85 Mile Per Hour Speed Limit in Texas: Approve?

I don't know about any "pseudo scientific jargon" of which you speak. I do know from the reality of working for nearly 20 years as an X-ray technologist in various hospitals on both coasts. My experience and that of co-workers and other professionals in the hospitals where I worked can be summed up by telling you that, up to a certain speed, the severity of injuries suffered by mva victims increases almost exponentially until you reach the point where injuries are replaced by death.

Sometimes we treated severely injured victims in the ER and they still died. Sometimes they died en route, bypassed the ER, and went directly to the morgue. And sometimes the bodies were bagged at the scene and were taken to the mortuary. Those we heard about from the Ambulance Drivers and Police Officers who had the unenviable job of being first on the scene.

In virtually all cases, the biggest determining factor of how bad the injuries were was speed: the higher the speed, the worse the accident and associated injuries.

Interestingly, though, a negative factor in injury severity is alcohol. A drunk driver (or passenger) is frequently LESS severely injured than other passengers in the same car or other cars involved in the same accident. The reason: drunk people are more relaxed at the moment of impact while people who are sober and aware of what's happening tend to tense up and, at the least, get more fractures of the long bones. (Being asleep when the accident happens can give the same results.)

I suppose, if you wanted to, you could try to make the case that driving while drunk or asleep is safer than sober and alert.

Your tale of driving 80 - 85 mph on the roads of West Texas and being passed by women in ranch pickups is interesting but hardly compelling. I've driven in rural, Upstate New York where rush hour consisted of three cars on the same 20 mile stretch of road at the same time. I've been in 5:00pm traffic on the George Washington Bridge going from Manhattan into New Jersey. That was when the National speed limit was 55mph, but God help the poor soul doing less than 70 in that traffic!

I've had the same and similar experiences driving in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada Mountains of California and I5 going through the San Joaquin Valley, as well as the freeways of the foothills of the Los Angeles Basin.

Ditto Eastern Oregon, Washington, Idaho and Montana vs Portland, Or and Seattle, Wa.

Granted, improvements in technology and design have improved gas mileage and the crash worthiness of more modern vehicles. But that doesn't change physics and the way the human body responds to the stresses and strains of an mva. And, all other factors being equal, the one thing you can count on is: More speed equals more injuries and deaths.

Summary of our exchanges:

Me: I predicted that increased speed will result in more severe accidents, injuries and deaths.

You: Accused me of using pseudo-science. Claimed that reality shows that inreased speed resulted in decreased deaths.

Me: I gave you my credentials and the experience from which I draw my conclusions.

You: Restate my conclusion. Then restate yours. Then reference a wikipedia article.

Me: After reviewing the article you cite as your authority, I point out that it's not even on-topic, much less supportive of your premise.

You: "OK, ignore the data I cited. It's not important, now. Just trust me."

Me: I make a somewhat snide reference to politiciations.

You: Now reference your experience in sales, with over 1.5 million miles traveled.


So now we're down to your experience vs my experience. And you expect me to believe and accept that your 30 yrs. and 1.5 million miles of driving experience as a salesman somehow trumps my 20 yrs. of ER experience dealing with the wide array of traumatic injuries, suffering and deaths caused by mvas, the severity of which was directly related to speed..... Sorry, that's not going to happen.

Without apology, I claim my experience to be more valid than your experience. Yours can only claim that (apparently) in 30 yrs. and 1.5M miles, nothing bad happened to you. Mine demonstrates, beyond any doubt in my mind and the minds of those who shared or had similar experience, that people involved in car accidents get hurt. And the faster they're going when it occurs the worse the damage to the human body.

I will stipulate that many salesmen might agree with you. But I will assert without hesitation that the majority of Hospital ER, EMT and Law Enforcement Personnel will echo my conclusion.