Can Lane Discipline Decrease the Sensitivity of Freeway Fatality Rates to Increases in Speed Limits?

Reinhard Clever

No 207618, 50th Annual Transportation Research Forum, Portland, Oregon, March 16-18, 2009 from Transportation Research Forum

Abstract: While research in the United States has consistently shown that freeway fatality rates increase with higher speed limits, freeway fatality rates in Germany with no general speed limit on the autobahns are about the same as they are in the United States. The paper explores different contributing factors which might explain this mystery and which lessons of interest to US freeway operations might be learned. It surmises that a very strict separation of traffic by speed (lane discipline) in Germany as opposed to the US might be the main explanatory factor for the low sensitivity of fatality rates to changes in speed limits in Germany versus a very high sensitivity in the United States.

Keywords: International Development; Research and Development/Tech Change/Emerging Technologies; Resource/Energy Economics and Policy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 17
Date: 2009-03
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ags:ndtr09:207618

DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.207618

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