Intro:

Why are people always speeding, you may ask? Even with knowing the potential

consequences of getting a ticket or getting into a car crash. The speed limit is put there for a

reason. The speed limit is put there for your own safety, but it is also there to regulate the

flow of traffic. People don’t really care about the speed limit because they just want to get

from point A to point B. But let me change the outlook you have on speeding and how it

affects others. Let’s look at the problems of the speed limit, what causes speed limit

violations, and some possible solutions for it.

Body:

Problems: There’s many problems that come with not following the speed limit, here are

some.

 People don’t follow the posted speed limit.

 Don’t take into consideration the danger they are imposing on others

 Your reaction time decreases as your vehicle’s speed increases

 The faster the vehicle speeds, the longer it takes to stop it.

 The faster the vehicle speeds, the less time you have to react to

what’s in front of you.

 Deadlier or more fatal crashes

 A crash at a higher speed contains more energy, which means

there will be more damage done to you, your vehicle, and what

you hit.
  People are dying young.

 The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration states that

“Up to age 34, almost twice as many males die in speeding

crashes than females.”

 Innocent people are getting involved

 An example can be a police chase, innocent bystanders can be

hit or killed because the driver was speeding to try and get away

from the police.

 A Connecticut law firm, Woolf Law Firm LLC, stated that “By

analyzing data from the past several decades, researchers have

estimated that an average of 323 people are killed each year in

police chases, and innocent bystanders account for 27 percent of

these deaths.”

 Tickets/Jail Time

 Depending on how much you were driving over the speed limit

you can get a hefty ticket, get your license suspended, or even

get jail time for reckless driving charges.

 These problems bring me to my first survey question

 Out of 6 responses, all of them answered yes to speeding. I wonder how

many of those 6 responses thought of the consequences of speeding or

are just doing it to get to their destination faster.

 Now that I have mentioned the problems of not following the speed limit, let’s look

into what causes it.

Causes:

 Running late

 The problem with this is that I’ve heard the phrase. “Better late than

never” It’s better to arrive late than to not arrive at all because you

were speeding or someone else was speeding and it resulted in a car

accident.

 Feel free to do so/No danger of getting stopped

 No speed camera in area or very little to no police presence

 Think it’s cool

 Want to impress friends or are “street racing”

 Emergency

 Wife going into labor, family member gets injured

 Someone Is having a stroke and want to get them to the hospital asap

 In a hurry

 In my google form survey about the speed limit, in one of my open-

ended questions I asked “What are your reasonings for speeding if you

do? If you don’t, why don’t you speed?” and one of the 6 responses was

“I like to get where I'm going and get off the street because other

people can't drive and them being around me gives me anxiety.”

  Just because people are in hurry doesn’t mean it’s in a bad way and that

they aren’t impatient. It can also mean that they have anxiety.

 Traffic flow

 The flow of traffic more often than not is past the speed limit, and

people are just keeping up with the fast traffic to not be in people’s way

and hold others back.

 Not paying attention

 A lot of the times people are speeding without even knowing it, it could

be a result of just following traffic flow.

 Doze off and lose focus

 In the 2011 National Survey of Speeding Attitudes and Behaviors, it states that

“Speeders account for 3 in 10 drivers (30%), or about 63.6 million American

drivers.”

 Now onto my second survey question, here are the results out of 6 responses,

1 answered to speeding once in a while, 1 answered to speeding half of the

week, 1 answered to speeding 4-6 times a week, and 3 answered to always

speeding. To these 6 people I ask what your reason for or cause of speeding is,

and for the 3 specifically that answered to always I ask why so often? Why are

you all in such a hurry?

After looking at some of the causes of speeding, let’s look at some of the ways we can fix it.
Solutions:

 Enforce the speed limit

 Set up more speed cameras, giving out more speeding tickets would

refrain people from speeding. People don’t want to waste their money

on paying for tickets.

 Set up officers on busy roads or roads where speeding is abundant

 Protest for new laws or make current laws stricter

 Give yourself more time

 With more time you give yourself, the more time you have to get to

where you need to be

 you wouldn’t have to rush and speed to anywhere

 Set up speed bumps/roundabouts

 Speed bumps and roundabouts would help reduce speeding and calm

down traffic

 Technology in cars

 Car manufacturers can implement some type of software that can act as

a speed limiter when needed

Conclusion:

In conclusion, today you have learned the impact of not following the speed limit. I have told

you about the problems that come with breaking the speed limit, the causes of speeding, and

some solutions to help reduce it. After listening to my speech, I hope everyone will agree with
me that the speed limit shouldn’t be raised or lowered, but that the speed limit should stay

as it is and be strictly enforced. A strictly enforced speed limit would help regulate traffic and

benefit our safety. Next time you speed, just remember to think about the consequences that

it might bring.