Speed, Safety, and Radar Detectors

Vehicular speed has a two-fold influence on traffic accident risk: It affects both probability of involvement and severity of consequence. In terms of involvement, it was long ago suggested that deviation from the mean travel speed of surrounding traffic carried an increased risk fbr the “offending” vehicle.’ A vehicle traveling significantly faster or slower than surrounding traffic is either passing or being passed continually. Such overtaking creates opportunities for sideswipe and head-on crashes that would otherwise not exist. In addition to this, the faster a vehicle is traveling, the less time there is for a driver to react to potential accident situations, such as the vehicle ahead braking or a child darting out across the road. Similarly, the effect of speed on accident severity is clear. To bring a vehicle to a stop requires that it lose momentum proportional to the velocity at which it