Losing the "speed kills" argument was so devastating to rapacious law enforcement agencies, greedy insurance companies and their patrons in government that it became necessary to modify the grand strategy.
It's hard, after all, to keep bilking the masses with trumped-up "speeding" tickets - and to hector drivers about the sheer peril of proceeding at the godawful rate of 65 or 75 mph - when NHTSA's own data found no increase in highway fatalities following repeal of the much hated 55 mph. national speed limit back in 1995.
Desperate for a rationale to justify the ongoing highway robbery - radar traps, insurance premium "surcharges," etc. - the PR phenomenon of "road rage" and "aggressive driving" was ginned up to keep the ticket-writers busy.
Transportation Secretary Ricardo Martinez, for example, has been peddling the made-up statistic that two-thirds of all motor vehicle fatalities can be attributed to "aggressive/reckless driving" - which he defines to include everything from passing on the right to flipping the bird to vehicular homicide.
Credulous reporters - most of whom hate cars anyway or live in cities and ride the bus - have lapped this swill eagerly and conveyed every morsel to their readers and viewers, often with tear-jerking photos of mangled minivans and a teddy bear in the road as a backdrop. Please.
In truth, we should all thank Mr. Martinez for bearing us these happy tidings. According to his rather interesting logic, we no longer have to worry about losing control of our cars on wet roads, about skidding into a telephone poll on a wintry day, about having a semi roll over on us on the highway.
Accidents, you see, are a thing of the past - and crowbar-wielding psychopaths the chief danger to our well-being. At least if you buy into the melon-head notion that "two-thirds" of the approximately 41,907 annual fatalities on American highways are caused by maniac drivers.
Bunk. Aside from the over-hyped and rare freeway altercations that have resulted in spectacular crashes, most people who get killed in cars are victims of their own misjudgment, poor road conditions, or the bad judgment/reflexes of another driver.
There's no malice involved accidents happen.
But media people keep distorting the issue by implying that incidents such as the recent duel on Washington's George Washington Memorial Parkway are commonplace when in fact they're rare outbursts by marginal people.
Ordinary people aren't "losing it" in record numbers and killing each other over some minor act of traffic rudeness such as being cut off.
Giving another driver the finger is one thing; spraying him with Uzi fire quite another (how many people keep loaded firearms under the seat?).
So where does Mr. Martinez get the "data" he uses to support his patent medicine claim that two- thirds of all motorist deaths are the result of frothing lunatics and not just driver error or plain old bad luck? That "dangerous, reckless" drivers are proliferating?
Simple - he makes it up.
Like any good bureaucrat, Mr. Martinez knows how to fiddle with definitions and numbers. Want to present a dire picture of motorized Visigoth rampaging up and down I-95? here's how you do that:
Change traffic laws so certain offenses that previously were rather innocuous can be defined in a way not so innocuous. The classic example of this is the new definition of "reckless driving" being used by many states around the country -including Virginia, where I happen to live.
In Virginia and elsewhere, getting reiterate at more than 20 mph over the posted limit incurs an automatic charge of "reckless driving" - even if you were doing nothing more than driving 76 mph in a 55 zone.
You don't have to be endangering anyone or doing anything that could reasonably be defined as "reckless." All that's necessary is that you run afoul of an arbitrary "speed" law that bears no relation whatever to safe rates of travel.
Since 55 is universally ignored (because it is stupid to drive that slowly on a modern interstate high way designed for safe travel at 75 mph or faster), the cops have a field day laying that "reckless" charge indiscriminately on almost everyone they pull over. And the court records - ta-da! - begin to reflect an upsurge in "reckless" driver behavior.
A neat trick. But not so neat for the motorists who wind up paying a 50 percent insurance surcharge or having to hire a well-paid lawyer - to get them off the hook for a "reckless driving" charge they never deserved.
Eric Peters writes on automotive issues for The Washington Times.
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