Adding speed governors would make cars more expensive. For the struggling working family, adding a few hundred bucks (or whatever it would cost) to the cost of a $2000 car seems pretty steep.

I suppose we could just use deficit spending to buy everyone a speed governor. 13,000 lives (per year!) is a lot, so it may be worth it.

Well, one thing I could say for sure, putting speed limiters on cars would then create an aftermarket of people able and willing to disable said limiters.

This leads into the thorny issue of how to handle them. What level of punishment would be there for people who do this? How would the resultant laws differentiate between those who intentionally disabled the limiter and those who just had their limiter break down (as all parts can and will eventually break down)? And how are you going to deal with the thousands of vehicles out there now? Give them free limiters and installation? Grandfather clause? The former is a huge expense, and the latter is a huge loophole.

I'm not saying that the idea is worthless. In fact, I'm rather intrigued by it. But there's a ton of work that needs to be done on it before it could even be suggested in a bill.

30% of traffic deaths are related to speeding, but 85% of all drivers speed, so it looks like speeding is a non-issue.

Risk Management 101 says the first thing you do is identify the most likely and most dangerous possible outcomes. It turns out that most fatal accidents happen in only a handful of places.

There's the long stretch of open highway, where excessive speed leads to a fatal crash when a driver spills his sippy cup in his lap or reaches for the radio dial. Not much we can do about that.

But we could mitigate the other sites. Running red lights on roads where the speed limit if 45 mph or higher is one. You can run the red light 99 times without an accident, but the one time you do have an accident, it's going to be a doozy.

We have an out-dated model for traffic law enforcement. 87% of all tickets are for speeding, because it's low hanging fruit. You sit on the side of the road with a radar detector, and because everyone speeds, fairly quickly you have your quota. But did we make the roads safer?

I'm not into social engineering. I just want to be cost effective. Replace the officer ($70K/year) and his patrol car ($38K plus $12K in electronics, computers, and communications gear) with a camera. Make traffic law enforcement a tool to make the roads safer, and not just a method of pulling in revenue.

Of course, stupid people are going to do stupid things behind the wheel. But your right to swing your fist ends at my nose, and the costs of cleaning up after accidents effects us all.

For some reason my nascent libertarian urges are always aroused by topics like this one. The weird thing is, I mentally frame my concern in a criminal context. My exact thoughts reading this posts were "Speed governors? But what if I have to run from the cops? The cops probably won't have governors." This line of thinking needs a name. Crimatarian? In any event, I only support speed governors in cars if the cops have them too. Please also note that I am not a criminal of any kind.

30 percent of traffic deaths are related to speeding.

How is this determined? If eyewitnesses actually observed the accident and were able to accurately judge that a car was speeding, then I guess that at least would be evidence. Usually, though, I'd bet that post-crash investigators are just guessing that "excessive speed" was involved. Unlike drunk driving, where one can measure the blood alcohol content of the driver's corpse and know for sure whether or not alcohol was involved, a determination of "excessive speed" is often (yes, not always, but often) going to be based on guesswork. This seems like a relatively trivial basis for the relatively authoritarian response you propose.

In addition, such regulation would certainly encounter significant political resistance. Or, to put it a different way; if you think the gun crazies are irrational fetishists, just wait and see what happens when you try to take our cars.

I thought the op-ed had a pretty glaring omission. To say that x% of accidents are related to speeding tells us nothing about how many of them are related to speeding that would be prevented by installing a 75-mph governor on cars. You could still whip around a hairpin turn on a country road (speed limit, say, 35) at 70 and kill yourself quite easily. Or speed through a city intersection at 50.

The ex-post estimates of vehicle speed are quite reliable. Indeed, since the level of impairment for a given level of BAC varies, and since BAC measures are imperfect, but the physical verities of mass and acceleration do not and are not, I'd assert that ex-post speed estimates are better than BAC estimates.

On-topic, though, all I came here to do was remind our host that I find his engagement with The McArdle as anything other than a rank agitprop artist as his single worst trait as a blogger. Please stop feeding the trolls.

