decreased speed limit leads to increased fatalities

I kinda wish there were driver license classes (e.g. A, B, C) that would limit the speed of the driver...

I don't know where you live but I would be lucky if i could ever get up to the speed limit with all the seniors i have around here.
They slow down coming up to green lights and 30mph means 20 at best. Most shouldn't be on the road but the doctors are afraid to take their licenses away. Takes away their Independence..so i'm told. Every 2nd or 3rd car has a handicap sticker. No issues on people getting run over here...lol

I have a theory about this: Time compresses as you age!

Remember when you were a kid in school, and Friday seemed so far away? Well, as you get older, time appears to compress or get shorter. So, a senior driver believes they are going faster than they are. An elderly driver going 40 MPH on the highway feels like they're going 60 - 70 MPH!

So don't get too excited about some senior citizen cruising down the road. Enjoy the ride!

I'm 70 and still enjoy driving 8 over.
Except on the suburban Chicago interstates where 65 means 80 and I have no problem with going 80 but the youngsters try to do 95, constantly weaving through the 3 lane traffic.

Like dave817, I have no problem keeping up with traffic. There are times I enjoy driving using my age for the speed limit and I'm older than dave817.

... Germany I've always felt safer there driving along at 100 mph than I do here in the States at 65. Overall the drivers there are much more attentive, at least in my experiences. Not sure the drivers here in the States could handle a higher speed limit than we have now.

It is far harder to get a license, so it is more appreciated. It's not a privilege like it is here. Their cars don't have the frills. Cars are for A to B. No nonsense.

@ DanielT

I've been a Senior for some years now

I grew up there...You forgot to mention we get from a-b a lot faster than over here. Try going slow over there on the autobahn
and see what happens to you. No one really uses a car in the city anyways. The transit works.

Your reflexes do slow down as you age. I always felt like I could get out and walk if I was driving less than 85 MPH in my younger days but I don't quite feel the same "need for speed" as before. That said though, I was always extremely attentive when driving that fast, and I agree that the more routine and boring speeds around 65 or so tend to invite your mind to wander.

As you get older, this becomes less of a problem.

Darwin is winning. Impatient people are the statistics.

How is it harder?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Driving_licence_in_Germany

I wonder if we can even function as a society anymore....we have a huge problem just hiring people nowadays. It's like many people don't want to work (they want a balance, which is admirable, but the balance is weighted towards leisure and video games).

We have people stating that enforcement leads to accidents, or is a money grab. So now, lowering speed limits is bad as well.

Look at how traffic flows in Germany, vs. here in the USA, would be a start.

We seem to like to argue so much here and can do so liberally, that we can't often times make any real progress. Meaning there are not only 2 realities, there are even more than that!

This is why I am getting older faster! I am actually picking up speed. So I am not getting older, I am picking up speed.
Thanks for explaining it to me.

It amazes me how many people do not "look both ways before crossing the street" anymore and just walk out into traffic because all they know is that the "pedestrian has the right-of-way".

but accidents up doesn't factor in so many
people using phones or other attention grabbing devices
in their cars.

Fred

How many times have you see people walking and looking at their phones or texting and emailing or searching for something and walk in to you or walk in to the street?

If you would explain how slowing down would create more deaths.

Thanks.

Sustrans is a British organization that supports the implementation of reduced speed limits in residential areas. If you go to their website (https://www.sustrans.org.uk/) you can find several editorials that address the issue of increased incidents in new reduced speed zones.

In their opinion, this spike in incidents primarily occurs in areas where the reduced speed limits were only recently implemented. Essentially, drivers and pedestrians may not be as attentive as they should be. However, their position is that long-term studies show a steady decline in injuries and deaths in reduced speed areas over time.

There was also a study done here in the States by NHTSA many years back where they determined that the slowest traffic experienced the highest accident rate and that artifically low speed limits tended to increase the number of accidents, likely as a result of the speed differential that was created between those who followed the letter of the law and those who just couldn't bring themselves to drive that far below a safe and reasonable speed for the prevailing road and traffic conditions (I was always in that group). As I recall, the breakdown was something like:

Highest accident rate by slowest drivers (lowest percentile of speed)

Next highest accident rate by upper 5th percentile of speed (my opinion: probably the crazy, reckless, young and inexperienced "immortals" for the most part)

Lowest accident rate by 85th to 95th percentile of speed (my opinion: probably mostly driving enthusiasts who are driving fast but at a reasonable speed for road conditions and are PAYING ATTENTION)

I may be off on the exact percentile numbers by a bit, although not by much if at all.

Apparently, one of the best methods found for setting speed limits is to measure the actual speed of traffic on a particular (section of) highway and set the speed limit at around the 85-90th percentile of observed speeds. This is evidently how they used to do it back in the day, not sure if they're back to doing that or not. They got away from that when the 55 mph national speed limit was put into place during the fuel crisis and it was discovered that they were making lots of revenue on tickets as a side "benefit".

I'd like to see a system more like they have in Germany here but our mass transit is a joke by comparison so that will probably never happen.

- Phil

I took Driver's Ed in high school and practiced with my parents and brother. Total cost: $0. My only cost was the learner's permit, driving written and road tests and license fee which at the time was probably about $100. Far less than the $1800 (2014 relative price) plus additional mandatory school fees that Germany charges. At those prices over here, you would just have many more people just driving without licenses...

Granted, this is from Wikipedia, but it's not very far off.