What I and Utah Highway Patrol Superintendent Lance Davenport do not agree with, however, is the idea of enforcing speed limits with no cushion. Believe it or not, increased speed limits on our highways have not resulted in increased highway deaths.
From 1995, when Congress took Washington out of the speed-limit business and returned sovereignty to the states, until now, not only have overall deaths on our roads and highways been unaffected, but injury and accident rates (deaths per 100 million vehicle miles) have continued a downward trend, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Association's own numbers.
Superintendent Davenport is right when he intimates that not focusing on drivers going 5-10 mph over the speed limit, as long as they are doing so responsibly, allows police to spend less of their time writing speeding tickets and more time apprehending drunken drivers and patrolling truly dangerous roads.
Steven L. Wilde
Sandy
