Unfortunately, it took a death...

The bureaucracy of the Virginia Department of Transportation swung into action after the death of a teenager on a stretch of road near my home (see blog item dated May 11, 2008). Earlier this month, the speed limit was reduced from 55 mph to 45 mph on a 2.3-mile segment of this road where the death occurred. The change was long overdue, because development is rapidly growing along this stretch, including a huge residential and commercial site that first opened about 2 years ago. There are also now 5 traffic lights on this segment, and the road has been widened from 4 to 6 lanes near the large development. It's too bad a teenager had to be killed before the speed limit was finally lowered.

Another inconsiderate

A few weeks back before the leaves had fallen off the trees, my wife and I took a Sunday drive to the Blue Ridge Mountains and Shenandoah National Park just west of my home. We used the back roads at first and then headed west on US Route 33. The first photo show the view just west of Stanardsville, Virginia, after the road narrows from four lanes to two as it heads up toward Powell Mountain. At this point, the road was wide open as in the photo, with a 55-mph speed limit. As we entered the twisty section around the mountain and had to slow down, a Chrysler Pacifica rapidly closed in on us and practically hooked itself to our rear bumper (at the locations of the second and third photos).

Then in a clearly marked no-passing zone (fourth photo), this speed-crazed idiot passed us. But he soon had to brake when he caught up to slower moving cars ahead of us. When the road reached the steep ascent to the Blue Ridge and opened up to 2 lanes uphill, he passed the other vehicles. The total distance from the twisties to the 3-lane part of the road was only 2 and 1/2 miles. He passed us only one mile short of the widened road. The last photo shows what could have greeted him in the oncoming lane during his ill-considered pass. All this effort and danger just to save a minute or two at best! What stupidity!

NPR responds

I had e-mailed National Public Radio (NPR) back on November 14 after their broadcast of a story on the evening program "All Things Considered" about an alleged record-breaking cross-country road trip: "I don't understand why you seemingly condoned this 'outlaw' racer's speed run across the country. With more than 43,000 deaths still occurring annually on our highways, glorifying this sort of irresponsible behavior is totally inappropriate for NPR. You wouldn't cover the experiences of a driver who drinks alcohol to excess, would you?"

The following day (Thursday) when NPR airs some of the e-mails, I missed that segment of the program.

Earlier this week however, NPR responded by e-mail:

Dear Mike,

Thank you for contacting NPR's All Things Considered.

We regret that our programming has not met your expectations. We strive to offer the highest quality of news and information available. Listener feedback helps us to accomplish this goal.

We welcome praise, as well as criticism, and your thoughts will be taken into consideration.

Thank you for listening to All Things Considered, and for your continued support of public broadcasting. For the latest news and information, visit NPR.org.

Sincerely,

Jeff
NPR Services
202-513-3232
www.npr.org

Obviously, this was a canned response, but still it was more than I expected. The "outlaw" who was the subject of the story raced alone against the clock from New York City to Los Angeles. He made the run in less than 32 hours, supposedly breaking a record last set in 1983. He had to average something like 90 mph over the entire length of the trip. Being alone, he had to stay awake the whole time, stopping (infrequently) only for fuel and bathroom breaks.

So not only he did he risk others' lives due to his speed, but also he had to be greatly fatigued after the first half day or so, compounded by driving mostly at night and constantly on the lookout for the police. In my opinion, this is idiocy of the highest degree, but NPR made no mention of his irresponsibility.

I couldn't have said it better myself!

Here's a quote from "Dynamic88" commenting on this news article in The Truth About Cars:

"I don’t know what tougher licensing requirements has to do with this [getting people to drive more safely, especially in regard to controlling their speed]. People speed because they want to. If we could figure out how to do something about the stupidity factor, then we’d be making progress."

Time, time, time is on our side...

