Slowing Down

When Congress passed legislation recommending that the states adopt a 55 m.p.h. speed limit as a means of curbing gasoline consumption, most observers predicted an additional boon -- a decrease in traffic fatalities. Sure enough, last month when the National Safety Council released highway-death-toll figures for the first six months in 1974, deaths were down a heartening 23% from the same period in 1973. While noting that the energy crisis had decreased the number of cars on the road, the council still gave credit for the downturn to the 55-m.p.h. speed limit, calling it a "major contributing factor."

But that was moving too fast for Lee N. Hames, safety-education director of the American Medical Association. In an editorial in the current Journal of the American Medical Association, Hames doubts that the reduced speed limit deserved quite so much credit, arguing that the energy shortage had reduced the number of miles driven. Besides, said Hames, "most crashes occur at speeds of less than 55 m.p.h. anyway."

Not to be outdone in the war of statistics, the NSC has countered with more of its own. Said one spokesman in rejoinder: "Travel on 31 representative turnpikes during the first five months of this year was down 14% from the first five months of 1973, but fatalities were down 60%." The lowered speed limit seemed a likely explanation. What is more, said the NSC, there were 3.4 deaths per 100 million miles driven for the first six months of 1974, down from an average 4.27 for all of 1973. As for the A.M.A. contention that most crashes occur at speeds under 55 m.p.h., sniffed one official, it "neglected to say that nearly one-half of all fatal accidents occur at speeds over 50 m.p.h."

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