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Haste makes waste: cutting speed boosts drivers' life expectancy: study (http://healthandfitness.sympatico.ca/News/ContentPosting?newsitemid=015541930&feedname=CP-HEALTH&show=False&number=0&showbyline=True&subtitle=&detect=&abc=abc&date=True)

Every hour spent behind the wheel represents a 20-minute loss in life expectancy because of the risk of being involved in a fatal motor vehicle accident, say researchers, who calculate that even a slight reduction in speed by the average driver could save lives.

Read more at: http://healthandfitness.sympatico.ca/News/ContentPosting?newsitemid=015541930&feedname=CP-HEALTH&show=False&number=0&showbyline=True&subtitle=&detect=&abc=abc&date=True

Hi Old Man:

___Sorry I missed this when it was first posted as we would have moved it to the home page News!

___And like most believe, if they just go a little faster… they will get to the red light that much quicker… or in the worst cases, meet their maker with a tomb stone waiting for their name day of birth and day of death.

___Thanks for the links!

___Good Luck

___Wayne

20 minutes less life expectancy per hour behind the wheel?! :eek:

20 minutes less life expectancy per hour behind the wheel?! :eek:Wow. I need to remember that every time I get behind the wheel.

And then there's THIS:
"For every person who died in a motor vehicle crash, there are about 50 other people who are left permanently disabled," he said, including those with spinal cord and traumatic brain injuries or chronic pain syndromes from multiple fractures.:eek: once again!

Hi Dan:

___This guys figures are out to lunch... We lost maybe 30,000 people to road accidents in the US last year. Which means 1.5 Million with spinal cord and traumatic brain injuries or chronic pain syndromes from multiple fractures. Over the course of 20-years, that is one in 10 people in the US. That would easily make into a group as small as our family and friends. I am not seeing that level of carnage.

___Good Luck

___Wayne

You're right, the numbers don't make sense. Makes me wonder about the 20 minutes per hour figure too. No doubt the headline to this story is true, but it's hard to tell if things have been exaggerated.

Important side note: most of us know speed kills, but the risk to pedestrians skyrockets even more than the risk to vehicle occupants as drivers speed. In addition to the commonly cited roadway death figures (down now due to the economy, but averaging 35-40,000 in recent years) which only count vehicle occupants, an additional 8,000 or so pedestrians are taken out by motorists. Vehicle speed affects pedestrian safety (link 1 (http://www.science.org.au/nova/058/058key.htm) | link 2 (http://humantransport.org/sidewalks/SpeedKills.htm) | link 3 (http://www.stoppingdistances.org.uk/results/35dnn.htm)) nonlinearly, in two ways:

1. The risk of death to a pedestrian hit by a car increases nonlinearly as impact speed increases. A pedestrian has a 5% chance of being killed by a 20mph impact with a car, a 40% chance in a 30mph impact, and an 85% chance from a 40mph impact. Most people probably are at least dimly aware of this, but ...
2. What most people don't realize is that the speed at which an unexpected pedestrian might be hit is extremely disproportionate to vehicle speed. Travelling at 25 mph, the average driver who sights a pedestrian in the road 100 feet ahead won't start braking until they've traveled about 55 feet, but only need 35 feet to stop and will still stop with about 10 feet to spare. Traveling at 30 mph, it will take about 65 feet to hit the brakes but another 50 feet to stop, and the pedestrian will be hit at about 15mph, most likely sustaining moderate injuries. Cruising along at 35 mph, reaction distance increases to 77 feet and the pedestrian is hit at nearly 30mph, with only 60-40 odds of survival.


In areas where there are pedestrians, every few mph makes a HUGE difference to their safety. Slowing down a bit might well save as many (or even more) pedestrians as vehicle occupants.

Thanks Wayne for making sense of this. This topic is close to my heart. Just in the last month I've reconsidered the safety abilities of my Geo compared to more advanced cars like the Prius, this thought was seeded from a thread you had commented on explaining the superior safety features of modern cars over those made in the 90's. It got me to thinking of either reinforcing my Geo with a roll cage or finding a used Prius that I cant really afford.

Regardless of what I do I know that the inattention of another motorist could have harsh consequences if I were to get hit by them.

Nerf cars would be cool. :D - Dale

Dale, that's what really angers me about the increased popularity of gargantuan FSPs. In the early 90s when your car was made, your car was much safer than it is today. Back then, passenger vehicles averaged not much more than 3000 pounds, and in an average crash the other car would have to absorb a good chunk of the collision.

This point got driven home to me painfully a few years ago, when I was driving a 2200 pound Civic VX and got rear ended by a Tahoe 2 1/2 times its weight. When it was built, the VX was a pretty safe car, for the most part sharing the road with other CARS. But when surrounded by mostly 4000+ pound trucks, I'd brought a knife to a gunfight. I hate the arms race.

2250 lbs here too! - Dale

___This guys figures are out to lunch... We lost maybe 30,000 people to road accidents in the US last year. Which means 1.5 Million with spinal cord and traumatic brain injuries or chronic pain syndromes from multiple fractures. ...

I suspect that he means the same set of injuries listed in the National Safety Council's 'Accident Facts' (renamed since I bought a couple copies back in the 1990s) as "disabling injuries."

For example, it lists 46,300 deaths and 1,700,00 disabling injuries in 1990, 42,000 and 2,000,000 respectively in 1993.

Unfortunately the term 'disabling injuries' is not defined, but it clearly covers a much more broad list than mentioned in this article. I suspect the article suffers from the same spin as the common reports of numbers of 'weapons such as guns in school'. These reports generally headline only the guns, but of the numbers provided, 90% are knives and 7% are 'other', with guns being only a small fraction of the big scary headline number.

Every hour spent behind the wheel represents a 20-minute loss in life expectancy because of the risk of being involved in a fatal motor vehicle accident,

Twisted quote from twisted numbers. In their attempt to make it relatable they sound silly. Increased risk of catastrophic death is not the same as making choices that will age the body.
Too bad they did it this way. Saying that increasing speed by x mph increasing chance of death by y is more honest.

Keith