"Speeding is crime that is rampant
in New York City. Our infrastructure has been
designed and re-designed for the past fifty years to make this crime
easier to commit. T.A. would like to see measures taken to greatly
reduce the design speed of NYC streets, better enforce existing speed
limits, and reduce speed limits." Read
the full report from Transport Alternatives
"The
primary purpose of our highway system is mobility, not safety. If it
were the latter, we would set speed limits much lower."....
Prof. Patricia Waller, of the University of Michigan Transport Research
Institute (UMTRI),
gave this address - 'Speed
Limits: How should they be determined' - to the Sydney Chapter of
the Australian College of Road Safety (ACRS)
in September 2001.
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UK
speed cameras are cutting crash figures. Read
this report from the BBC
In
May 2004, the UK Parliament issued a Postnote document, specifically on
the topic of speed cameras -- read
it here.
On
the other hand, the UK 'Autocar' magazine and the RAC Foundation report
that speed cameras may actually be costing more crashes and more
casualties. Full
report (November 2003).
Another
British website explores the arguments that speed cameras are no more
than revenue earners for the Government and/or the police. Click
here to view the conclusions.
The first speed cameras in Great Britain
were installed in West London in 1992. There are 72,000 speed-related
road accidents in Britain each year, resulting in 1,100 deaths and
12,600 serious injuries. Click
here to read this February 2003 report from RoSPA.
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On
the subject of speed cameras, an independent expert evaluation of fixed
speed cameras in NSW, Australia, has produced dramatic evidence of their
life-saving and other road safety benefits. Full
article.
The European Transport Safety Council
issued a press release in June, 2002, about the
'Safer Cities Conference,' in Brussels, where urban speed limits
were a key topic.
'Speed
Management In Urban Areas,' an interesting report from the Danish
Road Directorate, 1999.
Still in Denmark, they have invented a
gas pedal that fights back! Try to exceed the urban limit in a car
fitted with this device and you'll feel as though someone has put a
brick under the pedal. INFATI is an Intelligent Speed Adaptation
development project. Read
more. They also have a web page which shows the equivalent
fall-distances from a building, to show the severity of impact when
vehicles hit pedestrians at various speeds. Read
more. (To convert kilometers per hour - km/h - to mph, divide the figure by 8
and multiply the result by 5)
When it comes to roadway safety, drivers'
social skills are as important as their mechanical abilities, says
Canadian driver education expert Dan Keegan. Read
more.
Travelling Speed and the Risk of Crash
Involvement on Rural Roads, a report from Adelaide University Road Accident Research
Unit (RARU)
Travelling Speed and the Risk of Crash
Involvement on Urban Roads, a report from Adelaide University Road Accident Research
Unit (RARU)
Report: The
Effects of Crosswalk Markings on Vehicle Speeds in Maryland, Virginia,
and Arizona. U.S. Department of Transport, Federal Highway
Division. (PDF)
In crashes of vehicles with pedestrians,
the vehicle speed is very important. Accidents with high speed are
always catastrophic for pedestrians. The sort of injuries, or
fatalities, that pedestrians suffer depends on the vehicle speed and the
shape of the vehicle front. Accident statistics show that 50km/h
(31mph) is the limiting speed where a pedestrian can still survive a
crash with a vehicle. If a vehicle is traveling at 30km/h (19mph)
when it crashes with a pedestrian there is a high that the pedestrian
will survive the crash and may suffer only a light injury. 'Analysis
of Road Accidents on Pedestrian Crossings Caused by Speeding,' by
Jitka Rokytova and Michal Sklenar, of the Centrum dopravniho vyzkumu (CDV)
-- Transport Research Centre -- Brno, Czech Republic.