"SPEED KILLS" - WHAT A SILLY SIMPLIFICATION

There was an article/Letter To The Editor in today's Waterloo Region Record titled "Speed kills, so please slow down". I beg to differ. It isn't speed that kills, primarily it's stupidity, mental laziness and inattentiveness. A two car head-on collision at a speed limit of 80 km per hour is just as fatal as a two car head-on collision at 95 km. per hour. Dead is dead. The fifteen km per hour excess speed above the limit does reduce the drivers reaction times slightly. In the case described the author states that she had a precious few seconds to swerve onto the shoulder of the road and get out of the way. Good for her in that clearly she was paying attention.

Her assertion that the oncoming driver's speed was the cause of the near collision is a generalization at best. Was he sober or drunk? Was he talking to his passenger when he pulled out to pass? Was there all of one car going slowly in front of him or was there a lineup of eight cars all going slowly and bunched together? Were there two slow cars with numerous car lengths of empty space between them (eg. ten car lengths or more) until he pulled out to pass and then the immediate car in front of him stepped on the gas to close the gap between himself and the next car?

It is possible, perhaps likely, that the oncoming car in her lane was 100% at fault. Possibly he had been speeding constantly for the past hour and simply pulled out without first carefully and attentively observing both oncoming traffic plus the number of vehicles immediately in front of him. Or in the alternative there might have been a three car line up due to the first car driving below the speed limit while under perfect road and weather conditions. Then the next two cars decided not to pass him regardless of an empty oncoming lane. Did he pull out to pass without any observable oncoming traffic only to have one or more of the three cars ahead of him take umbrage at his nerve in passing and intentionally and aggressively block his safe return to the right lane after passing either the first car or the first two cars?

Blaming speeding out of hand fails to recognize all the dynamics that may have been going on.