THE ROAD RULES

 

 

MASTERY OF SPEED

 

By Cedric Hughes

 

Of the 15 categories of sports events contested in the 2010 Winter Olympics, 11 are speed measured. This metric as the essence of sport is rooted both in our ancient origins where mastery of speed was often a matter of survival and in our modernity, acceleration, speed and the cult of the machine comprising the values that continue to define our times. 

But mastery of speed in the modern age is not just about acceleration. Limiting road speed is one of the main tenets of the road safety canon. Traffic laws defining maximum speed limits are required knowledge for licensed drivers, are posted as safety warnings, and are enforced by penalties—fines and penalty points—for infringement measured by traffic police using measuring tools like hand-held radar or, in some jurisdictions, by permanently installed speed cameras. Road design increasingly incorporates traffic ‘calming’ measures aimed at forcing all drivers to slow down to navigate more tightly defined lanes. Electronic speed limiters are required in many jurisdictions on higher risk vehicles like large trucks. And when crashes happen, speed is one of the most commonly assessed factors for causation.  

The UK has done more than almost any other jurisdiction in the world to monitor and control traffic speed. The website, speedcamerasdotorg cites the following statistics: “1 in 5 drivers caught for speeding since 1996 totaling 7 million prosecutions; £120 million (CD$197 million) generated in speeding fines in 2003; and 6000 cameras by the end of 2004 with over 2 million speeding convictions for the year.” 

The UK Office for National Statistics reports that, “The UK has a good record for road safety compared with most other EU countries. In 2006 it had one of the lowest road death rates in the EU, at 5.4 per 100,000 population…[and it] was also lower than the rates for other industrialised nations such as the United States (14.3 per 100,000 population), Australia (7.8 per 100,000 population) and Japan (5.7 per 100,000 population).” 

One would assume, therefore, a link between the UK’s speed control efforts and low road death rate. Speed cameras opponents, however, note that the death rate, which declined dramatically during the pre-speed camera years 1978 to 1988, has stayed the same during the ten-year period in which speed cameras were introduced. They point to recent UK Department of Transport statistics challenging their government’s claim that 1/3 of accidents are speed related. These statistics break down the causes of ‘accidents’ as follows: inattention—25.8%; failure to judge other person's path or speed—22.6%; looked but did not see—19.7%; behaviour: careless/thoughtless/reckless—18.4%; failed to look—16.3%; lack of judgment of own path—13.7%; and excessive speed—12.5%. 

Speed cameras are a highly charged topic, also the subject of much debate in British Columbia when they were tried in the 1990s. Today what we can learn from the debate in the UK is a more nuanced understanding of the meaning of “speed as a factor,” the causes of collisions, and perhaps more effective ways of monitoring and controlling it.