By Patrick Robinson

I’m going to bet that you have, sometime in the recent past, if you drive a car, driven over the speed limit. You may have in fact driven way over the limit, possibly cut someone off, or otherwise behaved badly on the road. You have the power after all. The wheel is in your hands. You have your foot on the accelerator and you have some place to be.

When they lowered the speed limits on local roads, you were probably angry about it. Maybe you still are. 

It’s all part of a campaign against drivers! Right? It’s all meant to force you out of your car and into a bus or a bike! Right?

Objectively speaking there’s some logic to that. More cars means more congestion, more crashes, more pollution and bikes are better for many reasons for those for whom it makes sense. But I’m not talking about that.

Do you know at what speed most traffic deaths occur?

According to research, most car crashes occur at speeds below 40 mph and every 10 mph of increased speed driven doubles pedestrian mortality rates. At lower speeds, the rate is even higher. For example, from 25 to 35 mph, the mortality rate increases from 4.4% to 10.5%.

Seattle sees 10,000 crashes a year, resulting in an average of 28 people losing their lives and nearly 180 people seriously injured

There’s an illusion that many drivers carry around that since the driver has control it’s safer. It’s not.

There are dozens of reasons for accidents of course from bad equipment to unexpected events, to distractions, to wrong decisions. But one factor that most share in terms of serious outcomes is excessive speed.

When they changed the speed limit in West Seattle on 35th SW to 25 from 35 mph as part of the Seattle Department of Transportation’s Vision Zero program, people were upset.

But that stretch from Roxbury Street SW to Fauntleroy is 2.6 miles. The time difference it takes to travel that distance is 107 seconds based on the math. Sure, it could mean a bit more time than that in the real world, but then you have to plug in other real world considerations too. People, pets and cars still cross the road. Drivers still brake, turn or change lanes unexpectedly. It still rains, or snows. Street lights still go out, The world is pretty much the same no matter how fast you go. 

But if you get involved in a serious crash where someone is killed, or you or someone else is badly injured, or your car is so badly damaged you can’t drive it… You are going to become awfully familiar with the word regret. You are going to understand the definition of the word cost far more personally. 

All so you could feel entitled to save 107 seconds.