The American Spectator

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(Page 6 of 19)

p> SPEED FEED br> Re: Eric Peters's Safe At Any Speed : /p>

In spite of the research by Mr. Peters, I doubt that higher average speeds are in our future, at least in the more urban sections of the country. If the distance to work is fixed and the time to get to work increases over time, you are slowing down and most likely the reason is congestion. The number of people killed, maimed, and economically injured is still quite high. I think the auto manufacturers have done a lot for safety but cannot be counted on to do much more.

Our ability to impact this by building better roads is limited by what the eco-freaks will allow. The Clean Air Act is killing people because it delays road improvements in congested areas. At the same time, projects out in the country seem to be easier to build because the environmental impact is not as profound. Some states figure that it is better to spend something somewhere than to spend what is needed where it is needed. The road contractors don't care either way.

p>Blaming the driver for old infractions, cell phone use, seat belt infractions, impaired driving, including fatigue, can help but better highway geometry needs to be in the mix somewhere. Some future increase in average velocity is likely to be due to tolls of roads that are parallel to the existing highways. I guess we are never too distracted to stop and throw money or have our pocket picked electronically. In the post-Hurricane Ivan environment in Florida, however, I found that that traffic moved much faster without the toll booths. br> -- Danny L. Newton br> Cookeville, Tennessee /p>

Now that the truth is out about highway speed, how about speaking truth to power about those "road pimples" that are springing up all over Madison, Wisconsin, and other places?

Lately, everything they do in Portland, Oregon has become the "in" thing, so we have "traffic calming devices." It seems everyone drives too fast on the city streets, and I guess if you want a high quality of life you have to be driving your kids to school, to dance lessons, to hockey practice, and Madisonians had long taken speed limit signs as advisory. The solution is to place various types of obstructions in the roads -- islands, a broader kind of speed bump, and these things called "traffic circles" (not true rotaries, just round obstructions in intersections).

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