By Stephen Groves
Traffic laws going into effect Thursday aim to make roads safer and more efficient for Virginia drivers, but whether both efficiency and safety can coexist remains to be seen.
State lawmakers this year approved laws to protect tow-truck drivers, highway workers, and minors, but the move to raise speed limits has some worried highways will be more dangerous.
The Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) will be evaluating 741 miles of highway along Interstates 64, 66, 77, 81, 95, 295 and 395 to determine if it is safe to raise the speed limit from 65 mph to 70 mph. Thirty-one states already have laws that allow highway speed limits to be posted at or above 70 mph.
But “higher speeds mean more deaths,” said Russ Rader, director of media relations at the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, a research organization funded by auto insurers. “We can get people to their destinations quicker, but there is an increase in deaths.”
He cited a study published in the American Journal of Public Health that examined the fatal crashes in the ten years after Congress repealed the national maximum speed limit. The study attributed 12,545 deaths to increases in the speed limit.
According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), crashes in which drivers were driving over 55 mph killed 20 people on Virginia Interstates in 2008, the most recent year for which data is available.
But not everyone says the higher speeds will increase accidents. Capt. Steve Chumley of the Virginia State Police said that drivers going at high speeds while others drive dramatically slower can be dangerous.
“Speed is a factor in fatal accidents, but speed differential is another factor … it has proven to be very hazardous,” he said.
Del. Bill Carrico, R-Grayson, a retired Virginia state trooper, sponsored the House legislation. He said creating highways where everyone is driving closer to the same speed would be safer.
“Most people driving the Interstate today are driving 65 to 70 mph, especially in rural sections,” said Carrico. “If someone is driving 55 and others are going 70, then that’s going to be a problem.”
People are already driving at 70 mph along those stretches, so increasing the speed could cause everyone to drive closer to the same speed, Chumley said.
VDOT is currently conducting studies to determine if highways can handle the increased speed. They will study rural highways with low congestion first.
“The only place we will raise the speed limit to 70 mph is where they have done a study that makes sure it is safe to raise it,” said Del. Glenn Oder, R- Newport News.
So far the only section of highway that has been approved for the speed limit increase is on Interstate 295 from Petersburg nearly to Interstate 64 east of Richmond. The new signs will be the first to go up on July 1.
AAA Mid-Atlantic did not take a stance on the increased speed limit. Instead they applauded the safety measures that will start taking effect starting in July.
Sparked by the death of Andy Starmer, a tow truck driver who was struck and killed on the shoulder of Interstate 64 in Newport News in August of 2009, the “Move Over” law is expanding to protect tow truck drivers and VDOT workers. Drivers must change lanes away from vehicles flashing red, blue, or amber lights when it is possible to do so safely. If they cannot change lanes, drivers must slow down.
Before, the law protected police officers and emergency workers, but Oder, who sponsored the bill, said it should protect all first responders, including tow truck drivers and highway workers.
“The highway and tow truck workers will now be safer because of the law,” said Martha Meade, spokesperson for AAA Mid-Atlantic.
According to the NHTSA, speeding was involved in nearly one-third of the fatal crashes in construction zones during 2008.
“It makes news when a police officer is shot in the line of duty, but more police officers and emergency workers die in the line of duty by being hit by a vehicle,” said Chumley.
Another law going into effect requires those under 18 to wear seat belts whether they are in the front or back seat. Police officers now may pull cars over if they see minors not wearing seatbelts.
The current law requires all passengers in the front seat to wear a seatbelt, regardless of age, but it is not subject to primary enforcement for those over 18, which means a police officer must pull a driver over for something else before enforcing the seatbelt law.
Virginia joins 12 other states with back seat provisions and primary enforcement laws on the books.
Advocates of the law said it will reduce the number of fatal accidents among teenagers.
“When we have the chance to pull people over for not wearing seatbelts, sometimes that’s the only way to get people to wear seatbelts,” said Chumley.
Of the daily report of fatal accidents on Virginia highways, he said over half of passengers killed were not wearing their seatbelts.
I drive thousands of miles on Virginia highways every year, and I have observed wrecks as well as excellent driving. The wrecks I have observed had little to do with speed, and a lot to do with following too closely, failure to yield (such as when a driver signals for a lane change and a driver in the next lane speeds up to ‘close the gap’), and mis-loaded vehicles.
