The lure of the higher speed limit is hard to ignore, but it may be a siren’s call, new research from the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety suggests. It found that raising the limit did little to speed traffic, and could lead to more accidents in certain cases.
The organization looked at 12 roadways in the U.S. across a variety of road types and locations. Six of the sites had recently had their speed limits raised, while the remaining six saw the speed limit decrease.
On two interstate highways, AAA found that raising speed limits was associated with more crashes. Meanwhile, it found that in many of the cases it looked at, lowering the speed limit was associated with fewer crashes.
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While those results aren’t exactly surprising, what was surprising is what researchers found about travel times. The foundation says that whether the speed limits were raised or lowered, the changes to the amount of time it took drivers to get through that section of road were minor.
“The movement in statehouses to raise speed limits is happening across the country in at least eight states this year,” said Jennifer Ryan, director of state relations for AAA. “But the benefits are overrated, and the risks are understated. Increasing speed limits does not always yield the positive results envisioned by traffic planners.”
One figure that did spike in areas where the speed limit was lowered was speed limit violations. To combat that, the foundation recommends that transportation officials utilize better public awareness and education campaigns.
With this research coming in the context of historically high accident rates and fatalities on America’s roads, the need to consider all aspects of automotive safety has never been clearer. While it admits that its research does not offer a one-size-fits-all approach to road design, the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety’s president, Dr. David Yang, says that it is “critical to consider the safety implications when local transportation authorities contemplate making changes with posted speed limits.”
