Illinois study: U.S. speed limits directly impact deaths

By William Atkins
Monday, 20 July 2009 18:32

Science - Health

In 1995, the maximum speed limit on interstate highways in the United States was changed from 55 miles per hour (mph) nationwide to a state-regulated system (that resulted in many speeds of 65 mph or above). A research study concludes that the change directly caused an extra 12,500 deaths over the next ten years on U.S. interstates.


The study performed by researchers at the School of Public Health of the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) is to be published in the September 2009 issue of the American Journal of Public Health.

According to the July 16, 2009 UIC press release Higher Speed Limits Cost Lives, “It is the first long-term study to evaluate the impact of repealing the National Maximum Speed Law on road fatalities and injuries in fatal crashes between 1995 and 2005.”

The authors of the study are Lee Friedman (assistant research professor of Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences at UIC and lead author of the study), Donald Hedeker (UIC School of Public Health), and Elihu Richter, (Hebrew University, Jerusalem, Israel).

In 1974, the maximum speed limit on U.S. interstate highways was restricted to 55 miles (88.5 kilometers) per hour. It was primarily instituted as a consequence of the oil embargo.

The oil crisis began on October 17, 1973, when nations comprising OAPEC (Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries) declared an oil embargo based on the decision by the United States to supply the military of Israel during the Yom Kippur war.

OAPEC consists of OPEC (Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries) plus the countries of Egypt and Syria. OPEC consists of the countries of Algeria, Angola, Ecuador, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Libya, Nigeria, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Venezuela.

In the first year that the new speed law was enacted, according to the Illinois researchers, there was a 17% reduction in the number of deaths on interstate roads in the United States. However, the law was modified in 1987 to allow states to raise the speed limit on some U.S. interstates to 65 miles per hour.

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