Speed does NOT kill

http://www.bmwblog.com/2011/04/08/more-speed-restrictions-coming-to-autobahn/

Today I will be writing a post that is a bit different than what I normally write about. I will not be writing about any specific cars in this post but rather an issue that has been bothering me ever since I started driving - speed limits and the governments obsession with lowering them.

I grew up in a small town in Ontario Canada. I loved it - I learned to drive on back roads and county roads that (if you were generous) you could call paved. The roads I learned to drive on had speed limits of 80 KPH unless otherwise posted and because there were not allot of cops around I'm not gonna lie I learned in a safe environment what not to do... I also completed the "Young Drivers of Canada" driving course which I think the Government should make mandatory that has to be passed.

I found out recently that the township I grew up in is going to lower all the speed limits on county roads to 50 KPH. This made me mad beyond belief. Things like this are happening all over this country and as far as I can find there is no legitimate proof that speed/higher speeds kill people. The autobahn is a prime example of this.

http://torquepost.wordpress.com/2011/11/11/did-you-know-german-autobahn-facts/ 
11) There were only 2.2 road user fatalities per billion vehicle kilometres on German Autobahns in 2008, compared to an estimated 4.5 per billion vehicle kilometres in the United States.

That if I'm not mistaken is over double. You would think that the government and people making these speed laws would look at statistics every once and a while. I am not saying that speed does not cause some accidents, it does. The reason for the speed in the first place is the real problem. It is too easy to get a license in this country, therefore there are a lot of stupid drivers on the roads. This causes the most accidents. Stupid people.

Speed does not kill, people kill. A person who does not know how to properly drive, placed behind the wheel of some thing that weighs 3000 lbs traveling at speeds of 50 kph and up, can cause some serious problems. I have been in an accident that almost killed me and my entire family. A women T-boned the car my father was driving at an intersection. Speed was not a factor in the collision. Distraction was - she was on her cell phone texting. People who do not have a speed limit or at least have to adhere to a speed limit that requires there full attention generally are not distracted (I am not saying it doesn't happen, it does. and when it does people die).

What I am saying here basically is that Canada (and the United States) need to stop focusing on lowering speed limits and cramming the road with policemen who make people late for work (thus making them speed faster to make up lost time). Start putting some time into cracking down on driver testing and looking for distracted and wreckless driving. The speed limit has never been proven to cause fatalities. A car driving at 160 KPH is not going to hurt anyone if the people in that car and the people around that car know how to react to it and respond accordingly. For this reason I believe that highway systems should be run like the Autobahn. Certain vehicles (transport trucks and vehicles towing trailors) may have posted speed limits all the time. The majority of vehicles on certain sections of road will pay a toll for having no speed limit (the rest of the road has one of 120 KPH). It should be illegal to pass on the right and very illegal to not give right right of way (move when there is a faster vehicle behind you). And most important of all, make Young Drivers of Canada mandatory to receive a license. We need to remove the bad, distracted drivers from the road. They are what causes accidents, NOT SPEED.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/story/2012/03/01/toronto-distracted-driving.html

The Autobahn works because when the speeds are higher, things happen faster, therefore the driver does not have time to do anything else because they're brain causes them to be afraid. The speeds that this country is currently is trying to enforce are going to cause more harm than good because people are going to think they have more time to answer their phone or look in the back seat or do something that is not driving. That is what causes accidents. When you don't have time to be distracted, less people die.

The government needs to wake up and do their bloody job. Take a look at what actually causes crashes and maybe try to fix it instead of pacifying the masses and spending tax dollars that could be better spent elsewhere.

The car after the crash I mentioned

That is what happens when a driver is distracted and they T bone the car you are in...