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I'm a curious person and often go down a rabbit hole to investigate something
that grabs my attention. Recently I saw a post with the following on a Facebook group I follow. Was this another piece of Facebook crap, a hoax, a post to get people angry to get views, or was there some truth in the statement. I decided to do a Google search. The basic results said this statement has been circulating for a number of years. One legal site even gave credence to the quote, but there was no reference to where the quote came from, or any justification. It took a while but I found this article which can be used to dispel the claim. Basically reading this article provides some excellent insight. It makes sense. If cars travelled at the same speed they wouldn't pass each other and thus there's no opportunity to collide. The greater the variance in speed from the average, the greater the number of cars they'd pass, or that would overtake them increasing the opportunity to collide. But do slower drivers pose a greater risk than speeding drivers. First let's clarify. When cars slow down for turns or to stop, there's an increased risk. However if we take the situation of a busy road, that has no turns, so the only difference is if drivers are going slower or faster than the average (which is not necessarily the speed limit), then does a slower driver post a greater risk than a speeding driver. Figure 2 from a linked article I feel is potentially useful for the claim about slower drivers. As you can see from the diagram, drivers deviating from the mean by +/- 5.5 mph (approx. 9km/h) is relatively flat, with only a slightly greater increase in a crash involvement as drivers speed. We can see at -15.5mph (25km/h) the slow driver risk increases six times, however for speeding drivers, the risk increases more. Whilst both slow and fast drivers face an increased risk, speeding drivers face a greater risk, which some could interpret as posing a greater risk. Secondly, we can see with this data, the risk only reaches 6 times for the slower drivers once we reach 15.5 mph, which is significantly more than the 10 mph that was stated. So the level of risk stated is exaggerated and that slower drivers pose a greater risk than speeding drivers is wrong. So I'd say this statement is blown and therefore not true.
I hope others find the research data useful. |
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