Brace yourselves, motorists. Now that President Clinton has signed into law a bill eliminating federal speed limits, get ready for more carnage on the highways.
Under the new arrangement, the old 55 mph national speed limit will be repealed in 10 days. Already nine states have new laws in place or have taken other steps to increase their speed limits. Many other states can be expected to follow suit after their legislatures meet, seeing the change as a victory for states' rights.So be it. The time for criticism is past. But it's not too late to remind drivers of a few hard facts.
One of them is the recent estimate from the U.S. Department of Transportation, which calculates that repealing the national speed limit will increase highway fatalities by 6,400 a year and increase the cost to society by $19 billion. Even without higher speed limits, highway accidents cost the country $112 billion a year, not including lost work time, pain and suffering.
Another hard fact is that the highest rates of fatal crashes occur not in urban areas but along isolated stretches of the Western interstate - the stretches where the speed limits are likely to be raised the highest. That's the finding of a computer-aided investigation by Hearst Newspapers, which analyzed every inter- state death nationwide between 1990 and 1994.
The worst stretch of highway is I-90 around Butte, Mont.
Next on the killer list - brace yourselves, Utahns - is I-70 in the Beehive State's Emery County, a scenic highway that winds through Castle Valley in the eastern part of the state.
Other studies show that simply repaving a road worsens safety because a driver's foot seems to get heavier as the highway's surface gets smoother.
Still another hard fact is that even the best roads are designed so people can safely drive only up to 70 mph - in good weather. Likewise, seat belts and air bags are designed to work only up to a certain speed, beyond which a crash's impact is just too strong.
Though Congress has repealed the national speed limit, it cannot repeal the laws of physics. If legislatures are wise, they will realize that many drivers routinely exceed the speed limit regardless of where it is set. State lawmakers should ask themselves how much more carnage can be justified in the name of states' rights. Drivers should ask themselves if saving a few minutes' travel time is really worth the extra risk.