This has to be one of the most absurd arguments I've seen in the controversy over the setting and enforcement of speed limits:

I am continously astounded that no one seems to value time while everyone is concerned about lives. LIFE IS MEASURED IN TIME! What’s the use of saving one life if you have to waste a million man years to do it? At some point, the government has a responsibility for balance. If a million people a year waste an hour along a stretch of highway because the speed limit is too low, that’s tragic. We need a balance, yet we continuously only look at the “safety” side of the equation (from a commenter on The Truth About Cars about England's speed enforcement cameras).

This is sheer lunacy. I can think of a lot of other ways that one's time is "wasted" in the course of a day: waiting in line at the grocery store check-out counter, waiting in the doctor's office at 4 pm for your 3 pm appointment, or even "wasting" time by sleeping 8 hours when maybe you could "get by" on five. Or how about spending day after day at an unproductive, tedious job?

Besides, every state in the US other than Hawaii has maximum speed limits of 65 mph or higher on its rural interstates or equivalent roads (Hawaii's maximum is 60). In the Midwest and South, limits are typically 70 mph, and west of the Mississippi River, the majority of states allow 75 mph. Texas permits 80 mph, the highest in the nation, on over 500 miles of I-10 and I-20. If you can maintain 75 mph for 6 hours, stopping only 10 minutes every two hours for a break, you can travel 450 miles in a total of 6 1/2 hours. This isn't good enough?

From earlier entries on this blog, you can see I get a lot of enjoyment from traveling the slower back roads, where I've encountered amazing, beautiful, or quirky sights that would be completely missed by hustling along the interstates. Equating such time wasted with human life lost is, to use this commenter's words, "tragic."

A professional...with God on his side?

For yesterday's winner, I present this truck driver who drove up to my rear bumper at the beginning of a cloverleaf exit ramp from the bypass around my adopted home town to the main artery leading north out of town. Of course, he couldn't keep up with me around the sharply curved ramp, which is posted at 15 mph.

But later on, as I traveled up the 8-lane road (4 lanes in each direction) with frequent traffic lights, he again caught up with me. It's a little unnerving to say the least to have an 18-wheeler a car length or so behind you when at any second, one of those lights could turn red. I normally travel in the second lane from the right, because the far right lane is used by drivers entering and exiting the many businesses lining the road, and I was going the posted 45 mph speed limit.

I did decide to pull over to the right, because he obviously wasn't going to be bothered with passing me on the left where cars were going slower than I was. Interestingly when he got around me, I saw the signs on the rear of the trailer. A few miles up the road, I caught up to him at one of the many red lights and was able to snap the pictures shown here. One sign read, "This driver is a professional," with a phone number to call in his driving behavior, the other one had a quote from the Bible (Romans 8: 31), "...if God is for us, who can be against us?"

So I presume he believes God will keep him out of a smashup? Not in my opinion!

Higher speed limits INCREASE safety?

I couldn't believe my eyes when I came across the above op-ed headline (without the question mark and all caps) when I saw it in a copy of The Reflector, the student newspaper of Mississippi State University. The author, Lazarus Austin, was making the argument that in all cases where speed limits are raised in the US, highway deaths go down. He cited the myth of the German Autobahn, where death rates are supposedly lower than on US interstates, despite no limits on speed in most places. (This is no longer true, as more and more segments of the Autobahn do have posted limits.) He also stated that highway deaths increased when the speed limits across the US were lowered to 55 mph in 1974 following the Arab Oil Embargo. And he didn't fail to trot out the hoary falsehood that insurance companies support lower speed limits to rake in more profits. (After all, those speeding tickets give insurers an excuse to raise premiums.)

There was no way I was going to let this one go by, so I promptly fired off an e-mail to the author:

Mr. Austin,

After I read your editorial with incredulity, I was wondering if you attend Car and Driver College or the University of Motor Trend instead of Mississippi State University. What would you say to the following headlines, "Quitting Smoking Increases Cancer Risk," or "Condom Use Increases Chances of Getting HIV/AIDS?"

