will rise. Most people believe that driving at a lower speed will increase reaction time and cause less of an impact on the car and the driver. When driving in the same direction, reaction time on highways is relative. If everyone is going approximately 75 miles per hour on the highway than reaction time is the same as if you were going 30 miles per hour. Impacts would also follow along the same theory. The problem is that older people and inexperienced drivers tend to drive slower causing more harms than those who speed do. Because of this reasoning the government must look in to ways of punishing, or treating, slower, more dangerous drivers. Many states today have speed minimums, but still some don't. Besides ticketing offenders the government should look at testing the elderly on their driving abilities in their old age. Another argument about fatalities, directly relating to speed, could be made after looking at the changes of fatalities since the year 1974. In 1974 the government implemented a national speed limit on all highways of 55 miles per hour. As a result of this process government studies have shown that fatality rates had, in fact, decreased (Shemmens). The reason fatalities have decreased may not be as obvious as they seem. Strict government regulation on new safety features throughout the late seventies and early eighties was a significant source of saved lives. Also, the advances in the road structure and condition contributed greatly to a decline in deaths, not the standard low level of speed the government had implement only a decade earlier. Studies that took place over the most two recent speed changes will further disprove this theory produced by safety advocates. In 1987 the government changed its mind and allowed states to have a speed limit of up to 65mph on rural Interstate routes. As a result of this speed increase safety advocates claim that there was a nation wide increase on fatalities. However the AAA Fo...
