CNBC explains 'Why U.S. Speed Limits Are Wrong,' a driving update

Snow Bear's odometer passed 9,000 miles as I drove her yesterday, so it's time for another entry about driving. I begin with CNBC explaining Why U.S. Speed Limits Are Wrong.

In 2019, 9,478 Americans lost their lives from speeding, contributing to more than a quarter of all traffic fatalities in the year. Speed limits were created to avoid situations like this. Yet, millions of Americans continue to speed every year. Many experts argue that the current speed limits might be too unrealistic and arbitrary to have any impact on how fast people drive. Watch the video to understand what’s wrong, what’s right and how the U.S. can fix speed limits on the road.

Remember, those stats are for 2019 and don't include those for 2020, when I wrote Most Americans stay home, allowing people to speed on open roads, a driving update for Pearl during June 2020, Americans speeding during the pandemic is increasing traffic deaths, a driving update, and Traffic accidents down but fatal accidents up in Michigan while drivers overpaid $1 billion for insurance during 2020, a driving update, all of which document the effects of the pandemic on Americans' driving habits. More realistic laws and stricter enforcement may be necessary to convince Americans to drive more safely, but I think something deeper is going on that needs to be addressed.



As I mentioned at the beginning of the post, Snow Bear rolled past 9,000 miles on Monday, February 7, 2022. That's 328 days since the car turned over 8,000 miles on March 16, 2021. That translates to 3.05 miles per day, 92.99 miles per standard month, and 1112.80 miles per standard year. That's less than the 4.17 miles per day, 127.08 miles per standard month, and 1,520.83 miles per standard year my wife and I drove her between July 26, 2020 and March 16, 2021. That decrease comes despite my driving her for errands (she has more cargo capacity) and the weather (she's better in snow and has heated seats, a feature I finally started using this winter). Maybe that's because the weather was warmer between March and December 2021 (January and February 2022 have been another story) and I drove very little to work this calendar year so far because of the Omicron wave, instead teaching remotely from home. That will end in May, when I expect to return to the classroom.

I expect I will post another driving update for Pearl later this month or early next month, when I will also post a graph of total miles driven and analyze my driving on both vehicles. In the meantime, stay tuned for this blog's 5000th post.