Doug Dahl has a question for Washington drivers.
Doug Dahl
Target Zero
This week, instead of answering one of your questions, I have a question for you. But first, I need you on my side. You’re likely familiar with the following quote, sometimes apocryphally credited to Abraham Lincoln: “My right to swing my fist ends where your nose begins.” There’s a 150-plus history of Americans agreeing with that sentiment, so if that doesn’t ring true for you, you’re the outlier.
Of course, it’s a metaphor, and it’s been applied to many situations besides fists and noses, including arguments against slavery, bars in neighborhoods, and smoking in public. It’s also an argument in favor of a person’s right to do whatever they’d like as long as it doesn’t harm someone else.
Today I’m applying that principle to driving: Your liberty to drive how you’d like ends where it puts other road users at risk. If you think about it, that’s the fundamental principle underlying much of our traffic law. Driving impaired, reckless, distracted, or exceeding the speed limit; these are all prohibited because they create an unnecessary risk to others.
Now imagine that there is a $1.99 device that car manufacturers can install in new cars that can identify if a driver is impaired and prevent them from driving, without the driver having to do anything outside of their normal routine. It could save 13,000 lives a year in the US alone, reduce serious injuries even more, and reduce the burden on emergency responders. That would be amazing, right? I’m guessing most of you would support that.
How about if there was a device that was free and could save 12,000 lives a year by preventing drivers from speeding? Would you be in favor of that? Not as many of you this time. I bring this up because this technology already exists and could be coming soon to a car near you. A new car knows the speed limit. With a bit of programming it could be made to never exceed it.
Starting this year, new cars in Europe will give drivers an audible alert if they exceed the speed limit. A bill in California is proposing something similar. But that wasn’t how the California bill started; it originally intended to prevent vehicles from driving more than ten mph over the speed limit. Is that government overreach or wise transportation planning?
We tend to agree that a person’s right to be impaired ends when they get in a driver’s seat. Why do many of us believe we should have the option to speed, even though it’s prohibited by law and there’s low to no-cost technology that could prevent it?
Maybe it’ll help if I make this less personal. Should we allow school bus drivers to speed? A recent observation study found that half of school bus drivers speed in school zones. Nearly a quarter of those speeding drivers exceeded the speed limit by at least 10 mph. That’s a problem, right? We likely could convince the powers that be to install speed limiters in school buses.
But that would be a bit hypocritical; in that same study about three-quarters of car drivers were speeding. And the school bus fatal crash rate is .2 fatalities per 100 million miles compared to 1.5 fatalities per 100 million miles for passenger vehicles. We kill ourselves and others over seven times more frequently than school bus drivers do.
We’ve tried for decades to warn people not to speed and write a few tickets to those who do, and still every year we have five-digit fatality counts due to speeding. Maybe it’s time to take away the option.
Doug Dahl is the Target Zero manager and communications lead at the Washington Traffic Safety Commission.
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Doug Dahl explains why drivers often misjudge their speed, especially when using cruise control or transitioning from freeway to city streets.
I guess the police should just search people for guns, or stop your car looking for drugs, or search your home for child porn, or frisk people leaving a store? Maybe a blood test from time to time looking for Phytanyl or Meth? I mean, how many personal freedoms do we give up in the name of safety?
Unfortunately for me there is nothing I trust in regards to our WSDOT and anyone connected to it. This article for me is telling me something like what was attempted in California to control speed and impairment has already been decided in Washington. By the same people trying to sell us on a bridge we do not need….tolls we do not want….light rail we do not want….the list goes on. So, my distrust isn’t just some conspiracy minded thinking it is based in previous actions by WSDOT. Look at the tolling nightmare around the Seattle area….and they want to bring that down here. What kind of nuts stuff do you think they have in mind for all of Washington? That said, yep what the heck is going on with all the dangerous drivers today? However, they are everywhere not just Washington state. On my street speed bumps were added. People slowed for a bit. Now its a race between speed bumps. City buses being some of the worse. School bus drivers are not that much better. And surprisingly it is not the young kids speeding….its the Soccer Moms, School Mommies picking up their kids. Around here, mostly higher end vehicles, new vehicles. The Hot Rod group ALL drive cautiously slow. You are right to a degree….to slow people down you will have to install devices triggering automatic ticketing, audible alarms…..or just slow down the car. Which for me might lead to collateral issues. What if I needed to speed up to avoid something and then couldn’t? Can I sue the state for lost of life? The manufacturer? These kinds of questions need to be vetted before any WSDOT decision is made or as Jay would do it……just make it so because he can.
So why not require cars to be totally autonomous and not let people drive at all? Would that save lives? Why give people “choice” when someone may be harmed? Why not put so many controls in place no one can ever be harmed? Shall we also have sensors in the vehicle that can tell what it contains and notify the police if a “odor” indicates something against the law? Why not allow the police or other government agency to intercede as needed based on safety? Where does the slippery slope start and end?
I don’t believe that the government should be requiring appliances that try to “save us from ourselves.” While I don’t drink and have never driven “under the influence” if my car requires some steps to start it to “prove” that I was sober, that would be a hinderance on my freedom to just get in my car and drive. (And there is always the possibility that the device gives a false positive — then what?) Likewise, speed limiting devices could cost you your life. Consider when Mt. St. Helens erupted, one driver escaped death, while a slower driver was overtaken by the deadly gasses and died. (You can look up the news reports on this one.) While this is an exceptional situation, there are more common situations where “getting out of the way” quickly is necessary (i.e. to avoid a crazy person on the highway — something I’ve experience more than once in my life). 99% of the time a device that limited me to 10 MPH over the posted speed limit would have no effect on me, but it’s that 1% of the time where it might cause a real problem. Added to that, one of my vehicles had a GPS that advised the speed limit. It was mostly correct, but I noted many times that speed limit signs had been changed and the “system” limit was either higher or lower than the “posted” limit. Further, limiting devices likely would not be able to deal with lower limits in construction zones and other temporary situations.
If in some future time when fully automated vehicles are in significant and regular use, then such limiting devices might make sense, but with ordinary people, making driving errors that people are prone to make, an artificial limitation device is more likely to cause harm than to improve safety on the highways.
Gavsky…. after reading all your comments…. uhmm, you ok? Been off your meds very long? It might be time for a check up.