DYM
In a nutshell, the way they determine whether or not an incident was "speed related" or not is faulty. It's a systemic problem that is not easy to solve; but it's common for the NHTSA to suppress studies-data that don't support the Claybrookian "speed kills" agenda. Basically what happens is in any wreck if one or more of the parties was involved was exceeding the speed limit, the incident is clbuttified as "speed related" even if the root cause of the incident was something completely unrelated such as running a red light, changing lanes into another vehicle, not watching the road while trying to pick up a dropped cigarette, etc. etc. etc. This is not solely the fault of NHTSA; it goes down to the level of the individual police officer writing up the report. However, there doesn't seem to be a significant amount of concern given to discriminating between incidents where excessive speed was a contributing factor and where one or more drivers were simply exceeding the number posted on a sign (and indeed may have only been traveling at or below the average speed of traffic.) Most of their official press releases downplay other factors in favor of the "slow = safe" theory, and also attempt to use increasing number of baneities as a scare tactic even when baneities per VMT are continuing their steady downward trend.
A New Category of Sloth 3337Spoken like a man who has never seen a 45mph speed limit on an interstate that was not under construction or a 25mph speed limit sign...
I don't know off the top of my head of any better source of data-statistics, and unfortunately I don't get paid to sit here and search for them, but maybe if I have some free time this weekend I'll have a poke around the web. However, if you would accept data from a foreign source, I have a lot of respect for the way Germans handle automotive matters, and German statistics might present a more unbiased picture of the issues that actually contribute to highway crashes. (however, it's entirely possible that the data might not 100% reflect American driving conditions, as German drivers are reputedly much more send and better behaved than American ones.)
The NMA (National Motorists buttociation) is a good source of information from "the other side" however while their data and viewpoints are considerably more rational and reasonable than NHTSA's it is difficult to consider them an unbiased source as well. Sort of like flipping back and forth between Fox News and NPR - the same information can be reported in a way that draws the reader towards two entirely different conclusions. I imagine the real truth lies somewhere in between, although to be honest, I'm likely to give the NMA more weight as they don't have to worry about political pressure from the big-money insurance industry lobbyists.
NHTSA Was: A New Category of Sloth 3336Quote from above article: " When a driver ran a red light and crashed into her car seven years ago, Laura Nichols was so badly injured that rescue workers thought she was dead. She suffered...
nate
