Speed Limits Rise to 70 Effective July 1

[Buckeye in SC]

Originally Posted by natininja

Worth what? How many injuries and fatalities is it worth?

Like ram2 said, stay in the right lane and enjoy your music...you get in a bad accident going 75 or 80, not much of a difference than if you were going 65 or 70 as far as surviving. Besides, speed doesn't kill nearly as much as the moron weaving in and out of traffic or the idiot who is texting while he's driving or even worse, drinking while they are driving. Almost every other state in the union has at least a 70 MPH limit, about time Ohio joined the party.

[natininja]

I don't care about the likelihood in one instance. I'm worried about an overall increase in accidents, injuries, and fatalities. The question is: How many more injuries and fatalities are acceptable each year to make your 15 minute shorter trip "worth it"?

[Drover]

The impact on fatality rates will be negligible; we already have the data that shows this. If you're genuinely interested in substantially reducing vehicular fatalities, the way to do it is to greatly improve driver training, maintain our highways better, vigorously enforce no-tailgating and lane discipline laws, and last but not least tighten up our DUI laws -- in short, treat driving as a serious responsibility rather than an American birthright. Do these things and, outside of busy metro areas anyway, you can raise the speed limits as high as you want on interstate-grade highways or eliminate them altogether. But we as a society are not willing to do these things. So instead we impose restrictive speed limits and imagine we're saving lives that way.

[natininja]

1. Define "negligible".

2. Where is this data you speak of?

[Drover]

Originally Posted by natininja

1. Define "negligible".

Sure, right after I legally change my name to Merriam Webster.

Originally Posted by natininja

2. Where is this data you speak of?

The data is readily available and Google is a fantastic research tool. Do your own legwork.

[natininja]

Originally Posted by Drover

Sure, right after I legally change my name to Merriam Webster.

No increase is negligible to families affected.

The data is readily available and Google is a fantastic research tool. Do your own legwork.

I would have to know specifically what the data is supposed to say, in order to search for it. Was there a series of studies on whether raising the maximum speed limit from 65 to 75 in Ohio does not cause a statistically significant increase in accidents? Was there a study showing speed limit increases in general do not cause an increase in fatalities? What am I Googling for?