Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utcsstat.UUCP
Path: utzoo!utcsstat!laura
From: laura@utcsstat.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.flame
Subject: re: scott preece on 55mph
Message-ID: <707@utcsstat.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 21-Jun-83 17:41:01 EDT
Article-I.D.: utcsstat.707
Posted: Tue Jun 21 17:41:01 1983
Date-Received: Tue, 21-Jun-83 19:49:05 EDT
References: <2266@uiucdcs.UUCP>
Organization: U. of Toronto, Canada
Lines: 24

The problem with your conclusion is that you assume a smooth curve
between the number of people killed and the speed they are going.
This is not the case with the statistics I have.

At 70 mph, you will be killed and your car will be really smashed up.
At 55 mph, you will be killed but your car will suffer less damage.
55mph is pleanty fast enough to kill the same proportion of people
who get killed at 70 mph. If you want to slow people down so that
they dont get killed you have to slow them down to about 30mph.
It is only at significantly lower speeds than 55mph that you begin to
see a decrease in fatalities. At 55mph and at 75mph you see a strict
proportion to the number of vehicles on the road, except where other
large factors (such as a large crackdown on drunk driving) come into
play.  55mph is fast enough to kill you, 70mph is overkill. But given
that I am driving fast enough to be killed anyway, there is no saving
of lives at 55mph -- only a saving of gas, and perhaps a saving to the
highway. I figure that as long as i buy my own gas and pay taxes to
fix the highway these costs dont matter, and 55 saves lives is an
easily demonstrable falsehood. 

Does that change your mind about 55 mph?

Laura Creighton
utzoo!utcsstat!laura