I'll have more to say in my blog about your blatant twisting of the facts regarding travel speeds and speed limits. In the meantime, I'd suggest you spend your time reading more authoritative material on highway safety rather than your favorite car enthusiast magazine.
__________________________

As it turned out, I didn't have to say anything more. Adrian Lund, Ph.D., the president of the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, had sent this response to Mr. Austin, which was published in The Reflector:

It wasn't surprising to read that a young male driver finds speed limits inconvenient ["Higher speed limits increase safety," Oct. 16], but it's unfortunate that someone majoring in history would be so lax with the facts.

The author claims that higher speed limits have led to a decrease in the overall fatality rate. Basing such a claim on the overall death rate on all types of roads makes no sense. Many factors have pushed down the fatality rate over time including safer vehicles and increased safety belt use. Correlating speed limits on some highways to overall traffic death rates on all roads is like using national precipitation figures to measure rainfall amounts from Hurricane Katrina.

You have to look at the specific roads where the speed limits changed to measure the effect. Study after study shows more highway deaths when speed limits are raised.

Insurance Institute for Highway Safety research found 400 more deaths in 1989 alone on the roads where the speed limit was raised from 55 to 65 mph.

The author also is ignorant of the facts about the Autobahn. Research shows that from 1975 to 1986, before speed limits on rural interstates in this country began being raised from 55 to 65 mph, the death rate on the Autobahn was higher than on US interstates. Germany also has more stringent laws including a 50-mph speed limit for large trucks and a driving age of 18. Young male drivers have by far the highest crash rates, so perhaps the author would consider raising the driving age to keep the most dangerous drivers in the US off the road.

The bottom line is that safety is compromised, not enhanced, by higher speeds. There are plenty of opinions about speed limits. A discussion about raising them needs to be based on the facts.

Speeding...or just going with the flow?

An interesting post came up in the forums on edmunds.com concerning gas prices. The poster was responding to an earlier comment from a Chicago area commuter who said he traveled at or slightly below the speed limit, mostly on 4-lane roads, on his drive to work. Others however drive like crazy only for him to catch up with them at the next red light -- the all-too-familiar "hurry up and wait" syndrome.

Here is the response to the commuter:

I'm not advocating that a person drive like a madman. I'm simply saying that if you drive at exactly the speed limit or a couple miles below on a road where traffic can't pass you then you are going to p___ people off. I've driven throughout most of this country and, for whatever reason, I've noticed that everywhere our speed limits are set artificially low. I've noticed that most people deal with this by driving around 6-9 mph over the limit, which is typically below what will put them at risk of a speeding ticket. Let's say the limit is 55 mph and you choose to drive 54 and have a bunch of people stacked up behind you that would otherwise be driving 63 mph. Would these people behind you really be saving all that much time? Probably not. Guess what, you're not saving all that much money [on gas].

My experience is the opposite of yours. I routinely drive a route that has a 12 mile stretch of road where it is almost impossible to pass. The posted limit is 50 mph but it is safe to travel considerably faster than that. Until a few years ago the predominant speed on this section of road was 60 mph, [but] it is now 50 mph. When you finally get to the end where there is room to pass you typically have 20+ drivers behind one guy that felt he was justified in imposing his will on everyone else.

I don't care if a person wants to drive slower to save a few bucks on gas. Just don't disrupt the flow of traffic.

I am especially amused by his saying, "for whatever reason, I've noticed that everywhere our speed limits are set artificially low." And my response would be, "in whose opinion?"

Well, I can tell you in Michigan that the speed limits aren't artificially low. Cars are allowed to go 70 mph on the metro Detroit freeways, and even major roads in the area with traffic lights like Telegraph Road have a 50 mph speed limit.