Actually, somewhat related - what percentage of those deaths due to speeding are due to drunk people speeding? I know that opens up a whole other can of worms... but if it turns out that, for example, 75% of speeding deaths are due to drunk drivers speeding, then it sounds like better enforcement of drunk driving laws is a higher priority.

I'll agree that speeding and drunk driving are two problems, but it'd be nice to know how much they overlap.

Okay, better example as to why this would be a bad idea: say you live in a remote area and a family member gets seriously injured. It would take too long for an ambulance to get there. When your kid is in the back seat bleeding to death a la Mr. Orange, would you want the speed of your car artificially limited?

I kind of like the idea of sticking "Do Not Serve" tags on repeat alcohol offenders' licenses, but it would really only affect offenders who look like they might be under 21. Most liquor stores and bars don't bother to card people who are clearly of-age.

You'd also create a brand new market for fake IDs.

Part of the trouble with this is that speeding is relative to the local limit. 50 mph is dangerously slow on the highway, but is recklessly fast on a neighborhood street.

Beyond the fact that while it's great in theory, but I would guess that it's unworkable--or at best ineffective--in practice, the politics of it are terrible. I can hear cries of "Not only do they want to take your guns, but they want to take your cars too" already, and I have to admit that even as a urban-living, zip-car-driving, non-auto-owning yuppie, I'd be pretty willing to listen to talk like that.

There are roads in Nevada on which it is perfectly safe to drive 85 MPH.

I thought the op-ed had a pretty glaring omission. To say that x% of accidents are related to speeding tells us nothing about how many of them are related to speeding that would be prevented by installing a 75-mph governor on cars. You could still whip around a hairpin turn on a country road (speed limit, say, 35) at 70 and kill yourself quite easily. Or speed through a city intersection at 50.

It's not just that; even if you assume that the 30% figure is accurate in terms of deaths on the road, it doesn't mean that speeding caused the accident in the first place, only that the excess speed turned paralysis into death via increased impact trauma. I'd be much more interested in reducing deaths on the road by reducing the total number of accidents rather than by making the accidents themselves less deadly.

That is not liberal fascism I can believe in.

Well, the second one isn't so bad. On the second speeding violation or something.

Seriously? 13,000 deaths a year from speeding over 75 miles an hour?

Too many good ideas are killed by exaggerating their benefits.

A cheap, easy and less intrusive partial fix would be to require that speedometers top out at 90 mph.

"adolescent thrill"? yes, for those in this age bracket (under the low 20's for most males, according to brain researchers), the brain lacks the connections that make assessments of risk and consequences work.

but for 'adults', the thrill is testosterone-driven. Ever notice how fast the TV ads show cars going? many cars are engineered with the horsepower to run at very high speed because it sells cars.

This is a sex and alcohol and age related phenom.

Males, with alcohol intake (either within or without the legal limit), and the younger-the-more-probable, are the major part of the problem. Governor's of speed won't work, nor tags on licenses (see comments above).

Raising the required MPG rating on cars (therefore cutting huge engines) will do far more for the problem. And also RIGID enforcement of drinking/driving laws with T-Rex teeth work: see Scandanavia.

Save the environment by controlling MPG, Save the males by controlling them.

Opsimath, unfortunately, speed enforcement cameras are politically unpopular and some places have passed laws against them. I'm for the cameras personally and find the "Big Brother" arguments against them unconvincing.

This struck me the same way as it struck many commenters above - not well supported by the numbers given. "Speed" may kill, but the relationship of that to the particular proposed limit of 75mph is totally unclear.

If you put the max speed at 75, wouldn't the performance at 65 be pretty bad? Maybe even at 55?

In the... few... times that I've driven 120, my car starts shaking and going crazy far before then.

In addition, since other countries have higher speed limits - not to mention autobahn style places - this might be a more substantial burden than you would expect. Kind of like the reason why there's brail on drive thru ATMs... but on a much bigger scale.

What are accident statistics like in other countries? Is the US's percentage of speeding-related deaths unusually high or low? Do other countries have similar speed limits to ours? What are the penalties for speeding? Has any country mandated speed governors in this way? What were the results of the regulation?

