Changing America's Culture of Speed on the Roads

Speeding—exceeding the posted speed limit or traveling too fast for conditions—is epidemic on America’s highways. Most drivers understand that speeding is dangerous, and most drivers feel that other speeders threaten their own personal safety. Yet most drivers speed: in a recent national survey, about 80% of all drivers said they exceeded the speed limit on all types of roads, from Interstate highways to neighborhood streets, within the past month, and about one-third reported that they were speeding on the day of the interview. Speeding increases both the risk of a crash and the risk of injuries and fatalities in crashes. Speeding was documented in almost one-third of all fatal traffic crashes in 2005 and probably was involved in many more. American culture encourages speeding. Many roads are designed for speeds higher than the posted speed limit. Cars are comfortable, quiet, insulated from the road, with speedometers recording speeds over 100 mph; drivers don’t feel that they are traveling fast. Television, movies, and electronic games all promote speeding. Automobile companies and car magazines advertise speed through slogans such as “0 to 60 mph in 3.4 seconds.” And Americans’ busy lifestyles stress that every minute counts, that in days filled with multiple appointments in different locations, we need to get from one place to the next as quickly as we can—so we speed. Current methods for controlling speeding are virtually powerless in the face of this speeding culture. Police can detect speeders easily, but police can patrol only a tiny fraction of the nation’s four million highway miles. On congested multilane roads, police cannot safely single out one car from the hundreds that speed by every minute. The common attitude is that police issue speeding tickets to raise revenue, not to protect the driving public. Automated speed enforcement has demonstrated its effectiveness in other countries but is used only rarely in America. So what can be done to reduce speeding? The public’s attitudes that accept and often encourage speeding must change, and at the same time speeding behavior must be reduced and stopped in locations and situations where the public knows that speeding is dangerous. Two good targets are 1) specific high-visibility locations, such as school zones, neighborhood streets where children live, highway work zones, and streets with heavy pedestrian crossing traffic and 2) extreme speeders who drive more than ten or twenty mph faster than other vehicles. Well-publicized campaigns focused on these targets, using both manned and automated enforcement methods, can begin changing public attitudes. They require vigorous local, state, and national leadership that recognizes the true role of speed in traffic crashes and injuries, makes speed a real safety priority, increases funding for speed-related programs and research, and uses leadership’s “bully pulpit” to inform, encourage, and inspire America’s drivers to drive at safe speeds.