Most states west of the Mississippi have rural interstate speed limits of 75 mph for passenger vehicles. In Nevada, you can go 70 mph on the rural 2-lanes. On busy city streets in Los Angeles, the speed limit is 35. New Mexico allows 70 mph on undivided 4-lane US 550 (with conventional intersections even). The blanket speed limit in Manhattan is 30 mph. Certainly fast enough in all cases. I wonder if people driving on the parts of I-10 and I-20 in Texas that are now posted at 80 mph are complaining this speed limit is "artificially low" and bump it up to 86 to 89 mph.

If I'm "disrupting" someone's progress on a 2-lane road (one lane in each direction) by going the speed limit, my response is "too bad." However, I will encourage following drivers to pass me, if legal. If someone gets really obnoxious, like flashing his lights, flapping his arms, or getting so close I can't see his headlights, then I'll find a safe place to pull over. Or I wave them around in a legal passing zone. Funny thing, some of these people WON'T pass when you wave them around! Do they think I'm bluffing or somehow misleading them into a head-on crash?

Running with the big dogs

This photo was taken on I-275 southbound near Detroit. Lots of tractor-trailers were present on this highway on a weekday evening. The top speed limit in Michigan for cars is 70 mph, surprisingly allowed even on this roadway in the Detroit suburbs. Michigan however has a lower maximum speed limit for trucks: 60 mph. Ohio and Indiana also have split speed limits on their rural interstates. I like this idea: Even though the trucks generally do go faster than their speed limit, they generally do not travel at 70 mph, which makes it easier for cars to get around the trucks. Also on highways with 3 or more lanes in the same direction, trucks are not allowed in the far left lane. The situation pictured above was a little dicey, because there was essentially no left shoulder, but rather only a high Jersey barrier dividing the opposing roadways. Still, we got through with no difficulties.

Portrait of an inconsiderate driver

You can't see his face, but here he is, southbound on I-75 just south of Toledo, Ohio. It's not an unusual story. The speed limit is 65 mph, which I was observing when I pulled into the left lane to pass at least one and possibly two tractor-trailers traveling close together. As is my custom, I always check my mirrors for fast-moving traffic approaching from behind, and if there are any vehicles closing in fast, I slow down and wait in the right lane behind the truck until they go by. Well, sometimes you miscalculate. This young guy was probably going at least 80 and got so close to my rear bumper that I couldn't see his headlights. I did speed up slightly to about 68 mph to get the pass completed sooner.

As you can see, he's driving a rusty old Toyota Corolla, not wearing a seat belt (typical), and holding the top of the steering wheel with one hand. Also, his seat back is so reclined that the head restraint would do no good in a rear-end crash. I guess he's going so fast though it's unlikely he'd be rear-ended at this point!

In case you are wondering, my wife took the photo from the passenger seat. And no, I wasn't holding up the traffic flow by going the speed limit. Large trucks in Ohio are limited to 55 mph on most Interstates. They may not go 55, but they do keep it under 65, the speed limit for cars. Most cars weren't going much faster than about 70 mph that evening.

Karl gets a speeding ticket

I like Karl Brauer, the Editor-in-Chief of the popular edmunds.com website. However, the other day he was grousing on his blog about a speeding ticket he received on his daily 50-mile commute from Ventura County to the Edmunds' offices in Santa Monica, California, next to Los Angeles. He was traveling in a new Mini Cooper S test car and had been stopped for going 72 mph in a 55 mph zone. He took some photos of the road after his stop, and they didn't look too different from my photo of US 6 in the east central part of the state near Bishop, close to the Nevada line. US 6, however, has 65 mph speed limit.

As Karl put it, "... it's been about 2.5 years since my last ticket, so I was due. Considering I drive approximately 30,000 miles a year (much of it on cop-addled Pacific Coast Highway) I don't feel a smidge of guilt at that rate of citation collection. And like nearly every speeding ticket I've ever received, this one had nothing to do with public safety. How do I know? Because...where I got the ticket -- a deserted stretch of road through flat, deserted farmland where you can see forever and there are no cross streets for a good 10 miles. The speed limit is 55, but Officer Williams says I was doing...(dramatic pause)...72.

