#8133960)

My guess:

- R&P: people look at the road

- 75 : people look for cops (if they're above speed limit)

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Re:Is Every Speed Limit Too Low? by peatmoss on Monday August 04, 2014 @05:17PM (#8134077)

That's a really interesting question. My unscientific hunch is that there were two different populations of drivers on MT roads at the time. Lets call them the daredevils and the 65-ers.

I'd bet that among the 65-ers, it probably did map pretty well--or at least approximately as well as it did in states that retained a 65mph speed limit. You might have seen a few people creep up maybe instead of setting your cruise to 72 mph, in hopes of skirting a ticket, you set it to 75 because... round number?

The daredevils are pretty much by definition going to be exceeding the speed limit, but they could arguably be described as a different group, i.e. one that didn't internalize the 65 mph. A common narrative amongst Montanans of the time was that out-of-state types (most likely Californians, horror!) were coming to MT to treat our roads like a raceway. I'm sure that probably did happen to some extent, though who knows if it was actually a common occurrence.

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