The Current Climate of Speeding in the United States In today’s life, a high degree of mobility and the ability to travel quickly by air, rail or road seems to have become an everyday expectation of modern society. NHTSA studies have shown that most traffic exceeds posted speed limits, and this culture is mutually reinforced between drivers, policymakers and many transportation stakeholders. While speeding may seem like a new challenge, we are in fact managing the legacy of a decades-long culture oriented towards minimizing travel times.

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The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety reports that speed influences the risk of crashes and crash injuries in three ways:

 

● The distance a vehicle travels from the time a driver detects an emergency to the time the driver reacts is increased.
● The distance needed to stop a vehicle once the driver starts to brake is increased.
● The exponential increase in crash energy. For example, when impact speed increases from 40 to 60 mph (a 50% increase), the energy increases by 125% (IIHS, 2018b).

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