But cops don’t ticket people who exhibit these bad driving habits.
Common sense and good traffic engineering strongly suggest speed limits should reflect the speed at which 85 percent of drivers will be in compliance.
The interstates were originally designed by engineers in the 50′s to support 100-plus MPH speeds. That didn’t last long, as local and state governments instantly discovered they could use them as a cash cow — and they slapped artificially low speed limits on them so the revenuers would have easy pickin’.
There is no reason the rural part of I-64 west of Richmond should be choked down to 65 MPH. It could safely be raised to 80 or 85 in the sparsely-traveled areas.
Unfortunately, government ownership of the means of transportation will always be meddled with by nanny-staters and teeming hangers-on like insurance companies that use speeding tickets as an excuse to boost rates.
The only way to improve highway regulations is to get them into the private sector, where they belong. The interstates could easily be be auctioned off to the highest bidder. The state police should be abolished and policing the highways should be the responsibility of the road owner (or local police).
As you may know, Virginia is the only state that bans the use and sale of detectors. There is no evidence that the detector ban increases highway safety. Our nation’s fatality rates have fallen consistently for almost two decades. Virginia’s fatality rate has also fallen, but not any more dramatically than it has nationwide. Research has even shown that radar detector owners have a lower accident rate than motorists who do not own a detector.
Maintaining the ban is not in the best interest of Virginians or visitors to the state. I know and know of people that will not drive in Virginia due to this ban. Unjust enforcement practices are not unheard of, and radar detectors can keep safe motorists from being exploited by abusive speed traps. Likewise, the ban has a negative impact on Virginia’s business community. Electronic distributors lose business to neighboring states and Virginia misses out on valuable sales tax revenue.
Radar detector bans do not work. Research and experience show that radar detector bans do not result in lower accident rates, improved speed-limit compliance or reduce auto insurance expenditures.
• The Virginia radar detector ban is difficult and expensive to enforce. The Virginia ban diverts precious law enforcement resources from more important duties.
• Radar detectors are legal in the rest of the nation, in all 49 other states. In fact, the first state to test a radar detector ban, Connecticut, repealed the law – it ruled the law was ineffective and unfair. It is time for our Virginia to join the rest of the nation.
• It has never been shown that radar detectors cause accidents or even encourage motorists to drive faster than they would otherwise. The Yankelovich – Clancy – Shulman Radar Detector Study conducted in 1987, showed that radar detector users drove an average of 34% further between accidents (233,933 miles versus 174,554 miles) than non radar detector users. The study also showed that they have much higher seat belt use compliance. If drivers with radar detectors have fewer accidents, it follows that they have reduced insurance costs – it is counterproductive to ban radar detectors.
• In a similar study performed in Great Britain by MORI in 2001 the summary reports that “Users (of radar detectors) appear to travel 50% further between accidents than non-users. In this survey the users interviewed traveling on average 217,353 miles between accidents compared to 143,401 miles between accidents of those non-users randomly drawn from the general public.” The MORI study also reported “Three quarters agree, perhaps unsurprisingly, that since purchasing a radar detector they have become more conscious about keeping to the speed limit…” and “Three in five detector users claim to have become a safer driver since purchasing a detector.”
• Modern radar detectors play a significant role in preventing accidents and laying the technology foundation for the Safety Warning System® (SWS). Radar detectors with SWS alert motorists to oncoming emergency vehicles, potential road hazards, and unusual traffic conditions. There are more than 10 million radar detectors with SWS in use nationwide. The federal government has earmarked $2.1 million for further study of the SWS over a three-year period of time. The U.S. Department of Transportation is administering grants to state and local governments to purchase the SWS system and study its effectiveness (for example, in the form of SWS transmitters for school buses and emergency vehicles). The drivers of Virginia deserve the right to the important safety benefits that SWS delivers.
*** A small surcharge($5-$10) or tax(2%-3%) could be added to the price of the device to make-up for any possible loss of revenue from reduced number of speeding tickets and the loss of tickets written for radar detectors.***
Please sign this petition and help repeal this ban and give drivers in Virginia the freedom to know if they are under surveillance and to use their property legally:
http://www.stoptheban.org
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/repeal-the-virginia-radar-detector-ban
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