What are the possible outcomes of raising or removing speed limits in regard to traffic deaths?

1. They could go up
2. They could go down
3. They could remain unchanged.

The study claims deaths go down. Which means that speed is a factor in traffic deaths (otherwise we’d expect no change at all).

So it would seem that allowing people to drive faster by raising or removing speed limits saves lives. Does it? Why?

First of all, we’d have to consider what speeed people are actually driving at. Does raising limits encourage more people to drive faster as a result? Will speeders simply “up the ante”?

Let’s assume that in general, people as a whole will drive faster. Some people of course, will continue to drive “under the limit” due to personal pyschology, confidence and ability; but perhaps we can assume they’ll drive a little faster as well. However, it would make sense that the “speed difference ratio” between fast and slow drivers wouldn’t change too much as a result.

Perhaps we need to consider the relation between fast and slow cars. Could it be that slow people “cause” accidents simply because they get in the way of fast people? Perhaps, but if that’s the case one could still argue speeding is the problem.

Maybe the key has nothing to do with speed at all. What if simply raising or removing the limit is enough to reduce traffic deaths? How could this be?

Perhaps in the absence of a speed limit, drivers will be more likely to “herd” in an “organic” manner. Flows of fast and slow traffic will tend toward moving together. So, perhaps there is an improvisational and emergment speed of traffic that result from the interaction of cars on the road.

In such a case, people would be less worried about loooking at their speedometers, and more time watching the traffic around them?

Maybe?