Conservatives often denigrate uniform, Federal regulations by saying that the states are a laboratory. On something like auto safety, so is most of Europe, and Canada and probably Japan and Korea, as well. Might as well check everyone else's results before launching our own experiments.

Why use speed governors? You can kill two or more birds with one stone by simply raising the CAFE standards so high that manufacturers *need* to massively cut down on horsepower, which in turn will greatly limit speeding. None of us would *individually* like this change (well, except at the gas pump...) but it would be a great social good on multiple fronts: less death, less oil.

I think a better approach would be to try and improve self-driving cars. Get in you car, speak your destination, then relax as the car drives you there. The car follows the rules of the road. This would have the added advantage of reducing traffic congestion as humans tend to space themselves inefficiently on the road.

European countries have higher highway speeds than we do -- often substantially -- and lower accident rates.

The solution is not to clamp down on car capability but to 1) put real teeth into dangerous-driver enforcement, perhaps by confiscating cars like Switzerland does, and 2) adopt driver training that actually means something.

Here, we essentially throw people into cars, tell them a few basic road rules, and give them a license. We should teach people to handle cars at the limits of their capability and to drive with real skill. Drivers ought to know how to anticipate hazards far in advance and react to them decisively. Nothing in US driver education remotely prepares them to do either of those things.

In the hands of a good driver, the capability of extra speed is often useful to escape dangerous situations.

I have a personal interest in this matter because I frequently drive between cities on both the East and West Coasts early in the morning. Limit me to 75 mph and you will slow me down without, I think, contributing an iota of extra safety. Testosterone has nothing to do with my wish to drive 90 mph when weather, visibility, and traffic conditions are favorable. Saving time does.

I cannot imagine that this proposal is anything but an attempt to show the absurdity of breathalyzer ignition locks by making an even more outlandish proposition.

Even if we believe a large number of crashes are "speed related," there ought to be data about the distribution of speeds that lead to "speed related" crashes. How many of these crashes are the result of speeds in excess of 80mph; how many are the result of going 60mph when the safe speed is 25mph?

On the speed cameras vs. police officers front, the problem here in Canada, and in the UK, has been that photographs of speeding vehicles do not identify a specific driver, and so penalties cannot be applied to a license. This has meant that the only punishment meted out due to speed cameras is a fine, not points that can (eventually) prevent someone from driving. A police officer needs to witness the speeding, and personally charge the individual, in order for the points penalty to be applied.

This is why speed cameras are so unpopular - they (apparently) only raise money. In my experience on this, it's universally accepted that penalty points are much more effective at changing behaviour than these fines, and so cameras look like a cash-grab.

Now, if you develop a speed camera that can pick out the driver's face in a legally identifiable way, we're off to the races. Or not, I suppose.

On the 'Big Brother' front, in my opinion, speed cameras are one of the least concerning arms of the security state. Unlike CCTV, they only operate when an offense has taken place - they aren't recording your movements the whole time.

I'm going to call bullshit on the 30% statistic.

First, as another poster noted, we don't know the overlap with alcohol.

Second, we don't know of the overlap with other dangerous driving habits: going 40mph over the limit down a highway may not cause an accident, but going 10mph over and weaving in and out of traffic might.

Third, it does not take into account speed differentials, and those are a more likely to cause accidents and differentials are as likely to be produced by drivers going too slow for the traffic flow as those going to fast. However, such hypercautious types are seen as "safe" even though they are just creating danger through caution. An experienced RCMP officer of my acquaintance opined (after 10+ years in traffic enforcement) that "Jim and Edna out for the Sunday drive" (as he dismissively tagged over-cautious drivers) caused as many accidents as the speed demons. The most interesting difference is that speed demons tend to be involved in the accidents that they cause whereas Jim&Edna cause accidents to happen around them; they may have caused three accidents in ten years but their record is clean. All of us has seen cars pulled over for speeding. I'll bet nobody reading this has seen a car pulled because the driver was too slow or a timorous brake pedal lover.

