I'll leave off the usual pedestrian fatality statistics here, because you seem not to be interested in that, and it's shooting fish in a barrel.
> Promised increases in death rates that accompany increased highway speed limits essentially never materialize.
From the second link's abstract:
...a speed limit increase from 55 to 65 mi/h on the average section would
be associated with a 24% increase in the probability of an occupant being
fatally injured, once a crash has occurred.
That study looked at actual collision data. Where people had raised the speed limits, and actually seen actual increases in actual death rates.
> Modeling drivers as ideal gas particles whose collision rate is proportional to speed is simply wrong.
Don't do that, then. It's not directly proportional to speed, but there is a positive correlation. If you're going to convince me that speed limits are pointless and irrelevant, you're going to need to explain away some pretty basic physics.
I present this more as a interesting anecdote than a real argument but the fatality rate on the roads in Germany (where the autobhans have no enforced speed limit and seeing someone drive at 150mph is not uncommon) is considerably lower than in the US.
The reason this isn't a particularly great comparison is that driver training, car design and even the German attitude to driving are all built around the potential for high speeds.
When the speed limit went up on
four stretches of road between Nephi and
Cedar City, accidents went down by 20 percent,
according to the three-year study by UDOT.
> Statistics repeatedly fail to bear out your assertion.
Except they don't: http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/2012/tables/12s1108.p...
More interestingly: http://www.trb.org/Main/Blurbs/157220.aspx
I'll leave off the usual pedestrian fatality statistics here, because you seem not to be interested in that, and it's shooting fish in a barrel.
> Promised increases in death rates that accompany increased highway speed limits essentially never materialize.
From the second link's abstract:
That study looked at actual collision data. Where people had raised the speed limits, and actually seen actual increases in actual death rates.> Modeling drivers as ideal gas particles whose collision rate is proportional to speed is simply wrong.
Don't do that, then. It's not directly proportional to speed, but there is a positive correlation. If you're going to convince me that speed limits are pointless and irrelevant, you're going to need to explain away some pretty basic physics.