Not only that, they used their taxpayer funded national soapbox to try to initiate a blackmail campaign against Montana tourism. This from two Bostonians, who live in a city that, the well-known peculiar habits of its drivers aside, allows people to drive in the breakdown lanes of Interstate highways. Yet I drove, sometimes at very high speed, all over Montana without ever experiencing the heart-stopping moments of terror that were everyday occurrences when I had to drive in Boston every day. Societies that orient their highway safety measures to reducing the speed of impact are missing the boat. Motor vehicle safety should involve getting yourself and your passengers to their destination in one piece, not reducing force of impact.
Proper speed is critical, but it is only one component in the task of avoiding accidents.
In order to take advantage of the great strides in engineering that automobile companies have made since the seventies, we as a society must train all drivers in skid control, steering, proper elapsed time following distance, and the rudimentary physics involved in moving objects. We must do this even if it means that insurance companies will no longer be able to pad their profit margins by raising the rates of motorists that get meaningless speeding tickets on empty roads. Enthusiasts and frequent highway users must pressure politicians to diminish the importance of speed enforcement. One need only to take a ride in Ohio or New York to realize that heavy speed enforcement is not the solution to the bonehead problem. To make driving safer, more efficient, and more enjoyable, we must concentrate enforcement on those who tailgate, fail to yield, terrorize pedestrians and motorcyclists, or have a general attitude problem.