Speed Limit Signs Tell Truth to Drivers
(2 votes, average: 4.50 out of 5)
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The Elm Grove Police Department has come up with a new way to keep people from speeding: telling them the truth. They’ve placed signs that record a driver’s speed and calculate the outcome of what would happen if they got in a car accident. After seeing the consequences, driving 25 miles per hour doesn’t sound like such a bad idea.
I would actually call that telling the “truth”
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What great signs, especially coming from a police department but there is only one problem.
The message from a safety perspective couldn’t be more wrong. This is understandable because police receive no traffic safety training, only training on PR and writing tickets.
Slower driving does not equate to safer driving.
Roadway design and engineering practices is the primary cause of those accidents that public policy can effect change on.
Accidents cluster, look for the contributing cause, fix it, and accidents cease at that location. Writing citation does not fix the defects in design or do they reduce accidents, whatsoever. Citations are written en mass where it is easy to write them, usually the safest sections of roadway where higher speeds are in fact safe, during the safest times of the day.
Simply stated, there is no correlation between speed enforcement and reduced accidents, or speed per se and accidents. The paradox here - From a traffic engineering safety perspective (85th percentile speed), the safest drivers, least likely to be involved, are those traveling faster than average, yet they are the primary target of enforcement.
The use of these signs waste a lot of money. too. Because research has also shown they only have a novelty effect, and once the motorists become accustomed to them, they return to speed they are comfortable with. I would bet that the sales person who sold the city the signs said differently.
If you want safer streets, spend your money on traffic engineers and engineering studies (safety audits), not feel good gadgets or faux safety PR programs.
I’d add the price of the ticket that’s waiting for you. also traveling at a high rate of speed could be considered suicide thus your family will not recieve death benefits or just randomly place patrol cars with flashing lights along the route.