Higher speed limits can lead to safer roads

Jun 09, 2007

When the Northridge earthquake of 1994 flattened parts of Interstate 405 in Los Angeles, the 401 across the top of Toronto, at least temporarily, became the busiest highway in the world.

Considerable knowledge and occasional anecdotal evidence on Germany's autobahns also makes me wonder if we also now have the fastest highways in the world.

True, stretches of the autobahn are still speed-limit free, although increasingly, a limit of 130 km/h or lower is being implemented.

But even on the limit-free stretches, you don't see many people going much over 140 – mainly, I suspect, because they can't afford it. Fuel consumption spikes like the Matterhorn when speeds get into these realms; with fuel prices double or more what ours are, it just isn't worth the few extra minutes the Germans save on their trips, generally shorter than ours.

A few months ago, I was driving north on the 400 towards Barrie, on a sunny, late morning weekday. I happened to be in a Mini Cooper S Targa Newfoundland.

But there I was, pinned in the right lane doing 140 km/h, and everybody – I mean everybody – was blowing right on past me.

Aren't they afraid of the cops catching them? Apparently not.

I didn't see a single cruiser on either side of the highway, heading up or heading back down.

Local knowledge always rules – I guess people who drive this road know there is no centre median where a cruiser can park for radar duty: the guard rail is right there on your left.

I drove the 400 again last weekend on the way to Huntsville, this time in my beloved old 1977 Hornet – the longest drive I have ever taken in this car. I haven't spent this much time at the speed limit in my life. Usually I hit it twice, once on the way up, and once on the way down. But a friend had told me the OPP were patrolling heavily; he had spotted an officer on a bridge over the 400 with a radar gun and presumably reporting the perpetrators to his buddies down the road.

My friend admitted to doing his usual 113 km/h, a speed at which he figures he'll never get stopped.

He also saw a Chevy Cobalt fly by him and the radar-gun-enabled officer at what he estimated to be about 150 km/h.

The car was not stopped.

Wow – what DO you have to do on this road to earn a speeding ticket? It's as if the de facto speed limit is 130, and you'll only get stopped if you're doing 170.

The problem there is that instead of getting a ticket for 40 over, which is really what you're doing, it'll be for 70 over, which probably means summary execution.

Jail time, at the very least.

The other supreme irony is that the 400-series highways, are at the same time our fastest highways and our safest highways (and among the safest and fastest in the world). So much for "speed kills."

My guess is that people know that they can drive at these speeds and survive, and they can drive at these speeds and not get ticketed.

So why slow down?

I believe these artificially low speed limits help foster a general disregard for all traffic laws, the results of which we see on the roads every day.

If our speed limits were more reasonable, closer to what the bulk of traffic is already doing , and closer to world standards (where most people drive less crash-resistant cars than we do, but with considerably more skill) I believe we would have even safer roads.

I also know this is not going to happen in my lifetime. Can't blame me for dreaming, though.

Toronto Star