Does traveling faster than speed limit increase the risk and the crashes?

Answer 1

As long as you do not exceed the speed that the road can accommodate, and as long as you do not drive so quickly as to become a safety risk to nearby slower moving vehicles, speed by itself has very little to do with the likelihood of encountering a collision. Consider Germany and the USA, for example. Germany has an advanced highway system, including autobahns with long stretches of no speed limits at all. It is common to encounter vehicles travelling faster than 250 Km/h (150 mph) on these highways.

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USA also has an advanced highway system, including Interstate highways, with most stretches limited to 75mph or slower. And yet, the USA has a 50% higher highway fatality rate than Germany. (Source: Estimating Global Road Fatalities, Department for International Development, London, UK).

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Therefore, speed is a poor predictor of the likelihood of encountering a collision.

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In the USA, the most useful predictors to determine the likelihood of encountering a collision are:

• Impairment/distraction (primary cause of 94% of all fatal accidents)
• Gender (80% of all fatal accidents involve male drivers)
• Age (a driver under the age of 25 is nearly twice as likely to encounter a fatal accident as a drive over 25)

Speed is not even considered a major contributor to fatal traffic accidents in the USA.

(Source: Evaluation of Traffic Crash Fatality, Causes and Effects, US Federal Department of Transport)