"I didn't intend to do 72, but I was playing with the radio in our new Mini Cooper S, and the turbo engine (especially if you've hit the "Sport" button) has a habit of creeping up in rpm if you don't watch the speedo. I'm sure that in another 10 seconds or less I'd have scanned the gauges, seen my speed and eased back on the throttle. This is assuming that it was really me doing 72 mph. There were three cars in front of me, but when I pointed this out to the officer he insisted his radar could ferret out my speed from the others'.

"...Let me just clearly state that, in my opinion, 72 mph on that road, under those conditions, is still not unsafe in any way, shape or form. And if you think it is, then, also in my opinion, you're an idiot. The careless part was not using my radar detector to avoid a purely revenue-oriented speed trap.

"As I've said many times before, the concept of citing people for bad/dangerous driving doesn't bother me, but the concept of citing people for revenue generation does. The reason police patrol these areas isn't for public safety but because they know speeding is still a possibility. In much of Southern California speeding isn't a problem because traffic makes it a non-issue. But on certain stretches of PCH, as well as much of Ventura County, people still have the potential to speed. Of course, this is where speeding is least likely to actually cause a problem...but that's beside the point...right?"

Ironically, I was speaking with a co-worker the same day Karl posted the above rant. The co-worker had recently lost her 95-year-old dad. She mentioned he always rued the one day in his long life that he was ticketed for speeding -- 2 or 3 mph over the posted 35 mph in a small town in his native Virginia on a Sunday morning. Now THAT's patently unfair! Car speedometers even today, let alone years ago, were not that accurate.

But 72 mph in a 55 mph zone on a 2-lane road? Inexcusable. In Virginia, where I now live, the maximum speed limit on ANY 2-lane road is 55 mph, due to topography, population density, and a lack of those nice paved shoulders on most such roads. And radar detectors are illegal. So if you get stopped for speeding, and the cop sees your radar detector, you get busted with another fine.

Even in the tiniest VA towns, the speed limit often drops to 25 mph, yet within the Los Angeles city limits when I was there in December 2005, most speed limits seem to be 35 mph. On that trip, my wife and I flew out to meet our son and drove back east across the country. California allows 65 mph on US 395 (almost all 2-lane) once you leave the L.A. megalopolis, with only a few slowdowns through the infrequent small towns.

We went north past Lone Pine to Bishop, and then headed northeast on US 6 to the Nevada border. The road again was 2-lane with a 65 mph limit. In Nevada, the limit went up to 70. But one big difference is that the road is nearly deserted in parts of Nevada. There was one approximate 150-mile stretch east of Tonopah (beyond the split with US 95) where we encountered only THREE oncoming vehicles, NONE going in our direction, and none entering from mainly unpaved side roads!

I haven't been in Ventura County north of L.A., but from Karl's frequent description of road conditions, there's a lot of commuter traffic, much busier than US 395 or 6, and therefore evidently has lower speed limits on its 2-lane roads for safety reasons. So his photo may haven been a tad misleading. There's only a thin yellow line separating you from oncoming disaster. It's a lot easier to handle an emergency at 55 than at 72 mph, and the odds are stacked against you in a Mini if you were hit by oncoming traffic. This isn't like south central Nevada where you really do have the road to yourself!

Karl brings up a point so often raised by enthusiasts. They claim speeding tickets are revenue generators, but police pay no attention to true examples of "bad/dangerous" driving, such as tailgating, weaving through traffic without signaling, and (the horror!) "camping" in the far left lane of multi-lane highways, blocking speeders' progress. As I have said much earlier on this blog, the go-fast crowd has pretty much convinced themselves that speeding, in and of itself, is harmless, and police should be concentrating their efforts on all these other lawbreakers! The irony is that the blatant speeders, who insist radar detectors are needed for their adventures, are in my experience also the ones who commit these other "bad" behaviors: tailgating, weaving, improper passing, and not giving slower drivers who happen to be in the left lane adequate time to move over to the right!

