One of TTAC’s headlines yesterday asked a provocative question: Does Speed Save? The question came from a “study” by High Road Automotive Research, which posited a common-sense thesis: higher speeds inspire higher reaction times, theoretically keeping drivers safer. The unique approach to the relationship between speed and safety is what caught our eye… but what we should have been looking at were the numerous clues hidden in the report that show the whole thing was a big joke. The Sydney Morning Herald reports High Road isn’t an actual group, and that
The paper – penned by a bogus research team including authors Jeremy James, Clark Hammond and Richard Mayson – suggests that encouraging speeding on our roads makes for better drivers.
Going back through the report is more than a little embarrassing. The report acknowledges the support of researchers with names like
Mr. Brian Vitara, Mr. Gary Benz, Mr. Garuda Matraman, Mr. Grant Dodge, Mr. Gary Alpha and Professor James Romeo
Oy vey. Our apologies to our readers for presenting the “report” as at all legitimate (at least we weren’t the only ones), and raspberries to the jokesters behind High Road (Top Gear Australia denies involvement). Thanks to commenter Kiwi_Mark_In_Aussie for bringing the spoof to our attention.
They should have released this “report” on April first.
Hey, at least TTAC owns up to being misled.
I commend TTAC for prominently posting this correction.
That’s OK Ed. Keep in mind, that despite being a scam, it’s probably more accurate than many of the politically or monetarily motivated reports from places like the EPA or IIHS or Camera companies.
For that reason alone, I say it’s a keeper. :-D
There was an X Presidents cartoon on SNL where the Jimmy Carter character asks “who would ever imagine that Communist Aliens from space would attack Earth?”.
To which the Ronald Reagan character confidently replied “Oh, I would.”
He was right. They attacked.
Yeah right mate, it sounds really accurate:
“As an example: a study in Adelaide found that one-third of pedestrian fatalities would most likely have survived if vehicles had been travelling only 5 km/h faster – and one in ten pedestrians would not have been hit at all.”
Face it, most people would like it to be true because the outcome fits with their prejudice. The report is made up, it isn’t at all accurate. The purported relationship between endocrines and road safety is utter twaddle, yet you believe it to have more credence than a EPA or IIHS report. I think that says more about you than those organisations.
As Contrarian says, it may be a scam, but it also may be closer to the truth.
In my old job, I had to go through a lot of accident statistics in Germany. I recalled that the most dangerous place was the undivided rural road, followed by inner cities. I dug for numbers, finally found them.
Statistics from Germany 2007 (don’t expect substantial change)
Died on the autobahn: 602
Died on undivided rural roads: 3012
Died innercity: 1335
There is a speed limit of 62 mph on all undivided rural roads in Germany, posted limits often less
Highest chance to die: Age 18 – 25, the people who just had finished that famous rigorous German driver training …. (143 per million pop age 18-25, vs. 56 per million pop age 25 – 65 )
Those figures don’t prove much. They don’t take into account passenger miles traveled, if 90% of driving occurs on rural roads, one would expect them to have a higher death toll. And assuming autobahns are like US interstates, it’s almost impossible to have a head-on collision between two vehicles, a fairly common and usually fatal occurrence on rural roads.
If you’re suggesting that raising speed limits on rural highways would reduce fatalities, you have to do a lot better than this.
Kudos to y’all for fessing up.
And kudos to y’all for standing by the premise (which is true.)
And I’ll stand by my comments seconding the notion that if folks stateside knew how to use a passing lane and a cruising lane correctly, we’d be poised to see significantly higher speed limits.
Given the number of articles you put our per day, I think it is more than reasonable to forgive a few transgressions here and there (after all, checking sources all the time takes more time and effort than most people have, especially when you’re working hard all the time trying to keep a site like this active and alive). Keep up the good work.
I had a precious opportunity to go downhill skiing today. Thanks to two drivers who were driving too fast for the minor black ice and crashed, the highway was closed for hours to clean up the mess which included a diesel spill. We ended up going home. Hundreds of people on their way to work, transporting goods etc. were even more seriously affected.
I’m starting to think the people who try to depict speeding as making sense, are just very immature.
Roads aren’t covered with ice for most of the year, even in Minnesota or North Dakota. The simple fact is that speed does not kill on limited access highways…trying to get everyone slow down to an artificially low speed limit is a waste of time, law enforcement resources and money.
Brandloyalty-
Were the motorists driving faster than the speed limit? It is possible (if not probable) to lose control when going below the posted speed limit.
Which is not necessarily counter to the point folks are making. There are speeds which folks can be trusted to drive safely, and then there are mitigating circumstances which alter said speeds.
If folks are capable of driving responsibly, there are literally thousands of miles of the Eisenhower system that can open up like the autobahn. It is helpful to keep in mind that most folks are talking about stretches of the Eisenhower System; not the stretches that would include the Eisenhower Tunnel, and not switchbacks.
Since we live in a country with 50 DMVs that allow for a greatly variable set of expectations regarding driver proficiency, the myth that speed limits are primarily for safety (and not oil consumption or revenue generation) has some reality.
As someone who has only had the opportunity to ski once in the past decade, I feel your pain.
Well said, cackalacka.
That’s a valid point. I’m pretty sure I’d seen one of the crashed vehicles earlier, doing 30-40kph over the speed limit. Going too fast would be consistent with a black-ice accident. MOST people weren’t crashing, so it was possible to travel safely.
Speeding does not rescind the laws of physics. Reaction time is compromised, impact forces are higher, mileage is reduced, wear@tear are increased. And it does absolutely nothing to limit dangerous circumstances beyond your direct control. Like black ice.
I’m as guilty as anyone else for driving while overly tired, but I know that a mature person will be alert AND drive near the speed limit and/or with regard to the conditions.
btw, we went skiing the next day and had a great time.
I think there is a bigger lesson here about living in the information age we live in. A little skepticism goes a long way and with so much low quality information out there, weeding out the fiction takes more work than ever. I’m glad to see that TTAC isn’t afraid to admit when they’ve been had.
What a shame. I was hoping that the sacred cow of “speed kills” had finally been slain. Well, I guess it’s still up to radar detectors and careful observation to avoid being snared by mobile revenue collectors.
Well I can only hope that those responsible for this have been sacked. Along with those responsible for sacking the people who have just been sacked.
Thats the depressing part…I started reading the post originally because the various State Governments in Australia are going mad over Speed Camera’s (even implementing unmarked mobile speed camera vans) justifying everything with the “Speed Kill’s” mantra (even though they have very little statisical evidence to back this up). Apparently “Every K over is a Killer”…that means I must have wiped out the equivalent of a small (well rather large) village somewhere…
However when I saw it was by High Road Auto Research…oh well…
Trouble is – that sort of thing sets the attempts at having a legitimate discussion about Speed and Road Safety right back..
This looks like a case of “fake but accurate”.
I rented a car a year ago, and it had Canadian plates. When I got on the freeway at 65, everyone was flying past me. I reluctantly increased my speed to 105 to keep up with traffic, and I was very attentive. If course, the speedometer was in kph, and I was only doing the speed limit – 65 mph. The human mind is easily fooled.