Speed-Management Program
A wide-ranging plan to "manage speed on our nation's highways thereby reducing accidents and fatalities" was jointly announced in 1995 by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and the Federal Highway Administration. Among the plan's many activities from 1993 through 1998, it will "provide insight into the speeding problem . . . implement rational criteria for setting speed limits . . . measure public acceptance of [photo radar] . . . field-test laser speed-enforcement procedures . . . develop innovative and effective speed-enforcement methods, strategies, and programs . . . increase public awareness of the dangers of driving too fast" and "educate the courts."
The budget is $1.3 million for 1996, $1.2 million for 1997, not including salaries and overhead in the two agencies. Dr. Ricardo Martinez heads NHTSA and signed the plan.
Background on Dr. Martinez
He's 41, "a board-certified emergency physician who has dedicated his career to trauma care and automotive-injury prevention," says his official biog. He came to NHTSA from Emory University, where he was assistant professor of emergency medicine and associate director of the Center for Injury Control.
I'm Dr. Safety
Martinez: My job, as Dr. Safety, is to make sure we don't forget that we pay a huge toll every year in traffic crashes. I sat there in the emergency department for years and pulled people out, and you can tell high speed from low speed. Don't kid yourself.
We've got 41,000 people a year dying on the highways. How many die in railroads? Six hundred last year. With airlines, we have a crash, and everyone wants to know how we can prevent it. Who's responsible, who's to blame?
Speed is represented to be 32 to 34 percent of the fatal motor-vehicle crashes. We bristle at the fact that we may have limits. Maybe we can't drive as fast as we like before we start being human.
Meet Dr. Slow
C/D: Is it the agency's position that traffic moves too fast in this country?
Martinez: I don't think that's what the discussion is about. The discussion is about what are the consequences of speed. Remember, 75 percent of these fatal crashes are single vehicle. In the real world, look at the spectrum of people we have out there. Kinda like me skiing. Once I get the skis on, I probably have a limit. I used to call it T-max, the top speed I went to, above which I was out of control. I think that's another way to look at it.
C/D: Trying to be diplomatic here, my sense is that you're trying to slow down traffic.
Martinez: No, that's reading into it.
C/D: Perhaps, but your speed-management program is scheduled to arrive at rational criteria for setting speed limits in 1998, yet all the work toward enhancing enforcement will be completed by 1997. That sounds like slowdown.
Martinez: Let me just ask if I understand. You're saying not to have speed limits, or enforce speed limits, until we have a study that says how one sets speed limits?
C/D: I'm only noticing that you're putting enforcement ahead of rational speed limits.
Martinez: It's known that if you enforce the laws, you get more compliance. That's a basic given. People tend to follow laws if they have a chance of being caught. That means adequate resources toward enforcement. So there are laws on the books, and there is a need to enforce those laws.
If they have 70 mph, you'd think they'd enforce that, as opposed to speed creep, where it just gets out of control.
Catch a Speeder, Bust a Felon
Martinez: Many states, they have cut their enforcement because they said, "Don't spend money on traffic, spend to get those criminals." We looked at that. In one of the studies, 37 percent of the felony arrests came from routine traffic stops.
The alleged Oklahoma bomber: He was stopped for a routine traffic violation.
C/D: Not for speeding. He didn't have a license plate.
Martinez: Well, he had several violations. But you get some benefits from doing routine traffic stops.2
The Moral Equivalent of Drunkenness
Martinez: Here's my point: I feel that this is very similar to the whole thing with alcohol, with drunk driving. A lot of people didn't see that as affecting them, as something that had consequences.
When people first started talking about drunk driving, you'd hear, "The problem, Doc, these people can't handle their liquor." People used to not take drunk driving seriously.
They did not take smoking very serious. When I was a kid, the way I got to welcome new people into the house was to give a bowl of cigarettes. My father was a cardiologist, for God's sake. Now you're not allowed to smoke in the house. There's a social change that occurs over time.
When people understand the consequences, they begin to make the decision. Speed is just another dynamic. We're just trying to help them look at that.
C/D: You are equating speed with alcohol--speed that is essential to efficient transportation--with drunkenness, which has no social value whatsoever?
Martinez: Overall, there are 6.8 million crashes. Alcohol is something like 10 percent, a low number. But if you go toward the seriousness of the crash, alcohol really comes up. Same thing we find with speed. You're going to be much more likely to have a fatal incident at higher speed.
Everything Is Related
Martinez: We have a death every 13 minutes and a major injury every 11 seconds. Thirty-some percent of that is related to speed. Then you gotta say, let's put that on the table.
C/D: Let me show you, in your own data, where they say, "These are not causes of the accident."
Martinez: Correct. If you're drinking, and you're going rather fast, both can be contributing factors.
C/D: I've been through related factors in FARS: 3.1 percent of drivers involved in fatal crashes have speed as the only related factor. That's a small number. Only when combined with other factors, like "inattention," "sleepy-drowsy," "cell phones," the list goes on, does it get to be a big number.
Martinez: I want to argue with your premise. If someone is doing 90 mph and has a crash, and the police officer puts down inattention and speed, you would say that's inappropriate?
C/D: No, we're looking at FARS. Remember, these are not causes. Of the drivers with speed too fast as a related factor, and no other factors, the number is 3.1 percent.
Martinez: Meaning what?
C/D: Meaning not many are driving too fast without anything else.
Martinez: Not many crashes are so simple that it's only one thing. That's correct. The vast majority are complex. If you're a drunk driver, you're also more likely to speed, and not have a seatbelt on. When the police collect data, they write down all three. So I guess I'm missing the thing here. If someone is doing 90 mph . . .
