Figures don't lie, but liars figure

[unixronin]

Interesting, if brief, reading on highway speed limits from the WSJ:

We now have 10 years of evidence proving that the only "assault" was on the sanctity of the truth.  The nearby table shows that the death, injury and crash rates have fallen sharply since 1995.  Per mile traveled, there were about 5,000 fewer deaths and almost one million fewer injuries in 2005 than in the mid-1990s.  This is all the more remarkable given that a dozen years ago Americans lacked today's distraction of driving while also talking on their cell phones.

(Emphasis mine.)

Comments

[arasirsul.livejournal.com]

Part of this may be a phenomenon that race drivers have known for quite a while: Speed isn't nearly as dangerous as differences in speed.

Now that the speed limit is 70 in many places, the people who want to stay within N of the speed limit now go faster, and the people who want to drive however fast they want to drive are still driving the same speed: the speeds have gotten closer together.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

I think that's a definite factor. Plus the factor that people who are driving faster generally tend to be paying more attention.