Road Deaths Drop With Speed Limit Hike : Study: Fatalities decreased in states that allow 65 m.p.h. limits. UCI transportation economist says ‘speed kills’ myth debunked.

States which have raised speed limits to 65 m.p.h. on some highways have realized a decrease in traffic deaths statewide, according to a UC Irvine study released Friday.

In 1987, 38 states hiked speed limits to 65 m.p.h. on portions of their interstate highways. The result was a decrease of 3% to 5% in the overall fatality rate in those states, said UCI transportation economist Charles Lave, co-author of the study.

In California, where approximately 1,400 miles of highway are posted at 65 m.p.h., death rates have dropped by a factor of 7% since 1987, even taking into consideration the mandatory seat belt law, the study found.

Lave said the findings debunk the myth that “speed kills,” the rationale used by Congress to preserve the 55-m.p.h. limit in the early 1970s after it produced only a one-half-percent reduction in gasoline consumption.

The federal 55-miles-an-hour law “was a failure as a way of saving energy, and it’s a failure when it comes to saving lives,” Lave said. “What this study shows is that the 65-mile-an-hour law is safer than the 55-mile-an-hour law.”

In California, higher speed limits are posted on more rural stretches of interstates, such as Interstate 5 through the San Joaquin Valley, Interstate 15 through inland San Diego County, and Interstate 10 outside San Bernardino. But as most every Southland driver already knows, most cars on the rest of the area freeways are either whizzing by at 65 m.p.h. or chugging along at 10 m.p.h. in bumper-to-bumper congestion.

Lave doesn’t advocate universal 65-m.p.h. limits. Instead, he believes they should be set by highway experts, not federal mandate.

“We ought to allow (state) highway patrols the freedom to enforce safety as they see fit rather than try to set their priorities for them,” he said. “They’re the experts; we’re amateurs. When we impose these standards, it’s not surprising that we get bad results.”

A key reason for the lower death rates found in the study, Lave said, is that state highway patrol departments have been able to devote time and resources to more dangerous roadways.

“It has allowed highway patrols to shift resources away from enforcement of the 55-m.p.h. speed limit to activities with a greater impact on safety--a move many of the nation’s highway patrol chiefs had urged,” he said.

In Sacramento, a spokeswoman for the California Highway Patrol said department officials had not seen the study and so were unable to respond. She said the state has only raised the speed limit to 65 m.p.h. on certain rural highways where road design, safety records and existing speed trends have warranted it.

“Safety is our No. 1 concern,” CHP Sgt. Mona Prieto said.

The UCI findings contradict previous studies, which have concluded that the number of deaths increased after the speed limit was raised to 65 m.p.h. Lave said those studies were flawed because they examined the number of deaths instead of the rate, or the fatalities per vehicle mile traveled.

“The number (of deaths) almost always increased since the traffic almost always increased,” he said.

Moreover, those studies examined the effects just on the localized impact of raising the speed on particular highways, he said.

Instead, Lave and co-author Patrick Elias decided to look at the overall statewide fatality rate, contending that the effects of the speed limit change would be felt throughout the highway system, not just on the rural roads where speeds were higher.

During the past two years, Lave and Elias, his undergraduate assistant, compiled traffic death statistics for the more than 40 states that took advantage of federal legislation that permitted 65-m.p.h. limits on certain interstate highways. They compared those figures with those of a group of states that did not change speed limits.

They considered other factors too. Across the nation, statewide death rates and actual numbers of highway deaths have been declining gradually in recent years. That trend has deepened in the current recession because, as in all previous recessions, people are traveling less. They also took into account the effect of mandatory seat belt laws in certain states.

Their conclusion: “Overall statewide fatality rates fell by 3.4% to 5.1% in the states that adopted the 65-m.p.h. limit.”

The study was funded with $20,000 in grants from the U.S. Transportation Department and the American Automobile Assn. Foundation for Traffic Safety. It has been accepted for publication in Accident Analysis and Prevention, the leading academic journal for transportation safety specialists.

Meanwhile, whether the 55-m.p.h. rule has an impact is debatable.

Local traffic experts do not have a figure for the average speed on Orange County highways. But discounting rush-hour commute times, “typically people are driving at least 65,” said Joe El Harake, traffic operations engineer for Caltrans in Orange County.

Lave doesn’t worry much about speeding tickets. “I live on campus and walk to work.”