A common question troopers get asked at social gatherings or in brief conversation is, “How fast can I go over the speed limit before I get pulled over?” The trooper may respond with a rhetorical question, “What is the posted speed limit?” Although speed is probably the most commonly violated law on the roadway, there is a reason why the speed limit should be important to you; will you stop in time?
Two things must be considered when we look at how long it will take a vehicle to stop: 1) Stopping distance plus 2) distance traveled before the driver observes and reacts to brake. Let’s play out the math. Assuming there is a dry road and a motorist has a properly braking passenger vehicle, a vehicle traveling at 55mph will take 144 feet to stop plus an additional 64 feet (based on current perception/reaction time data). This means it will take the vehicle 208 feet to stop.
That is over half of a football field.
Therefore, if a motorist is traveling 55mph on a highway with a two-car length following distance, this vehicle would have already crashed into the vehicle in front of them before the driver began to brake. Many motorists don’t consider the space they need to maintain around them when driving at high rates of speed. Two car lengths is commonly practiced, but it is grossly deficient. A good rule of thumb is to have one car length per 10mph traveled.
In 2023, troopers investigated 2,860 fatal and injury crashes around the state that included speed as a factor. Speeding was found to be the top causal factor for 685 of those crashes, followed by lane violations (632) and impaired driving (588).
The counties that had the most fatalities caused by speeding (based on the crashes referred to above) were:
- Adams
- El Paso
- Mesa
- Eagle
- Mineral
People crash in many speed-related scenarios, especially when coupled with other poor driving choices such as driving while impaired, being distracted or performing other aggressive actions behind the wheel. Motorists need to remember that it is not the initial act of speeding that kills you; the sudden stop at the end does.
The faster you travel, the more distance is traveled, and your potential for a serious injury or fatal crash increases.
Why else should we obey the speed limit? With so many people complaining about speeding and aggressive drivers, we all have contributed to the problem. If the average driver thinks it’s okay to go 5 mph or 10 mph above the speed limit, the risk-takers will go faster than that.
Speeding is a roadway user problem for motorists and pedestrians. So the answer is, the posted speed limit needs to be your top limit. Anything over the posted limit is speeding and subject to a potential citation. Let’s all do our part, to drive down reckless roadway behaviors and put Colorado on track to be one of the safest states to travel.
Troopers continue to take a low-tolerance approach to the top fatal crash factors, including lane violations, impaired driving and speeding, while launching a yearlong campaign called “Drive Safe.” This campaign celebrates positive driving behaviors and encourages all of us to drive like a trooper is riding with you.
Guest Columnist Colorado State Patrol Sgt. Troy Kessler is a public information officer in the CSP Public Affairs unit.
Oh, how I wish this advice would be listened to! We all see speeders every day, every time of day. However, I never see any police cars pulling over those speeders. Actually, it’s rare to even SEE a police car in areas of consistent speed violators. That to me means we don’t have enough staff in our patrol department.
Thank you, Sgt. Kessler, for your important safety message. I have one question: I’m not very good at judging distance to the car in front of me (and I suspect not many are), so 1 car length for 10 mph travelled doesn’t really work for me. My brother once explained the “3 second rule” as picking a landmark (sign, light pole, bridge,…) and counting the number of seconds between when the car in front passed that landmark and when you reach that landmark. If it’s under 3 seconds, you’re either driving too fast or too close. Is that an appropriate rule to follow? Thank you.
Why else should we obey the speed limit?” you ask, Sergeant Kessler? How about the law that goes E=½mv²? It gets enforced even if the Colorado State Patrol, or even the Colorado Legislature does not exist. It means that if, instead of the 55 mph in your examples, the “object in motion” has a speed of 75 mph, the “smash factor” available to crumple metal and rend human flesh has roughly doubled. The penalty is not often imposed, but when it is, it is usually death … instant and with no appeal.
Another side of that, though: it is impossible to tell by looking at it, whether a speed limit sign was placed there by an engineer with an understanding of the laws of the universe, or a politician playing games with the rules. Also, in cases of DUI especially, the punishment is too often not imposed on the speeder, but on the father, mother, and children in a car that WAS going 55 mph.
Thanks for a noble try, Sergeant, but this is not going to be solved by signs, tickets, points, or Drive Safe campaigns. We, the people of Colorado must not only “… assert our rights, acknowledge our duties …” also (as the Preamble of Colorado’s own Bill of Rights puts it), becoming responsible personally for our choices.