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To the Editor:

You are probably familiar with Aesop’s fable about the tortoise and the hare. The tortoise, even though he is much slower than the hare, wins their race with a “slow but steady” strategy.

West Hartford’s roads are filled with drivers who speed around like the hare. As a result, our town has experienced a rash of serious and fatal vehicle crashes despite substantial efforts to redesign our roads and enforce posted speed limits.

Why is speeding so dangerous? I recently read a national report on this problem, and here’s what I learned:

1. The risk of being involved in a crash increases with vehicle speed. More speed, more crashes.
2. Increased speed reduces the time available to a driver to receive and process all of the information visible to them through the windshield. Critical information like the locations of other vehicles and vulnerable road users (pedestrians and bicyclists), as well as road conditions. With less time to process all of this information, a dangerous crash is more likely.
3. The vehicle stopping distance increases with greater speed. With greater speed, your vehicle will travel further before you can bring it to a stop, making a crash more likely.
4. There is a dramatic increase in the risk of a fatal pedestrian crash with increasing vehicle speed. Consider these data from the report:

Vehicle Speed (MPH)              Percentage of Fatal Pedestrian Crashes

20                                            5%

30                                            45%

40                                            85%

We all have a responsibility for the safety of other members of our community. When we drive our vehicles at excessive speeds, we dramatically increase the risk of serious and fatal crashes to all others who share the road with us. Surely we all can agree that the enormous public health benefits realized by driving the speed limit are worth the minor inconvenience of arriving at your destination a few minutes later.

So my message to the community is very simple: Be the tortoise. Drive the speed limit. Show the community that you care about their health and safety.

You can demonstrate your commitment to the community by signing the Vision Zero Safe Driver Pledge: https://www.westhartfordct.gov/town-departments/engineering/visionzero

Vision Zero pledge car magnet. Photo credit: Ronni Newton (we-ha.com file photo)

Edward Pawlak
Chair, West Hartford Pedestrian and Bicycle Commission