Lowering the Speed Limit

How Lowering the Speed Limit Can Actually Hurt Pedestrians

Many cities are trying to make pedestrians and cyclists safer by lowering speed limits, but perplexingly, that can lead to an increase in fatalities.

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By Jack Baruth

As a native (but no longer resident) New Yorker and the parent of an eight-year-old, I can tell you that the following fact about New York City frightens the heck out of me: “Being struck by a vehicle is the leading cause of injury-related death for children under 14.” It’s no wonder that there’s been a reasonable amount of support for the city’s “Vision Zero” program, which aims to reduce pedestrian fatalities to, you guessed it, zero. Vision Zero represents a good-faith effort to save lives. Yet the most recent data from our cousins across the pond suggests that NYC’s efforts are likely to backfire.

A substantial number of British municipalities and villages have adopted a 20 mph speed limit. On the surface, it makes perfect sense. A modern car can stop almost instantly at 20 mph, usually within 40 feet or less. I rarely exceed 15 or 20 in my immediate neighborhood because I’ve seen plenty of kids running out into the street without looking. Ask yourself: If you knew for a fact that you’d have to avoid a child on the way to work tomorrow, how fast would you drive? The answer isn’t 45 or even 35.

The problem with the 20mph limits is twofold. The first one: up to 81 percent of British drivers are ignoring the limits completely. Enforcing those limits with speed bumps gets the environmentalists angry, because accelerating and decelerating over and over again decreases fuel mileage and increases effective CO2 emissions. (The American alternative to that tactic, which is to put a six-inch lift kit on your Ram diesel and just motor over those bad boys, is also probably not great for the ice caps.)

The second problem is this: in some areas, lowering the speed limit is actually increasing fatalities. That was the case for one local government, which saw an uptick in fatalities in seven out of 13 areas after establishing the new speed limit. The obvious question: Why?

One theory, as proposed by the firm that studied the fatalities: Cyclists and pedestrians become increasingly careless as the traffic speeds around them decrease. It makes plenty of sense; as someone who has been long-distance cycling since 1986 I can personally attest that I am a great deal more cautious while riding on 55 mph rural two-lanes than when I’m bumbling around my cul-de-sac. The problem is that the laws of physics are still in the automobile’s favor all the way down to walking speeds. Wandering out in front of a car that’s doing the legal 20 mph can and will get you killed if you hit your head the wrong way.

Another theory, as proposed by me: You hear a lot about “traffic calming” measures nowadays, but that’s like the phrase “jumbo shrimp." Slowing traffic down with artificial measures doesn’t calm drivers; it agitates them. And if you “calm” them forcefully enough, they will take out their rage on cyclists, pedestrians, and fellow drivers. Furthermore, as noted above, the lower limits are often ignored by people simply because those people feel no compulsion to follow what they feel is an unreasonable law—and when they ignore the law, they end up going faster than they would if they were following a speed limit that seemed more reasonable to them. That’s something I’ve noticed while driving into and out of New York State, with its general 55 mph limit. You’ll see more people weaving through the traffic doing 90 than you do in states with a 70 mph limit.

Regardless of the causes, however, the verdict seems to be in that artificially low speed limits designed to protect non-motorists are, in fact, hurting and killing them. So it’s fair to ask when those limits will be raised. The answer appears to be: No time soon. In the case of the British municipality mentioned above, they apparently spent £800,000 pounds, or more than $1 million, lowering the limit. They don’t have the funds available to bring it back up.

My suggestion: Make the template for the 30 mph speed limit available to the British citizens living in those affected towns. Tell people which signs are eligible to be updated, and change the law to recognize the edited speed limits. Chances are, plenty of people would decide to fix their commutes. There’s plenty of precedent for this, both here in the US and elsewhere in the world. If you let them build it, they will come . . . to your local road, with new speed limit signs.

As for Vision Zero and the other programs like it: Demonizing the privately-owned automobile and blaming its drivers is the easiest and most traditional way to address traffic fatalities, but it’s not the smartest way to do so. If we really want a world where nobody dies from being struck by a car, it’s going to take more than just a lower limit and a few Band-Aids’ worth of aggressive legislation. We need a truly scientific approach, one that gathers accurate data and then abides by the conclusions to which that data point. There’s nothing impossible about Vision Zero—but the real solution starts by knowing how to look at the problem.

From: Road & Track