Excessive speeds is one of the most significant causes of both vehicle crashes and fatalities on U.S. roadways, according to a recently published report from the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB).
According to the Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS), vehicle deaths totaled 112,580 between 2005 and 2014, 31 percent of which were deemed to be the result of excessive speeding.
“NTSB’s report is an urgent wake-up call for all walks of government to treat excessive speed as the deadly epidemic that it is,” Linda Bailey, Executive Director of the National Association of City Transportation Officials (NATCO) said. “With safe street designs, automated enforcement practices, and policies that prioritize safety over speed, our streets can be modern, inviting places that make cities great places to be.”
The NTSB report focused on five specific safety issues pertaining to the effective application of speeding countermeasures including speed limits, data-driven approaches to speed enforcement, automated speed enforcement, intelligent speed adaptation, and national leadership.
As a result of its study, the report recommended that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) identify speeding-related performance measured to be used by local law enforcement, including speeding citations and warnings, and establish a consistent method for evaluating data-driven, high visibility enforcement programs to reduce speeding, among other recommendations.
Currently, seven states prohibit automated speed enforcement and 28 states were found to have no automated speed enforcement laws at all. In both instances, the NTSB recommended that each state amend its laws to authorize state and local entities to use automated enforcement to reduce speeding.
The NTSB also recommended that the Governors Highway Safety Association should work with the NHTSA, the International Chiefs of Police, and the National Sheriff’s Association to develop and implement a program to increase the adoption of speeding-related model minimum uniform crash criteria guideline data elements and to improve consistently in law enforcement reporting of speeding-related crashes.
Additional recommendations included modernizing how speed limits are set by using the safe system approach, which accounts for all road users and not just cars; setting performance measure at all levels of government to track where speeding occurs; and increasing attention at all levels on speed as a major national safety priority.