Virginia has built a reputation for tighter highway speed enforcement than most other places. There are officers out there enforcing as hard as the judges will let them. Now Virginia will put speed control devices in the cars of repeat offenders. Like breath testing ignition control devices, these will save lives and the offenders will pay the cost. Just another step toward better road safety for Virginia. They’re a good example for other states to follow.
I expect this to increase the number of vehicle accidents since it is forcing people to drive at speeds well below the well established principle of the 85th percentile. We could have improved safety from increasing speed limits to the 85th percentile rather than trying to artificially slow down motorists. Higher speeds mean cars get off the road faster, which means there is more distance between them. Collisions only happen when the distances between vehicles reach 0, and higher average distances inhibit collisions. Trying to force people to drive slower has all of this logic work in reverse, causing more collisions.
