State Traffic Deaths Running At An All-Time Low Increased Speed Limit Hasn’t Led To Expected Rise

Washington state’s traffic fatality rate reached an all-time low in the first half of the year despite higher freeway speed limits, statistics indicate.

As of June 30, the state had recorded 1.07 deaths per 100 million miles of travel, down from annual rates of 1.3 to 1.4, Washington State Patrol Capt. Mike Dupee said.

The rate has not been tabulated for succeeding months but as of Sept. 3 the state had recorded 421 traffic deaths, 11 percent fewer than the 475 that occurred in the same period last year.

The increase in fatalities that some feared when freeway speed limits were raised in March 1996 failed to materialize, John Moffat, director of the state Traffic Safety Commission, acknowledged Friday.

“There is nothing to indicate things have gone terribly wrong,” Moffat said. “We’re pretty happy where Washington state is right now.”

“We were reasonably concerned,” said Monty Lish, president of the Evergreen Safety Council. “There are so many other factors … speed is not just the only problem.”

Legal limits were increased, generally by 5 mph, four months after Congress removed federal restrictions on freeway speed.

Since then, traffic commission figures show 30 interstate highway deaths in the state through June this year, compared with 33 in the same period last year, 25 in the first half of 1995, 27 in the first half of 1994, 28 in the first half of 1993 and 38 in the first half of 1992.

“People travel at speeds they want to travel at, and what we found was that people were traveling at about the speed we posted,” said David Peach, Washington state’s chief traffic engineer.

In places where speed limits were increased 5 or 10 mph, drivers generally began going an average of about 2 mph faster, state research indicates.

In neighboring Oregon, where speed limits were left unchanged, there were 350 traffic deaths in January-August this year, 30 more than in the same period last year, state figures showed.

Nationwide, the National Safety Council reported a slight decline in highway fatalities, from 13,730 to 13,700, during the first five months of this year.