Thanks to all who have visited this website during the last two years and, especially, to those who replied to the questionnaire. We have received sufficient responses for a preliminary analysis, which is now published on this website.

If you are a new or a returning visitor who has not answered the six questions in the questionnaire, it would be much appreciated if you would invest a minute or two to do so. Please do not refer to the results before you have submitted your answers.

Have you ever wondered ... 

·         What is the safest speed to travel in any traffic flow and how can you find it?

·         Why the vast majority of motorists exceed speed limits?

·         What is the purpose of advisory speed signs and why they aren’t working?

·         What you can do to help correct problems with traffic management and law enforcement?

With due respect to legislators, traffic engineers, and law enforcement personnel, the evidence is compelling that, in several critical areas, government has failed to provide reasonable, fair, enforceable traffic laws.

Also, signage on our highways leaves much to be desired and enforcement of traffic laws is ineffective. Inattentive or distracted drivers create much unnecessary confusion on our highways, resulting in needless injuries and deaths.

The problems are clear.

·         Vehicles travel randomly across lanes increasing the risk of collisions

·         Drivers unnecessarily impede others, which delays emergency vehicles and disrupts traffic flow,

·         Motorists fail to notify others of planned maneuvers, and they follow too closely.

·         Speed limit and advisory speed signs are posted at unreasonable and inconsistent values and, because they provide little useful information to motorists, they largely ignore them.

You are invited to settle down for an enlightening experience as you learn about these important matters that touch nearly all of us each day and how you can help in solving these problems.

Let’s begin this interesting journey.

AMERICA’S MARVELOUS HIGHWAYS

The nation’s roadways are marvels of design and construction. Wide freeways cross the United States and local streets are generally well maintained. Rush-hour congestion is a way of life for many commuters, but by and large, the national highway system provides Americans with excellent facilities for safe, convenient, and rapid travel.

Travel on our highways is very safe—much safer than ever before. The probability of dying in an automobile crash has decreased by 75% during the last fifty years. 

According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), 2008 was a hallmark year when highway deaths fell below 40,000 declining by 9.7% from 41,259 to 37,261. In March 2010, the NHTSA published preliminary data showing that fatalities further decreased in 2009 by 8.9% to 33,963.

Many factors can be credited with this success including safety features in automobiles and ever-improving highway design and construction practices. Automobile manufacturers and state departments of transportation deserve our sincere gratitude for great progress in these areas.

Nonetheless, while automobile safety features and highway design and construction have steadily advanced, traffic laws and enforcement practices have not kept pace. Traffic regulations may be unfair and unenforceable. Motorists are plagued by deficiencies in highway signage. Other drivers’ lack of courtesy and consideration also contribute to the problem.

Considering how they affect driving safety, laws dealing with the items in the questionnaire are among the most important of all traffic regulations. Let’s take a detailed look at each one of them:

 

IMPEDING TRAFFIC

Slow drivers who cruise in the left-hand lane often cause vehicles to accumulate in clusters behind them, which creates serious safety problems:

·   When an emergency vehicle is trapped in a cluster, it is delayed from reaching a crash site as soon as otherwise possible. This means that injury crashes may convert to fatal crashes because emergency vehicles could not arrive in time to render life-saving aid.

 

·   Impatient, aggressive, or foolhardy drivers jockey from lane to lane trying to find their way through a cluster. They follow too closely and cut others off as they squeeze into small spaces between vehicles.

In addition to creating safety problems, impeding traffic is inconsiderate, annoying behavior. In other situations, most people consider it extremely rude to obstruct the free movement of others. Yet, many blithely impose this discourtesy on their fellow motorists. Drivers who allow faster traffic to pass show courtesy to others, while those who unnecessarily impede traffic may be seen as jerks by their fellow motorists

TURN SIGNAL TIMING

Turn signals have been standard equipment in motor vehicles for many years but are rarely used properly. The common practice is to signal at the same time, or even after, beginning a lane-changing or turning maneuver. 

A turn signal is useless unless it is given in time so that those who are affected by the impending maneuver have time to respond. Notifying others of lane-changing intentions is a matter of simple courtesy and contributes to safer travel by all.

 

FOLLOWING DISTANCE

It should be obvious to all drivers that following too closely increases the risk of a crash. Following distance should be long enough to allow motorists to avoid collisions by decelerating or moderate braking when a vehicle in front of them brakes suddenly.

Although following too closely may lead to crashes, a more frequent result is a long-lasting “compression wave” in the traffic flow.

