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from the 'hit-the-road'-but-don't-take-it-literally dept.
ScienceNews reports on a report from the CDC (informative graph):
U.S. drivers love to hit the road. The problem is doing so safely.
In 2013, 32,894 people in the United States died in motor vehicle crashes. Although down since 2000, the overall death rate - 10.3 per 100,000 people - tops 19 other high-income countries, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported July 8. Belgium is a distant second with 6.5 deaths per 100,000. Researchers reviewed World Health Organization and other data on vehicle crash deaths, seat belt use and alcohol-impaired driving in 2000 and 2013.
Canada had the highest percentage of fatal crashes caused by drunk drivers: 33.6 percent. New Zealand and the United States tied for second at 31 percent. But Canada and 16 other countries outperformed the United States on seat belt use - even though, in 2013, 87 percent of people in the United States reported wearing safety belts while riding in the front seat.
Spain saw the biggest drop - 75 percent - in its crash death rate. That country improved nearly all aspects of road safety, including decreasing alcohol-impaired driving and increasing seat belt use, the researchers say.
(Score: 2) by butthurt on Sunday July 24 2016, @08:15AM
You may be thinking of the National Maximum Speed Law, which was a law approved by the U.S. Congress and President Nixon.
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9B0CE1DC143CE63BBC4B53DFB766838F669EDE&legacy=true [nytimes.com]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Maximum_Speed_Law [wikipedia.org]
Reagan had signed a 55 mph limit into law in California, when he was governor of that state.
http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/REFLECTIONS-3053481.php [sfgate.com]
The national 55 mph limit was raised during Reagan's tenure as president, with his approval, to 65 mph. It wasn't by executive order, rather the National Maximum Speed Law was revised.
https://www.newsreview.com/reno/return-to-fast/content?oid=9546174 [newsreview.com]
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Sunday July 24 2016, @08:27AM
It is not so much the law, it is the Federal extortion that Reagan enacted!
From your Wikipedia cite:
On June 1, 1986, Nevada challenged the NMSL by posting a 70 mph (115 km/h) limit on 3 miles (5 km) of Interstate 80. The Nevada statute authorizing this speed limit included language that invalidated itself if the federal government suspended transportation funding. Indeed, the Federal Highway Administration immediately withheld highway funding, which automatically invalidated the statute by its own terms
Reagan's Federal Highway Administration.
(Score: 2) by butthurt on Sunday July 24 2016, @09:50AM
The law was enacted by the Congress and President Nixon in 1974. From the beginning it provided that federal funding be withheld from states that didn't have a 55 mph limit. Reagan's Federal Highway Administration, it would appear, was simply enforcing in 1986 what had been the will of Congress and President Nixon in 1974. I suppose Reagan could have ordered the FHA not to enforce the law; do you prefer that sort of government? I didn't find information about the supposed executive order by Reagan "that forced the 55mph speed limit on the States." They're available online at the link below; if you find it let me know. Really he should not have had to issue any such order for the funding to be withheld from Nevada.
http://www.archives.gov/federal-register/executive-orders/reagan.html [archives.gov]
(Score: 1) by ncc74656 on Tuesday July 26 2016, @03:15AM
Unlike the present lawless regime, the FHWA under Reagan was enforcing the laws on the books, flawed as they were. Note that he had no problem signing into law the 65-mph speed limit a couple of years later, a step on the way to the eventual recission of federal speed limits in the mid-'90s.
Would you have preferred that he just ignored the law or used his pen and his phone to weasel out of doing the job he was elected to do? That way lies madness, as we are now seeing.