"Moskito Junction"

Pictured is a colorful row of Moskito mopeds for rent on the small resort island of Chincoteague, on Virginia's Eastern Shore. These are popular with the tourists, at least those who don't want to pedal a bicycle. Chincoteague and the nearby barrier island of Assateague, which fronts the Atlantic Ocean, are ideal places for bike or moped riding, because the terrain is flat (except for the short bridge connecting the two islands) and the top speed limits are 25 mph on the entire island of Chincoteague and 25-30 mph on the beach access road across Assateague.

The downside to the mopeds is that they are noisy like giant mosquitoes and their two-stroke engines emit smelly exhaust fumes, obviously more polluting than any modern passenger car or light truck.

Ironically, real mosquitoes are also ubiquitous on both islands. Chincoteague tries to keep the mosquitoes in check by frequent spraying from roving pickup trucks, but Assateague, being a national wildlife refuge and a national seashore, has no such control measures. It's best to wear repellent at dusk or stay on the beach where the wind is almost always sufficient to keep the pests at bay.

Limit the horsepower and top speeds of cars?

This interesting and courageous post was made by "xrunner2" in one of the http://www.edmunds.com/ forums on General Motors this past Monday:

“GM could take the lead in manufacturing and marketing sensible sized and powered cars and suvs. They could pronounce that they are doing their part to help US cut down on use and need for foreign oil by biasing future production of vehicles toward smaller, more efficient designs that need less fuel. They could also claim that they are doing their part as a responsible US company to help cut down on highway crashes (not accidents) by not putting high-powered or fast vehicles into the hands of immature drivers (which could be earth aged 16-80).

“Except for police cars they supply, they could even plan to build all of their vehicles say 5-10 years out that do not exceed 80 MPH and are totally tamper proof from those wanting to increase HP and or speed potential of vehicle. Can anybody justify the need or reason to go faster than 80 MPH? Can anybody justify having a car (3000-4000 lbs as example) with 300, 400, 500, 600 HP? Analogy of needing a 600 HP car is same as a whacko gun owner/collector claiming he needs a machine gun/gattling gun rather than a handgun only to protect his house and family from intruders.

“Now this would truly take great leadership. Does GM high management have the ability to take these steps? I believe that the vast majority of responsible driving Americans would agree with GM for making a commitment to sensible sized and powered vehicles. Other mfrs, Ford, Chrysler, Toyota would then do likewise."

I'd have to say I agree with xrunner2. Why do we need cars with such high-speed capabilities when the highest speed limit in the US is 80 mph? Even on the fabled German autobahn, which has no posted speed limits on certain sections for passenger vehicles, the recommended speed limit is 130 km/h, or 81 mph.

Interestingly, the US government proposed a maximum top speed for cars of 85 mph around 1970-71 (under the Republican Nixon administration). But this trial balloon was quickly shot down by the enthusiast media and their supporters.

Today, such a proposal still wouldn't get very far. But it makes so much sense in my opinion. I realize that making something truly "tamper proof" isn't possible. Still, a lot of high speed "flings" would be avoided with their attendant high risk for death and injury, AND carbon dioxide emissions would be lowered because fuel consumption rapidly increases at very high speeds.

Corzine crash revisited

More has now been revealed in New Jersey about last week's vehicle crash involving Governor Corzine. The onboard event data recorder ("black box") determined his SUV was traveling 91 mph just before the crash.

The other drivers were just trying to get out of the way when the collision occurred between Corzine's SUV and a pickup truck, with the Suburban then going to the left and hitting a guardrail at 30 mph, again according to the EDR. Corzine wasn't belted and was severely injured. He's lucky to be alive. The state trooper driving the SUV was belted and sustained only minor injuries.

