Think freeway speeds should be raised? While it may move traffic faster down the interstate, there could be unexpected consequences. They call it “spillover speeding.” And if your neighborhood is near where folks get off the freeway, you and your loved ones could be at risk.
Road fatalities could be linked to spillover speeding
It’s the finding of new research from the AAA Foundation. It looked into how raising posted limits affected communities bordering on faster freeways. The “spillover effect” creates unintended safety hazards for local communities—ones that might not be involved in the decision-making process to raise the posted speed limit on a nearby highway. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), speeding is a significant safety concern. Speeding contributed to almost one-third of road fatalities in the past 20 years.
The research aimed to see whether changes to posted speed limits on interstate highways could cause drivers to adopt risky speeding behaviors on local streets. In other words, do faster speed limits lead to spillover speeding? The study looked at crash data before and after speed limit increases on interstates in Georgia, Michigan, and Oregon.
And they found…?
Hot spot analyses were conducted on roads within a 1-mile radius of interstates. Researchers found many instances where speed-related crashes increased on nearby roads following the interstate speed limit change. This suggests that drivers exiting the highway continued their faster tendencies.
“Increasing posted speed limits on freeways may improve traffic flow but could also lead to safety concerns in adjacent communities once speeding drivers proceed to neighboring roadways,” said Dr. David Yang, president and executive director of the AAA Foundation. “Local streets around our homes are designed for slower speeds and diverse road users such as pedestrians and cyclists—not for speeding drivers.”
AAA recommends a multi-pronged approach to combat speeding behavior
By taking a proactive approach, transportation officials can create safer road networks for all communities. The AAA Foundation’s research reinforces the importance of the Safe System Approach (SSA). The SSA is a strategic way of leveraging the engineering and behavioral countermeasures proven effective at preventing traffic crashes and the injuries that can result from them. Explore the Foundation’s guide for implementing the SSA in your community HERE.
“This research has uncovered an unintended but potentially lethal consequence of raising highway speed limits,” said Jake Nelson, AAA’s director of traffic safety advocacy. “With the U.S. near a record-high traffic death toll, road authorities can use these findings and an effective tool to pinpoint lifesaving solutions to help ensure that we all get home safely each day.”
Previous speeding research by the AAA Foundation found problems. Raising posted highway speed limits is associated with increased crash frequencies in some situations. At the same time, changes in travel times were small in response to both raised and lowered speed limits. Changes could make the difference in spillover speeding.
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It makes sense to me. Do not fill potholes on side streets.
Speeding is out of control. It’s not 5 or even 10 mph over anymore. Now it’s common to see 15 or 20 mph over on highways. I can’t believe the number of drivers, many of them “professional” drivers in big rigs, significantly exceeding work zone speed limits as well as the normal highway limits.
It’s rampant, yet I rarely see drivers pulled over. I see signs in work zones that there are cameras, but I never see the cameras. It would be interesting to see just how much enforcement is actually happening.
I listen to my scanner at home all the time. I get the local PD and the surrounding Highway Patrol conversations. They pull cars and trucks over all day long!
The term for that is called driver “velocitation.”
The best deterrent to speeding vehicles is some actual enforcement of the posted speed limits. IMHO
Thank you, Russ and Tina! 🙂 Interesting study results. I agree with those who already have noted the large discrepency between actual speeds driven and the posted speed limit. I tend to rarely have an opportunity to pass anything moving on the interstate because it is all passing me as I drive the speed limit, or 62 or 63 mph, whichever is lower. In our passenger cars I drive 2-3 mph beyond the speed limit and still “lead a parade” until I exit the roadway. Thanks again and safe travels! 🙂
To my way of thinking the speed limit is the speed limit. There’s a 65-70 mph limit on I 95 in South Florida but in the passing lanes we frequently see people driving at 90 to 120 mph. Years ago when I went to traffic school I heard people say with agreement from everyone in the class except my teacher and me “everyone knows it’s legal to drive 10 miles over the speed limit” no, it’s not. And the speed limit should apply in the passing lane too.
So you have a radar gun in your vehicle and clocked them at over 100 mph? Hyperbole.
As tragic as any deaths are here’s some actual good news: since 1971 miles driven in the us has more than tripled to over 3 trillion per year and yet the death rate has remained roughly the same at around 40k a year.
There’s too much speeding on Pa roads and not enough cops to enforce. We have trucks that travel too fast or too slow and too many. When an accident occurs the road is closed for hours. Remove the accident victims then get a payloader and push the vehicles out of the way and get traffic moving.
Excessive speeding is dangerous and annoying while excessive slow driving is just annoying and dangerous.
I am totally prone to this behavior. After I get off a highway/interstate I really have to be aware of my speed for the next 10 or 15 minutes, and let my brain ‘re-adjust’ to slower speeds. I’d bet that would be a good dissertation paper on human behavior.
Traveling the speed limit is good. But the real problem is the idiots that can’t put down their phones. Also people putting on makeup, and all the people who do everything else except drive.