Advantages of Speed Limits - Essay Example

The reason why the speed limit has risen is the advancement in technology which includes better roads and better vehicles. This limit is put in place to reduce road accidents, protect the environment, and also to enable police to easily apprehend suspicious motorists. The speed limit differs from region to region and highways have higher speed limits than areas with high population example areas near a school, the setting of speed limits depends on the nature of the road, accident records of a section of the road, and the judgment of engineers and politicians. This paper discusses the importance and advantages of speed limits.

Advantages of speed limits:
Speed limits are put in place to reduce accidents, some roads have had many fatal accidents which are directly related to speed, therefore to reduce such accidents some laws limit speed to reduce accidents. Roads that pass through residential or highly populated areas have a lower speed limit to reduce the accidents these vehicles may cause, from physics kinetic energy rises as the speed rises, therefore the kinetic energy at impact will increase as the speed rises and therefore high speeds will lead to more fatal accidents. The speed limit allows motorists to travel at a reasonable speed, some sections of a road may have had a high number of fatal accidents in the past, and to reduce these accidents the speed limit is reduced to reduce such accidents. Therefore speed limits reduce the number of injuries and deaths that may occur due to overspeeding motorists.
It is also evident that speed limits enable police to apprehend criminals, in most cases the police can identify criminals on roads. Criminals will tend to drive at high speeds which helps the police to identify the criminals and as a result, this hurts the crime rate, drivers driving under the influence of alcohol also tend to drive at high speeds and therefore the police are also able to identify them, as a result of this we can state that the speed limits reduce crime and other deviant behaviors.
The fines imposed on road users because of over speeding is a source of revenue to the government, therefore speed limit laws earn the government some revenue which helps in the provision of public goods, however, this revenue is not of much importance than the protection of road users from other careless drivers who do not follow road rules.
Environmental protection is also an advantage of setting the speed limit, speeding vehicles consume more fuel and therefore pollute the environment more, therefore by setting the speed limit fuel consumption is reduced and as a result, the environment is protected, therefore speed limits do not only help in reducing accidents and help the police in arresting criminals but also helps in protecting the environment.
The other advantage of setting the speed limit is that it is possible to identify reckless drivers on the road, some road users do not obey traffic rules and therefore may cause accidents that may lead to the loss of lives even to innocent motorists, as a result of this these reckless drivers are identified and their license suspended or fined in court.
The speed limits should be viewed as a law that governs road users to drive reasonably, if the speed limit on the roads were removed then we will be increasing the number of accidents, deaths, and injuries on the road, the other problem that would rise is pollution and this is because speeding vehicles consume more fuel and therefore pollutes the environment more.

When the speed limits are suspended then the number of accidents would increase and also there would be an increase in environmental pollution which includes air and noise pollution. Fines imposed on those who break the law on the road are a source of government revenue but this is not of much more important than the protection of lives on the road that would be lost if there were no speed limits. Read More