And what was the "emergency" that caused the furious pace (26 mph over the speed limit)? They were rushing to the governor's mansion for a meeting between Don Imus and the Rutger's women's basketball team!

Traveling (legally) at 75 mph and the rogue trucker

My wife and I took a vacation last week in the southwestern part of the US. We flew to Las Vegas, rented a car there, and drove through Utah, Arizona, New Mexico and back in a clockwise loop. This took us through various national parks, monuments, and historic sites such as Zion National Park, Navajo National Monument, Monument Valley, Canyon de Chelly, and Chaco Canyon.

We also stopped at Meteor Crater and the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff. Most of our travels were on 2-lane highways, including historic Route 66 in Arizona, but we also used Interstates 15 and 40 in Nevada, Utah, and Arizona. Both roads mostly have 75 mph speed limits, applicable to all vehicles.

It was refreshing in a way to see the "natural order" restored, where cars travel faster than tractor-trailers, even while we maintained the speed limit. This was like the pre-55 mph days, when cars routinely passed trucks and not the other way around. It was so pleasant NOT to have truckers running up on your bumper before reluctantly moving over to pass.

In this same vein, it is interesting that the American Trucking Associations, along with several large trucking companies, have actually petitioned the federal government to mandate a top built-in speed of 68 mph for all newly manufactured tractors. Safety groups are quite pleased with this, saying that the "80-mph truck has no place on our highways." Of note, Texas recently raised the daytime speed limit to 80 mph for ALL vehicles on large portions of I-10 and I-20 in the western part of the state.

The independent truckers on the other hand are vehemently opposed to the petition, because for them, time saved means more money earned, safety notwithstanding. I apparently encountered one such trucker on westbound I-40 on the approach to Flagstaff. I had passed one tractor-trailer and was still in the left lane gaining on a second one, when literally out of the blue, this "rogue trucker" began to loom in my rear view mirror.

Well, 75 mph is fast enough for me, thank you very much, so I still had time to duck into the right lane behind the truck I was originally going to pass. The rogue whooshed by at maybe 90 mph and was soon gone.

That the government should accept the petition is a no-brainer to me.

The illogical tailgater...or some people just don't think

I don't have run-ins very much anymore with other drivers, given that my daily commute is mainly on a 4-lane highway and in the opposite direction of most workers in my town. In my older, mellower years, I try not to make eye contact or otherwise aggravate anyone who shows indications to be a hothead.

Anyway, my wife last weekend was relaying the story of a very impatient young guy behind her when she had pulled into our usual gas station intending to get in line for the car wash (rather than gas as he had wrongly assumed).

And I said I don't run into idiots much anymore. Well, within 10 minutes or so, we did.

We're on a main "cut-through" that's basically a residential 2-lane road through suburbia. We're going the speed limit, 35 mph, which is reasonable given the environment -- multiple intersections, a fair number of curves, one traffic light, two schools, and several houses.

So this middle-aged guy in a first-gen Explorer comes up on our rear and starts getting really close, then flapping his arms with a disgusted look on his face. The funny thing about this is that the road widens to 4 lanes with a higher speed limit in less than half a mile from the point he began tailgating.

When we get to where the road widens, I point with my right arm to the "40 mph" speed limit sign and pull into the right lane. By this time, my wife is looking back at him, and up comes his one-finger salute. He then passes us, but keeps his right wheels over on my side of the lane lines, making like he's going to "teach us a lesson" I suppose.

At that point I lay on the horn, and he goes into the left turn lane to make a left at a light just ahead. As we pass him, my wife got out her cell phone as if to take a photo of him.

What an idiot -- couldn't wait maybe 20 seconds or so for the passing zone, and only to turn left anyway. So how much time did he "lose" by my "blocking" him?

An organization not to be trusted

The National Motorists Association operates under the guise of promoting the average motorist's best interests. It touts itself as a voice for the common man (and woman) against the arbitrary dictates of state and local government with regard to traffic laws and regulations. In reality, it is an anti-scientific organization that would like to take highway safety back to the dark ages of the 1950s when all we did was exhort drivers to behave. Didn't work then, won't work now.

