Speed and its Effects on Road Traffic Crashes

By Prof. Dinesh Mohan

Paper Speed and its effects on road traffic crashes has been written by Professor
Dinesh Mohan, Volvo Chair Professor and Coordinator, Transport Research and Injury
Prevention Programme, Indian Institute of Technology, New Delhi. This paper
highlights the consequences of driving vehicles at greater speeds by reflecting the
views using several evidences of studies by various researchers held in various
countries for the large number of crashes due to the higher speed of vehicles.
The author describes the paper in very obvious manner using the results of various
studies, trials and arguments for presenting the way speed is held responsible for
the fatalities in traffic crashes. The paper presents the way how the speed is most
responsible for the involvement of a vehicle in crash. Paper also reflects the various
factors in relation to speed with their theoretical reasons and practical real life
experiences which are necessary to look after for avoiding crashes and hence to
maintain safety in the field of transportation.
The paper shows the evolution of the result in 1964 after the publication of paper by
USA reporting that speed is also a factor responsible for vehicle crashes which was
till then in early decades not considered as the important risk factor. Speed is shown
largely responsible for the accident involvements other than other factors like age
of drivers, weather, design errors in road, driver errors and visibility problems during
night.
This paper shows the facts and figures that how imposition of lower speed limits in
various countries helped to reduce the traffic crashes and probability of accidents as
vehicle with higher speeds more than the average speed of all traffic are more
vulnerable to accidents as the chances of crash vary on the differential of vehicle
speed and average speed of overall traffic. The outcome of various analysis shows
that the reduction in average speed of vehicles helps in reducing the probability of
traffic crashes, severity of injuries suffered by the users and the fatality rate.
There are always some groups for opposing the results considering the personal
freedom like what Americans responded to the higher speed limits by comparing
along with the man hours saved by travelling at higher speeds and balancing the
economic benefit of raising speed with the harmful consequences of traffic crashes
which sometimes results in fatalities of the users. There are also arguments
regarding the speed limit change leading to more exposure on roads which should
be only important for understanding the theoretical issues and must not be argued
for assessing the unfavorable public health impacts and injuries or deaths.
One of the study presented that average speed reduction of 5% reduces the
expected no. of fatalities by 18.5% which is nearly four times the reduction in
speed. Also there are adequate evidences of presenting that the factors which
reduce speed like design in roads, or higher traffic density speed reduce the
expected fatalities.
It has also been shown theoretically by author that the higher initial speeds results
in the large braking distance as the stopping distance of a vehicle is dependent on

the reaction time of driver which may be more or less depending on the drivers
conditions and braking distance which depends on square of original velocity of the
vehicle which may lead to collision and results are compared for braking distance
with higher and average speeds of vehicle. Also during higher velocities, energy
transfer between the vehicle and the human body is much higher leading to
severity of consequences of crash.
The various facts and figures conclude to the fact that speed control can result in
large no. of savings in injuries and fatality rate on urban and rural roads. European
traffic safety council has recommended maximum limit of 50 kmph and 30 kmph in
urban roads and residential roads respectively. Author has not presented any
suggestions by Indian agencies for driving on Indian roads but however has
presented some suggestions of the speed for various situations according to the
presence of bicyclists and pedestrians on roads.
There are no evidences that driver education works and reduces road crash
involvement, and suggest that it may lead to a modest but potentially important
increase in the proportion of teenagers involved in traffic crashes and thus roads
should be such designed that higher speed limits are not achieved as speed limits
cannot be enforced especially in rural areas where there is very low density of
traffic. Even speed limits cannot be enforced in urban areas without the dedicated
involvement of traffic police. Installation of cameras on intersections with red lights
reduces significant no. of speed limit violators but is a costlier option to enforce the
speed limit and even red lights are not installed on more than 10% of intersections
in any city across the country.
Invention of new cars with higher speed limits is also a major cause encouraging the
teenagers to drive fast due to comfort inside cars. Variation in design of cars doesnt
reduce the traffic crashes unless the speed limit in cars is reduced. Car producing
companies should focus on the safety of road users also instead of only focusing on
earning profits by producing more and more vehicles. Various design factors of road
like lane width, roundabouts etc help in reducing the speed of vehicles leading to
safety of bicyclists and pedestrians on Indian roads. Safety policies and regulatory
frameworks are necessary and very essential for the safe operations of
transportation to reduce the blood spilling on roads due to accidents.
It has been a good attempt of author to show the consequences of driving at speed
which may at least is known to the readers of the paper that these are the statistics
for variation in speeds with the average speed on road. Educating people to reduce
crashes sometimes dont work as wide variations are found between peoples
knowledge and the actual behavior on road and some measures to be only taken by
the professionals in the field of safety to make and impose laws to increase the level
of safety of road users and reduce the injuries and fatalities on road.
It is the responsibility of Government of India to establish the fully dedicated safety
agencies and academic research centers with sufficient no. of professionals to be
part of it for designing the roads to lower the speed limit of vehicles on various
roads and innovative inventions for reducing the crashes of vehicles so that the

driver may not feel easier to drive very fast which is the only way to reduce speed
of traffic without compromising with the quality of roads in the country.
The Govt. should ensure to create long term stable plans and strategies to reduce
traffic crashes on road so that even the road users feel safe to drive and travel
throughout the country and loss of life and property is minimized. Speed control and
traffic calming may be the most effective and promising way to reduce the
fatalities.