raise highway and interstate speedlimits 10 MPH

[Byteme]

Wasn't my statement. You just attributed a James Young statement to me. For such an insult, I'm now enroute to your house with a rifle equipped with a high-powered scope and night vision equipment.

Whoops, you are right.   

Fixed it, reverse your course

[James Young]

Byteme writes:
I've seen studies that support your claim regarding fatalities and injuries.  I've seen nothing that says drivers are haveing fewer crashes per mile driven.  Where did you get that statistic. 

From multiple places, primarily NHTSA (National Highway Traffic Safety Administration), one of the more virulent anti-motorist agencies in the nation.

The reduction in fatalities per mile driven can be explained by better EMS service, better medicine and more crashworthy vehicles.  

No doubt that those played a key role, especially the technology of roadways and vehicles.  Because our driving environment is safer, we can improve our productivity with higher speeds.  The only impediment is the law. 

You might want to look at this before you start claiming a reduction in highway deaths. 

IIHS is not a legitimate source for traffic safety because they have a vested interest in maintaining low limits.  Low limits means more speeding cites; more speeding cites means more surcharges; more surcharges means more revenue for the insurance industry, sponsor of IIHS; more surcharges means more profit and more political influence over your life.
 
First, note that this study allegedly addresses highway fatalities rather than crashes so it?s different from your second sentence.  Since we don?t have the tabulated data from IIHS, we can only speculate what they have done this time.  It appears to be cherry-picking particular stretches of roadway where crashes/fatalities occurred, combined with ignoring certain changes such as increased mileage on higher speed roadways, combined with  a very short period of comparison (one year to the prior year) combined with some outright manufacturing of data.  IIHS has been guilty of this type of manipulation in the past.

According to NHTSA, the fatality rate (the topic of the IIHS ?study?) for 1975 was 3.35 per 100 million VMT.  In 2005 it had dropped to 1.45, a decline of 57%
 
The facts are that in 2005, there were 13,113 ?speeding-related traffic fatalities? (total nationwide) of which 1,384 were on Interstate-grade highways with limits greater than 55 mph.

For crash statistics, go to http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/Pubs/TSF2005.PDF for a table that includes ALL crashes on ALL roads from 1988 to 2005.  Note the long term trends.

From the table:
1988    4,611,000 property damage only crashes
2005   4,304,000 property damage only crashes

Well, what can I tell you - facts is facts.

When you?re dealing with IIHS, that?s not always true.

[GoCougs]

The reduction in fatalities per mile driven can be explained by better EMS service, better medicine and more crashworthy vehicles. 

... plus much more severe financial and criminal penalties for bad driving (IMO one of the largest, if not the largest, factors).

[Soup DeVille]

... plus much more severe financial and criminal penalties for bad driving (IMO one of the largest, if not the largest, factors).

I am completely unaware of any large scale change in fines or penalties for speeding. There have been many changes in recent years involving drunk drivers, but that's an entirely different issue.

[Tave]

In my town, I saw fines go from '$2/mph over up to 20 mph over' to 'minumum $60 plus $2/mph over 10mph over.'

So that was large increase, but I think it was a case of the law being static for so long and not being adjusted to inflation. I don't think the 60-100 bucks in 2000 was much different from $20 in 1970-80.

[GoCougs]

I am completely unaware of any large scale change in fines or penalties for speeding. There have been many changes in recent years involving drunk drivers, but that's an entirely different issue.

What I intended to mean by "bad driving" were serious offenses beyond just simple speeding; DUI, street racing, reckless driving, etc., for which penalties have increased dramatically.