m first-hand experience, one should easily realize that the common man would feel negativity toward raising speed limits. People fall into this trap because the general public is often mislead into believing that abolishing speed limits on highways will only cause more harm than good. People often are the victims of misunderstanding and people rarely observe the advantages offered by increasing the speed limit to a safe level. Misunderstandings that the public has range from a variety of ideas. People believe that "speed kills." Republican Senator Michael DeWine asserted, "if we raise the speed limit… people will die," before the approval of the repeal on the nation-wide speed limit of 55 mph (Shemmens). Democratic Senator Frank Launtenberg agreed, "…we'll directly contribute to death and injury of thousands"(Johnson). However, the idea of speed killing is completely erroneous. Since someone has to move for there to be a collision, "speed" is the technically the cause of all car accidents. Although "speed" does kill, those who have actually been speeding at an unsafe level have only accounted for approximately one-third of all automobile related fatalities (The Star Ledger). However what these statistics don't factor, is that majority of those who cause these accidents are not only guilty of speeding. "Speeding" is merely a small portion of accidents caused by an irresponsible driver who takes the lives of others lightly. People who commit these horrible atrocities including reckless and intoxicated driving should be punished, not those who merely drive faster than the posted speeds. A person who drives over the speed limit in a responsible way with the many safety features, such as air bags and reinforced steel frames, that have developed over the years is not a huge threat to the driving society. The most popular misunderstanding is that with lower speeds the fatality rate will fall and with higher speeds the fatality rate...