Fourth, I would be very wary of any policy which permits the police to continue their current enforcement practice of handing out speeding tickets and rarely-to-never ticketing people for any other dangerous driving habit, such as blocking the passing lane. Drivers like that cause many accidents.

The thing about speed cameras though is that they work: in areas where speed cameras are known to be present, I've seen drivers consistently adhere to the speed limit. It strikes me that if these cameras are deployed specifically in areas known to have a problem with speed-related traffic accidents, then one could reduce such accidents substantially.

First, I got a speeding ticket the other day and so I would like it if my car would always keep the speed limit. Since getting the ticket I have started to use my GPS navigator to warn me when I speed. When I got the ticket I was in unaware that I was speeding. BTW there was no one else around and it seemed a very safe road. The speed limit seemed very low considering but I hated getting the ticket and speeding really does not save much time so I do not want to speed.

But there is this:

http://www.gettingaroundgermany.info/autobahn.htm
Accident rates
Despite the prevailing high speeds, the accident, injury and death rates on the Autobahn are remarkably low. The Autobahn carries about a third of all Germany's traffic, but injury accidents on the Autobahn account for only 6% of such accidents nationwide and less than 12% of all traffic fatalities were the result of Autobahn crashes (2004). In fact, the annual fatality rate (3.2 per billion km in 2004) is consistently lower than that of most other superhighway systems, including the US Interstates (5.0 in 2003).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autobahn
Accident record
The overall safety record of German autobahns is generally better than other European highways. German autobahn fatality rates are lower than Austria's and higher than Switzerland's rates. Highways are safer than other road types, as documented below.

Rate = Killed per 1 Billion Veh•km [5]
Autobahn Other Roads Total Autobahn Other Roads Total Autobahn
YEAR Fatalities[3] Fatalities Fatalities Death Rate[4] Death Rate Death Rate (% of Road Travel)
1970 945 18,248 19,193 27.0 84.5 76.5 14
1980 804 12,237 13,041 10.0 42.6 35.4 22
1985 669 7,731 8,400 7.1 26.7 21.9 25
1990[6] 936 6,970 7,906 6.9 19.8 16.2 28
1995 978 8,476 9,454 5.5 19.0 15.1 29
2000 907 6,596 7,503 4.5 14.3 11.3 31
2005 662 4,699 5,361 3.0 10.0 7.8 31

A 2005 study by the German Federal Interior Ministry (Bundesministerium des Innern) indicated that Autobahn sections with unrestricted speed have the same accident record as sections with speed limits. The only identifiable source of traffic risks in connection with speeding have been high-powered, light trucks that came up within the last 15 years and as they are used by courier services (e.g. Mercedes-Benz Sprinter and trucks alike). Over the years they were only capable of speeds comparable to heavy duty trucks, but since manufacturers began to build in significantly more powerful engines they attain speeds of up to 180 km/h. This led to a significant portion of fatal accidents being caused by such vehicles [7] due to the driver overestimating his or the car's ability to cope with sudden and heavy braking, side-winds, etc.

I wonder if frequently looking down at the speedometer and looking for speed limit signs has a negative effect on you driving.

Others have said this, but it bears underlining. The issue generally is not your absolute speed, but your speed relative to other traffic.

The number of collisions that involve a single vehicle going over the speed limit, a stationary object, and no intoxicants has to be vanishingly small. Not vanishingly small, however, is the number of drivers who can present a dangerous menace on, say, Wilshire Blvd at rush hours while driving at speeds below 75 mph.

What Sam said. It ties into one of the most pernicious things about speed limits: they are frequently revenue generators disguised as safety measures. Such deceit lowers respect for the law in general, for law enforcement (sorry officers, you can't be a tax collector and loved, so get over it) and makes people feel contemptuous of traffic safety laws in general. It creates a situation where (to steal Orwell's phrase) we feel in our bones that the law is just a racket.

