Law on Speed Regulation on the Road: For or Against
In this essay, it is going to focus on two groups, one that greatly suggests there should be an imposed law regulating the maximum speed on our roads while the other group suggests that no law should be introduced to determine the amount of speed that drivers should not exceed. Since every group has reasonable arguments to support their arguments, the best thing to do is to hear them out and try to solve the differences between them. The starting group is the one that strongly suggests the speed limit to be imposed on our roads.
One of the benefits of imposing a speed limit rule is to prevent the rate of accidents on our roads. This is because the higher the speed, the chances of collisions also increase. The more speed that a car moves with means that it increases the more energy during the collision, causing more damage to the vehicle and greater damage to the occupants. According to “powers law” of Nilsson suggested that a change in the mean speed leads to reduced traffic crashes, injuries, and fatalities caused by the crashes. The following research carried out in a developing country, clearly shows that speed is the leading factor of deaths in the country. The research was carried out in Ghana between 1998 and 2000 and was as follows, the type of cars was also put into account considering that small vehicles are likely to over speed than the heavy vehicles. The total accounted fatality rate was 96 % in the entire country. As it is seen, this is a very big number of fatalities in a period of one year. That is why we are strongly suggesting the imposing of a speed limit law on our roads.
According to the results provided, it is not entirely true to agree with it and say that all those fatalities are caused by overspeeding.it should not be a base to impose a rule, that regulates the amount of speed that we want to use on our roads.it should also not be an excuse to say that introduction of a speed limit will help to save lives on our roads. This is because accidents are always not predictable in order to say that the speed limit will help to reduce the rate of accidents happening. Imposing a speed limit, it does not mean that the driver will not exceed it. This is clearly shown through research carried out in Australia and drivers of different ages and gender were involved. The research showed that some of the drivers exceeded the speed limit or even were slower than the speed limit imposed. This is a clear indication that a speed limit cannot influence the way a driver behaves while driving, hence it would be wrong to suggest that a speed limit is a way of saving a life.
Another good reason to support the speed limit to be introduced, it is to support on the environmental savings from the noise and air pollution from our vehicles. The rate of emissions from vehicles is highly influenced by driving behaviors. High speeds are related to high emission rates of CO De Vlieger et al. He used different vehicle models to show that the rate of emission and fuel consumption increases with aggressive driving, of which in this case it was overspeeding. In cars involved with aggressive diving, there was a rise in fuel consumption of 12-40%, and CO emission rose to a factor of 1-8 compared to ones that drove normally. Another good point to show is that the rate of emission increase with the increase of speed and acceleration as shown by . Joumard et al. Although there is a current project of developing models that will be able to solve this problem.it will not be wise to wait until that time in order to control the rate of emissions to our environment, hence it will be good to introduce the speed limit, in order to solve this problem.
The level of emissions from our vehicles is very low compared to the one coming from our industries and other activities according to Fujii, Hidemichi; Manage, Shunsuke described the industrial emission as one of the leading causes of environmental pollution. Many patients visit hospitals with problems associated to air pollution which causes more deaths. This results to more deaths compared to deaths caused by overspeeding. So it will not be correct to justify that introduction of overspeeding, will reduce the emissions to the environment hence I strongly disagree the introduction of speed limit on our roads. Another good point is that many associates no speed limit with very high speed, and that is why many seem to agree with imposing of speed limits. When we strongly disagree with the speed limit introduction all we are trying to suggest is that you cannot influence the way one behaves while on the road as suggested by Svenson, 1981 because each and every driver feels comfortable driving at the speed they require.
another benefit associated with having the speed limit law enforced is that it is economical to the drivers since it helps in saving the fuel consumption since it is directly proportional with the rate of speed and repairing worn out parts like tires, paying the bills of the involved patients affected by his or her reckless driving Stone and Grønhaug’s, paying the damages caused to the other driver's vehicle and his own vehicle that was as a result of careless driving and lastly it helps him or her in staying on the right side of the law always since they will not have to answer to the court for the cause of the accident and endangering other peoples life, which was a result of over speeding. All this helps them in saving money of unnecessary expenditures.
Associating the speed limit to be economical by saving fuel consumption due to overspeeding will be very wrong. This is because there are many vehicles consuming a lot of fuel due to its conditions heavy vehicles consume a lot of fuel compared to light ones hence it would not be possible to change the rate of consumption if the vehicle is designed that way.it would be economical if every driver was using one type of vehicle hence each one of them has a car that he or she can afford and it is always economical that way without considering the amount of fuel that the vehicle consumes.
References
- Afukaar, Francis K. 'Speed control in developing countries: issues, challenges and opportunities in reducing road traffic injuries.' Injury control and safety promotion 10.1-2 (2003): 77-81.
- Lahausse, Julie, et al. 'and sub-title.' Victoria 1217 (2010): 29-7.
- Panis, Luc Int, Steven Broekx, and Ronghui Liu. 'Modelling instantaneous traffic emission and the influence of traffic speed limits.' Science of the total environment 371.1-3 (2006): 270-285.
- Haworth, Narelle, and Mark Symmons. 'Driving to reduce fuel consumption and improve road safety.' Monash University Accident Research Centre (2001).
- Burke, Paul F., and L. M. Greenacre. 'The Young and the Reckless: Message (In) Effectiveness about the Physical Consequences of Motor-Vehicle Accidents for Young Inexperienced Drivers.' Australian and New Zealand Marketing Academy Conference. University of Otago, 2007.