When a driver brakes suddenly, drivers who are following too closely may avoid crashes by braking more severely. As these braking vehicles slow down, they pack together in a cluster. This causes vehicles approaching from behind to form a compression wave as they slow to the speed of the cluster while those at the front of the cluster resume normal speed.

This compression wave migrates backward through the traffic flow and may persist for an hour or more. Long after the incident that triggered a compression wave, motorists encounter slow moving traffic and can see no reason for the slowdown.

IMPROPER LANE USAGE

Drivers often randomly choose the lane in which they travel. This causes faster traffic to pass on both sides of slower vehicles, which increases the risk of a crash. With very few exceptions, passing should occur only in a lane left of vehicles being passed. As a matter of courtesy, slower drivers should move over and allow faster traffic to pass in left-hand lanes.

It should be obvious to slower drivers that each vehicle passing them is a potential for a crash that they may not see coming. All it takes is a moment of distraction by a following driver at the wrong time for an overtaking vehicle to crash into the one ahead. This risk is essentially twice as large for drivers who are being passed on both sides.

 

SPEED OF TRAFFIC IN HOV LANES

Vehicles with two or more occupants may be permitted to use HOV (high occupancy vehicle) lanes. These lanes are designated to encourage car-pooling and provide faster, more efficient travel when other lanes are congested.

Unfortunately, HOV lanes may attract slow drivers who happen to have another passenger in the vehicle. Traffic backs up behind such drivers, frustrating following motorists, and reducing the volume that could otherwise travel safely in the HOV lane.

 

COURTESY-BASED REGULATIONS

Before we discuss speed limits, let’s pause for a moment to note that the first five of the behaviors listed in the questionnaire involve simple acts of courtesy.

Motorists who allow faster drivers to pass, signal early enough to give adequate notice, stay far enough behind others so that they do not feel threatened, use right-hand lanes when traveling more slowly than others, and maintain a reasonable speed in HOV lanes show courtesy and respect to their fellow travelers. Therefore, regulations governing these matters are based in common courtesy—they are “courtesy-based” laws.

Those who violate these laws forgo opportunities to show courtesy to other drivers and run the risk of offending them—no one gains by going against these reasonable requirements. Instead, violators may reap a negative result: Others may consider them thoughtless, inconsiderate jerks.

 

ACHIEVING VOLUNTARY COMPLIANCE TO COURTESY-BASED REGULATIONS

We know that, in most cases, we must take a risk in order to enjoy a reward. Common sense dictates that we will only take a risk if we believe that a reward will follow that is worth more than the risk. That is, we pursue activities that will produce a net positive pay-off and avoid activities that would yield zero or negative pay-offs.

It is very important to note that there are no positive pay-offs for violating courtesy-based regulations. Therefore, if motorists believe that there is even a small chance of being ticketed for violating these laws, they would logically choose to obey them voluntarily.

Thus, the key to achieving voluntary compliance to courtesy-based laws may be to expose drivers to a recognizable risk of being ticketed for violating them. Law enforcement agencies could produce this perception by vigorously enforcing these laws until the majority of drivers learn to obey them voluntarily.

At this point the amount of enforcement required to create the necessary risk factor and maintain voluntary compliance may be small—only enough to sustain the belief that there is a significant risk of being cited for violations.

Unfortunately, present enforcement practices seem to concentrate on speed limits with little attention to courtesy-based laws, possibly forgoing opportunities to significantly improve the safety of our highways. This lack of attention to courtesy-based laws may be due to the fact that in many instances these laws are impossible to enforce because they do not include enforceable criteria.

Therefore, the task of achieving voluntary compliance to courtesy-based laws may be as simple as:

·         Providing fair, enforceable courtesy-based laws, and

·         Concentrating enough enforcement on these laws so that drivers recognize a significant risk of being cited for violations.

 

SPEED LIMITS

Note, however, that we have a very different situation with respect to speed limits.

• There is no underlying relationship between speed and courtesy; a driver who chooses to drive faster or slower than others may be as courteous as any other driver.
• As long as it is safe to do so, motorists may benefit from violating posted speed limits. For example, they may want to save time or avoid the tedium of driving at an unnecessarily slow speed.

Considering the almost total disregard of posted speed limits, it seems obvious that the risk of receiving a speeding ticket far less than the perceived benefit of driving faster than speed limits.

Therefore, motorists choose a speed that they consider safe based on their experience and judgment of current conditions. If they believe that a speed limit is too high, they drive slower. If they believe that a speed limit is too low, they drive faster.

Enforcement will not change this behavior as long as the risk of receiving a ticket is smaller than the perceived benefit from exceeding speed limits.

The next page presents results of the Traffic Regulation Compliance Survey. 

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