Speed limits

toedtoes wrote:
Actually, this data was based on a project where the NHTSA went out to the accidents with the police and questioned the drivers at the scene and then compared those statements to the cars' data and the skidmarks, damage to the cars, etc.

As such, the report shows that no one stated "he was driving too slow" as the cause of the accident. Yet many many people stated they were distracted, speeding, tailgating, or had fallen asleep, etc. and that's why they hit the other car.

So your argument doesn't hold water.

In a 100 car pileup, it does not mean 99 people were going one faster speed and one was going much slower. That is your bias showing. All it means is that 99 people failed to not hit another car.

It could have been caused because there was a large piece of debris in the roadway and the first car swerved to avoid it thereby causing the cars around it to swerve and all the cars behind were following too close to stop in time.

It could be that one person was driving significantly faster than everyone else and didn't see the car ahead due to fog and hit it causing a chain reaction.

It could be that someone was trying to read a report on the way to work while driving and swerved to make their accident causing a chain reaction.

The idea that all (or even a significant number) of these pile ups were caused because one person chose to drive too slow is simply trying to justify speeding - and it doesn't work.

In reality, the best way to avoid a pile up is to increase the space between cars. If the car in front of you swerves, slows down, or farts, you should be far enough back to not have to slam on your brakes. And if you avoid hitting them and take a huge sigh of relief, you were still too close.

That's why the three second rules works - because the faster you are going the more room between you and the car in front of you. Because the higher speed requires a greater stopping distance. But most people maintain one car length or less between them and the car in front of them at any speed - because heaven forbid someone is allowed to move over in front of them. Heck, they might have to drop their speed from 70 to 67 for a minute in order to reestablish that space and that is unacceptable.

Speed certainly isn't the only reason for crashes but it's been decades where it has been beaten into the American conscious that "speed kills", so not surprising, no one "claimed" is was low speed.

Increase space sounds good but in foggy conditions, if you slow down more than most, that means you have more interactions with cars passing you (or creating long lines of closely spaced cars behind you). It's not a simple problem for a human driver to solve but if you are doing 25mph in a 70mph zone because of visibility, you should be getting off the road entirely (short of an emergency). Adaptive speed control that can see thru fog and react more quickly is our best bet for solving low visibility issues.