Last June, when fuel prices were still on their steep upward trajectory, the NMA Foundation issued a press release declaring the month as "Lane Courtesy Month." The release urged "motorists to 'do the RIGHT thing' by moving over for faster vehicles...Vehicles consume the most fuel when they are accelerating, and they burn less fuel when they maintain a consistent speed. When motorists encounter a slower vehicle in the left lane, they have to brake and then accelerate once they are able to pass that vehicle. This wastes gas and money! Drivers that do not practice lane courtesy also contribute to increased congestion on our roads. This means that one inconsiderate or inattentive driver in the left lane is often responsible for decreasing the gas mileage of dozens or even hundreds of other vehicles..."

While I agree lane discipline is a good thing (and I practice it myself), this group's real agenda is too refute/repeal any modicum of regulation that would hinder one's ability to drive as fast as he/she wants. Careful tests by Edmunds.com in the high desert of California showed that high speed is one of the most detrimental factors in obtaining good gas mileage.

The NMA is against photo radar, red light cameras, most speed limits (except those set by the fabled 85th percentile), motorcycle helmet laws, seat belt use laws, and even the 0.08 drunk driving laws! Any scientifically based study that counters their beliefs is lambasted.

This group may as well be run by shamans and witch doctors, and has the same philosophy as those wacko conservative groups that want to take the teaching of evolution out of our public schools.

Speed doesn't matter...or so they say.

The enthusiast media have all but "proven" that raising speed limits over the last two decades in the US has had no effect on fatality rates. They like to cite the gradually declining overall death rate, that is, the number of fatalities per 100 million miles traveled. (The death rate increased slightly in 2006 compared to the prior year.) But looking at overall death rates is inherently flawed, because these include fatalities on ALL roads, regardless of whether speed limits have been changed.

There is ample evidence that higher speed limits increase fatalities on roads where such limits have been changed compared to similar roads for which speed limits were not changed.

The problem is the enthusiast media refuse to accept the studies, done by respected organizations like the National Academy of Sciences, NHTSA, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, and an academic group in Australia (which studied US roads). Some of these studies have been published in well-regarded peer-reviewed journals like Accident Analysis and Prevention and in SAE papers.

So "experts" like Brock Yates, Pat Bedard, and the National Motorists Association try with all their might to debunk such studies. One technique they use is the "Big Lie." That is, they repeat an untruth over and over to the point that the average reader will believe it's true. And unfortunately, the average enthusiast WANTS to believe it's true -- after all, fast driving is fun, and why spoil the fun with facts?

One of the worst of the Big Lies goes like this: The IIHS is supported by insurance companies. Insurance companies want lower speed limits so more drivers can be ticketed and therefore can be surcharged on their insurance policies. Thus, the insurance companies can earn more profits.

Well, the IIHS has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with setting insurance rates. This is handled by each company using actuarial statistics. Proposed rate increases or decreases must be approved by state insurance regulators. Even IIHS's crash tests don't directly affect rates. Why not? Because the severe tests the IIHS conducts are relatively rare events, and the bulk of insurance payouts goes to repair cars in fender benders and medical payments for minor injuries like whiplash.

Also, the crash tests don't reveal anything about how or where or by whom the cars are driven, which obviously also affect crash rates in the real world. The purpose of the tests is to raise the bar on crashworthiness so all cars do a better job of protecting their occupants in severe crashes. The end result, hopefully, will be more lives saved and injuries reduced.

And in fact, studies conducted thus far have indicated that cars with better frontal crashworthiness do protect their own occupants better in real-world frontal crashes. It's too early yet to tell if the same is true for side-impact crashes, since the IIHS just started conducting these in 2003.

To my knowledge, nothing written by Yates, Bedard, or the National Motorists Association has ever been published in a peer-reviewed journal.