Sam didn't say what province he was from. Here in Ontario the Rae government introduced speed cameras in the 1990s, claiming up and down that they were a saftey measure, even though it was palpably a revenue grab to deal with an escalating deficit. I believed then and believe now if that government had had the spine to say, "look, we need money to keep hospitals working, but don't want to raise your taxes so we'll take the money out of the hides of jerks who go too fast" it wouldn't have had one-one-hundredth of the backlash.

btw, "too fast", not "to fast" in my first post.

Since we don't have a useful high speed rail system, going fast in my car is the only way for me to go moderate distances in a reasonable time frame (as was alluded to by an earlier poster). I live in Chicago, and it takes about as long, door-to-door, to fly to Indianapolis as to drive at a legal rate. It takes me less time to drive if I speed. If I could attain autobahn-like speeds, it would be even better. If I had something like, say, I high speed train I could take my car on, I could use that instead. In lieu of that, I should be allowed to determine the value of my time.

I've always hated the "speed kills" mantra. Speed in an of itself is not dangerous. But lack of attention at speed can indeed result in a disastrous accident. Lack of attention at reasonable speeds can also result in a disastrous accident. Personally, when I'm really hauling ass, I'm paying a lot more attention.

Tyro, speed cameras will be deployed where they will generate the maximum revenue, not in safety hot zones. Sad but true and I wish it weren't so but the libertarians are dead right on this one. (To take just two examples: some cities which have installed red light cameras have been caught reducing the time for the yellow to increase the number of "caught on the red tickets"; one Texas town was caught changing where the lines on the ground were painted in order to increase the size of the intersection ensuring that people were caught in it while waiting to make a left turn.)

I'm surprised noone has commented on this yet. Just about every single passenger car on the road already has a speed limiter (governor for you old folk) so saying it adds cost the car is just wrong.

Its just that they are usually set at the max limits for the tires on the car. So if you have a Honda Accord, you likely have an H rated tire and Honda has set your limiter at 130. Sports cars and some limited model passenger cars have the limiter removed. In all new cars, the limiter is built directly into the ECU, meaning you need a software update to remove it. This is not as easy as it seems.

In the private sector, fleet cars are increasingly being fitted with onboard telemetry so that your boss knows how you're driving.

Anyway, as dal20402 says upthread: how about the various states adopt driving tests that actually require a degree of training? A brief skills test with your license renewal? When you can pass the Florida test without leaving the parking lot of the DMV, something is a bit fucked up.

Limiters are expensive? Good lord, 13,000 deaths is like four and a half 9/11's! We should be spending four and a half times the annual cost of Iraq and Afghanistan in a War On Speeding Fatalities. What is that, like $40Billion? That could buy a lot of limiters.

The 30% statistic is definitely B.S., in the sense that it does not support the argument in the article. If you have an accident going 40 mph in a 30 mph zone, that's reasonably classified as "speed-related." In fact, if you have an accident going 25 in a 30 mph zone, but under conditions (e.g., blizzrd) where that speed is still excessive for the conditions, it's reasonable to classify the accident as "speed-related." And plenty of people get killed in these relatively low-speed accidents.

On the other hand, it's been my understanding that studies of traffic fairly consistently show much lower accident rates (and death from accident rates) on interstate highways. So limiting the absolute speed limit of cars to 75 mph would have a relatively small impact in reducing "speed-related" deaths.

Strict enforcement of speeding laws does seem like it would be more likely to have the desired effect. In France, speed cameras are quite common, fines are high, and there is very little "margin of error"; go 115 or so in a 110 kph zone, and you will get a ticket from these cameras.

Despite the prevailing high speeds, the accident, injury and death rates on the Autobahn are remarkably low.

It's a myth that everyone goes racing about on the Autobahn. While it is true that there is no legal speed limit, traffic congestion usually makes the Autobahn look more like an LA freeway during rush hour. You're lucky if you can drive 70 (mph) for any length of time.

The problem isn't the cars, it's the roads. If the roads feel safe to drive at 90 (as a six lane divided highway with 13' lanes does) people will drive at 90. You want slower traffic? Then make roads feel less safe (fewer signs, tighter lanes, no shoulders).

- g

Scott P, you are right around the major cities, but there are still a significant number of unrestricted Autobahn sections where very high speeds are routinely possible.

