Posted on 07/16/2009 7:26:44 PM PDT by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
THURSDAY, July 16 (HealthDay News) -- Deaths and injuries on America's interstates have increased since the repeal of the federal 55-mile-per-hour speed limit in 1995, a new study finds, and some believe it's time to slow down again.
Researchers tracking fatalities attributed 12,545 deaths and 36,582 injuries in fatal crashes to higher speed limits implemented during the 1995-2005 study period.
"Our study clearly shows that policy can directly result in more deaths as well as reducing deaths on our country's roads," said lead researcher Lee S. Friedman of the division of environmental and occupational health sciences in the School of Public Health at the University of Illinois, Chicago.
Their results show that seemingly harmless policy decisions can have long-term repercussions, the researchers said. They called for implementation of a national speed management policy that would include a maximum speed of 55 mph and development of camera networks to curb speeding.
The report is published in the July 16 online edition of the American Journal of Public Health.
For the study, Friedman's group examined deaths and injuries in fatal car crashes on rural interstate highways, urban interstates and non-interstate roads.
They found a 3.2 percent increase in deaths because of higher speed limits on all types of roads in the United States. The largest increase -- 9.1 percent -- was on rural interstates, followed by urban interstates at 4 percent. "These roads were the main locus of raised speed limits," they noted.
Some states had imposed a 65 mph limit. Others went to 70, and still others, 75. The solution, said Friedman, is to bring back the 55 mph speed limit.
(Excerpt) Read more at health.msn.com ...
“The solution, said Friedman, is to bring back the 55 mph speed limit”
Nanny state moonbat bump!
National heath care will insure that we all will be forced to slow down ‘to save health care costs’.
That's wrong, plain and simple. Studies conducted in Maryland of all places for the first year or two that the 55 limit was relaxed showed serious accidents and injuries DECREASING when you got rid of the bunching which the 55 limit caused. The 55 limit was an abomination.
Watch fatalities sky rocket when government mandates force the auto makers to build even lighhter vehicles to meet the 35 mpg standard by 2012.
It’s Jimmy Carter all over again
Hay jerk Lee S. Friedman if I want any sh** out of you I’ll squeeze your head!!
There is no way in hell that I will drive 55 mph on a highway designed to handle higher speeds.
It isn’t the higher speed limits that are killing people. It is the CAFE standards.
bookmark
make it 15 and you’ll save even more lives.
heck soon we’ll need a travel permit to expend the energy necessary so it wont matter
Just another excuse to slap folks with speeding tickets, generating more revenue for Big Government.
Eliminate cars.....wait, Obama is slowly doing that already.
using flat numbers and not per capita numbers, is the mark of someone playing with stats
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I’m in Arizona with a speed limit of 75. I’d never get anywhere!
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