Higher Speed Limits Caused Over 30,000 Car Accident Wrongful Deaths

Florida car accident attorney Joseph Lipsky has seen an increase in the number of deadly car accidents over the past few years. Now a study by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety confirms Mr. Lipsky’s observations. It seems that the steady increase in highway speed limits over the last number of years is one of the most likely causes for the rise in highway accident wrongful deaths.

The IIHS’ study concluded that more than thirty thousand lives have been lost over the last 20 years, due primarily to higher speed limits. Last year alone nearly 2,000 people died in high speed highway car accidents. Incredibly, the rise in high speed highway deaths is more than the number of people saved by mandatory vehicle front crash airbags. Across the United States more than 9,000 people died in car accidents involving a speeding vehicle.

Ever since the U.S. Congress allowed states in 1987 to increase highway speeds above the 55 m.p.h. limit, the number of highway car accidents which resulted in wrongful deaths has risen exponentially. Most people do not realize that the reason speeds were allowed to rise, was not due to safety studies proving increased speeds were safe; rather, because gas price fears has subsided.  In fact, it was those concerns over energy prices which mandated the 55 m.p.h. speed limit.  The unexpected, and welcomed, side effect was a drop in highway car and truck accident deaths.

Those supporting the speed limit increase argued that most drivers exceeded the speed limit anyway. But as most drivers know, motorist will routinely exceed the posted speed limit, regardless of what it is. Research proves that even a 5 m.p.h. rise in speed results in a nearly 10 percent rise in traffic accident deaths.

Fort Lauderdale personal injury attorney Joseph Lipsky agrees with the study’s authors, in hoping that Florida’s lawmakers remember the deadly effects continuing to raise our highway’s speed limits have on motorists.