ISLAND VOICES
Set speed limits at the speed 85 percent drive

By Courtney Brown
Director of the Government Efficiency Team

People obey laws either because they are forced to or because they want to. In a free society, laws should not be enacted that a majority of people are forced to obey.

Reasonable people follow reasonable laws, and when a majority of reasonable people blatantly disregard a law, then that law should be re-evaluated. In Hawai'i, speed-limit laws are something that a majority of reasonable people are disregarding, and they should be re-evaluated.

Years of research have gone into developing procedures on how to set speed limits. The result of this research is what is known as the 85th percentile. The 85th percentile is the speed at or below which 85 percent of motorists on a given section of road drive. Research has shown that even if the speed limit is increased or lowered, traffic patterns remain relatively the same.

This is because a majority of drivers travel at what they deem to be reasonable speeds for the section of road on which they are traveling. If the speed limit is too high, reasonable drivers will go slower than the posted limit, and if the speed limit is too low, a majority of drivers will travel faster than the speed limit.

Speed limits that are too low can be a hazard because reasonable motorists who perceive of no good reason to obey the limit will drive at speeds they deem to be reasonable. Because a majority of motorists will disregard the low speed limit, the few motorists who do slow down cause a hazard and will increase the risk factor for an accident as they are traveling in faster traffic.

The safest speed is that which the majority of drivers are traveling, because cars traveling at similar speeds will have fewer reasons to pass, and fewer fender-benders.

A majority of states follow the 85th percentile guidelines in setting speed limits. This means that a majority of drivers are setting the standard for speed limits. Hawai'i does not follow this standard, and it should.

Why should 85 percent of drivers be forced to follow arbitrary speed limits when there is a consensus as to how fast to drive? When speed limits are set at the 85th percentile, they will be self-enforced because drivers will naturally follow them.

There will always be a few unreasonable drivers who, for one reason or another will exceed the 85th percentile speed set by the majority of drivers, and they are the ones who should be forced to slow down or face the fines.

Correction: Courtney Brown, a director of the Government Efficiency Team, wrote this column. A previous version of this column was inadvertently credited to someone else.