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Re: Speed Limits Irrelevant?



In article <3rskhl$h22@cville-srv.wam.umd.edu> sorandi@wam.umd.edu (Persepolis) writes:
>John Kennedy (johnk@opel.secondsource.com) wrote:
>: the "energy crisis", as it was called, was real.  Nixon wanted to go with
>: As the IIHS (Insurance Institute for Highway Safety) starting realizing that
>: premiums could be raised for everyone breaking this artifically low speed
>: limit, the issue was carefully spun into one of safety and lives.
>
>This is another good point, but it leans more towards an insurance &
>State conspiracy theory-  I can see the point you are making clearly and
>being a kind of a paranoid individual myself I can see merit in this- BUT
>I can counter this with the fact that someone who drives 55 in a school
>zone and gets a ticket & a nice insurance hike for it would be just as
>likely to collide with a child and leave the insurance company libel for

True.  I am strongly in favor of strict enforcement of posted limits in school
zones, and other places where the limit is for a reason.  What I was addressing
previously was the National Maximum Speed Limit (NMSL) that was put into place
in 1974.  This action told the states that their engineers could not post
a speed limit in excess of 55 mph regardless of conditions.  As far as the
insurance-state conspiracy goes, the IIHS is a _very_ strong lobby.  I
attended many a hearing in the Maryland state house re: raising Maryland's
speed limits and observed the lobbyists prevailing year after year.  They
don't seem to have the grip on Glendenning they had on Schaefer, do they?


-- 
John Kennedy                     johnk@secondsource.com 
Second Source, Inc.
Annapolis, MD


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