The key to safe driving on these Autobahns is twofold: 1) hyperawareness, especially of what's behind you; and 2) ironclad lane discipline.

In Europe, you STAY RIGHT. Period. Even when you'll just have to move left again in a few seconds to pass another car. And you won't make the pass if you see a Porsche coming up in the left lane at 150 mph.

I'm not advocating unlimited freeways here -- far from it -- but I think both higher speeds and greater speed differentials would be quite safe if we trained American drivers to be as disciplined as those in Europe.

If that happened, and with the condition of American highways in mind, I think a national limit of 80 with 60 zones in cities and on badly maintained highways would be perfectly safe.

The lowest reasonable speed to legislate governors would be 100, not 75.

I'm w/ dal20402. The driver training in this country is highly inadequate. We live in a car-centric culture where the privilege to drive is dispensed regularly to unqualified drivers and the sanction of forfeiting your license for demonstrated incompetence is the last resort. The state of our roads limits the speed at which safe travel is possible, but there are a number of vehicle operators who are incapable of rapidly decelerating from 70-20 w/o endangering themselves or others.

Instead of parallel parking as the sine qua non of licensure, we ought to require (a) the ability to control a car in a slide and (b) the ability to brake at high speeds.

dal20402 and Rick are correct. dal20402 especially on the point about not moving left to pass when there's somebody faster coming up behind;this is one of the biggest North American idiocies. Simple safe-driving fact: if you move in front of somebody going faster than you then you are Doing It Wrong.

The other idiocy (which causes tons of highly unsafe traffic "bunch up") is when drivers assume that just because they are passing somebody else they have a right to go slow in the passing lane. If you are creeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeping past the person you are passing then you simply don't belong in the passing lane; you should slow down that mph or two and just stay in your lane.

Part of the problem is that here in North America we have, as drivers, internalized that Slow Means Safe, and Fast Means Dangerous. This is palpably wrong. The internalized lesson should be Skilled, Aware and Responsive Means Safe; slow and fast are merely tools under that reality.

This is an absurd use of statistics. 100% of car fatalities are caused by speed. Speed'ing' is a completely relative situation.. There are plenty of places where speed limits change from 55->35 then back up to 55 in a few blocks space.

Technically anyone crashing in that zone going even 1 mphover 35 is added to this statistic. When it really has no bearing on it at all. ..and often this is estimated by bystanders or eduated guesses by law enforcement, hardly a reliable metric.

This is good fodder for a safety supply company, and for police departments looking for more federal grant money, but not for a real look at the world.

Our speed limits have been rising because our cars have become more capable and our highway systems better designed and cared for over time.

We spend billions on our road system, most families spend nearly 100k (combined) on 2 or more cars. Those cars have decades of safety improvements added to them which accounts for the added costs.

These improvements dont make them 'safe at any speed'. I tell you what though going 85 in my 99 VW new beetle, feels (and actually is) vastly safer then doing 55 in my moms 52 VW bus. (the max speed is 55 in it btw.)

There is safety in speed as well.. try merging into traffic into california, in front of a semi just for added adrenaline. You want to go 0-60 in 12 seconds, or 4? I put extra money down for those 8 seconds, and its saved my butt, and those of my passengers.

We suffer from a disease of trying to normalize life down to the lowest common denominator. It happens in our schools, in our products, and most insideously in this need for such a paranoid safety regime.

When I commute to and from work everyday, other then the traffic jams nearly every single car and truck is speeding. All the thousands of us.. there are a few singular exceptions, and they are the danger not the majority. The flow of traffic is consistantly 70, when the speed limit is 55. Accidents happen but arent an everyday occurence, and fataliities are even less so. A neurotic need to reduce these numbers to 0 is impossible to achieve and burdens the majority that can drive at speed due to those few that cant.

(Claps very loudly for david b)

I'd only add that we are far too patient with people who use high-speed highways even though they are too timid or too old or too incompetent or too frightened to do so.

In Europe and the UK there will be interesting changes for both private security and national security – data protection is important.