C/D: No, you're hitting the thing exactly.
Martinez: Please enlighten me, because I'm missing it.
C/D: You said crashes are complex events. So why is it that you single out a plan to manage speed rather than other aspects? As a related factor, "driving out of lane, or off the road" is cited in FARS more often than speed.
Martinez: I find it hard to accept the analogy that you find 3.1 percent by itself as proof positive it [speed] must be very low. Overall, it shows up in 32 percent of fatalities. It's overrepresented.
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Speed Kills
Martinez: On the George Washington Parkway here about two weeks ago, these two guys decide to fight it out, screaming at each other, giving each other hand signals. Coming around a curve, they lost control at 100 mph. They went into the oncoming lane and killed two people in two different cars. I mean, totally destroyed these cars.
C/D: To call that a speed-related accident, two cars in a fight of machismo, just to call it speeding . . .
Martinez: If you don't think going 100 mph has anything to do with killing these people, then I think we probably disagree.
C/D: Speed limits and radar guns can't prevent this kind of behavior.
Martinez: I think it would be an injustice to the people who died to say, "Well, we're not going to count speed as being a cause, I mean, a contributing factor," because I think quite clearly it was.
Exaggerated, but Just a Little
C/D: NHTSA has a rather expansive definition of speed-related crashes. I have a list here. Improper lane changes? Following too closely? Unsafe passing? Inattention? Reckless driving? And the final item, "driving slower than the posted minimum." Do these all sound like reasonable things to be under the umbrella of speed-related factors, to beat up on motorists who . . .?
Martinez: It's a question of how often do they occur. And in what order. The vast majority are exceeding the speed limit.
Germans versus Americans
Martinez: Argue with me on this, because I want to understand. Why do you think speed is not a cause of crashes?
C/D: Are Germans intrinsically better drivers than Americans?
Martinez: Germans?
C/D: The German autobahn has virtually the same fatality rate as our interstate system has.
Martinez: This year?
C/D: Over several years it's been approximately the same.
Martinez: I know we've been lower for 12 out of the past 15 years.
C/D: That depends on whose literature you're reading.
A staffer hands him a new set of numbers that he has apparently never seen before. They show the interstate-versus-autobahn comparison in the sidebar.
Martinez: What's the question? Let's say they're equal.
C/D: They are equal. That suggests that speed is not what's causing the fatalities here, doesn't it?
Martinez: Why do you say that? I need to understand what your bias is on this.
C/D: If the Germans drive fast, and the Americans are slow, and the fatality rate is the same, what does that suggest? It doesn't suggest speed is the variable to focus on.
Martinez: I just came back from there. Their licensing system is much, much better than ours. We have to look at that, who is on the road and who is not. They don't allow clunkers. They don't allow billboards. They use their blinkers. They don't allow trucks except in the right-hand lane, and they don't have trucks on weekends. I don't see how you can take those two things that are so totally different and say, "Okay, they're totally different, but that one number suggests something." I wouldn't feel comfortable saying that's a scientific way of taking those two things.
C/D: Let's look at the reverse of it as well. If things are totally different, why are we focusing on speed instead of analyzing those differences and incorporating them into some kind of management plan?
Martinez: We are. We look at a triangle: we look at pre-crash, at things occurring during the crash to mitigate injury, and at things after the crash to mitigate severity of injury.
Jiggering the Numbers
C/D: Can this agency put speed in its true perspective? I have here your State Legislative Fact Sheet. Many things in here are incorrect. This statement: "The fatality rate for the German autobahn in 1993 was almost six times that of the U.S. interstates." We've just agreed that it was incorrect. To have credibility, this agency has to present materials that are correct. Do you feel honesty is important?
Martinez: If you're asking should we be scientifically based, and unbiased, the answer is yes. And I expect your article to be unbiased too, huh? Just kidding.
C/D: This document has more than one substantial mistake. If I can prove those, would you call back this document?
Martinez: We always correct our documents.
C/D: But would you recall the ones already out?
Martinez: Recall the ones in the field? How can I do it?
Educating the Courts
C/D: Are you going to educate the courts with this [holding up a copy of the State Legislative Fact Sheet]?
Martinez: We're going to educate the courts to take all the constellation of things that contribute to 41,000 people a year dying on the highways. That's about two 747 crashes a week in this country.
C/D: Dr. Martinez, the fatality rate is 1.7 per 100 million miles driven. God, that's safe transportation.
Martinez: We have to get the courts to make sure they adjudicate. You know, there are guys out there who've been in and out of the court eight and nine times, arrested for drunk driving, and no one wants to take their license. It's a freedoms issue.
We Gotta Set Policy
Martinez: What do you think, that we should have no speed limits?
C/D: I'm not suggesting that at all.
Martinez: Would you enforce existing limits?
C/D: I would find out what the people would buy. They obviously haven't been buying the speed limits over the past 20 years.
Martinez: Is that how policy is necessarily brought in over time? For example . . .
C/D: It depends on whether you want people to be on your side or against you. Democracy is consensus.
Martinez: Let's talk about seatbelts. When they first started coming in, people believed you could never get anyone to wear seatbelts. Sea changes do occur. You do that by putting the light on it, letting people see the consequences.
No Promises
C/D: I would like to leave convinced that the agency would be honest in the numbers it publishes.
Martinez: Obviously, what you're showing me is different from the numbers we got from Germany. I just want to have the chance to go back and see what's what.
