Richter Elihu D, Berman Tamar, Friedman Lee, Ben-David Gerald
Unit of Occupational and Environmental Medicine and Center for Injury Prevention, Hadassah School of Public Health and Community Medicine, Hebrew University, Jerusalem 91120, Israel.
Annu Rev Public Health. 2006;27:125-52. doi: 10.1146/annurev.publhealth.27.021405.102225.
We review milestones in the history of increases in speed limits and travel speeds ("speed creep") and risks for road deaths and injury. Reduced speed limits, speed-camera networks, and speed calming substantially reduce these tolls in absolute numbers-a trend that is apparent in the United Kingdom, Australia, France, and other countries, but not in the United States, which has raised speed limits and does not have speed-camera networks. Newtonian relationships between the fourth power of small increases or reductions in speed and large increases or reductions in deaths state the case for speed control. Speed adaptation and the interaction between speed and other determinants of injury risks, including congestion and countermeasures, enter into these relationships. Speed-camera networks and speed calming lead to large, sustainable, and highly cost-effective drops in road deaths and injuries and should target entire populations, not merely high-risk subgroups or situations. Yet, there are major barriers to preventive strategies based on the discovery that speed kills. Modal shifts from speed on roads to speed on rail, lower maximum vehicle speeds, and speed-camera networks are required for progress toward Vision Zero-the goal of no road deaths-through Killing Speed. The human cost of the delay in killing speed in the United States may be as high as 20,000 lives lost per year.
我们回顾了限速和行驶速度提高（“速度攀升”）历史中的一些里程碑事件以及道路死亡和受伤风险。降低限速、设置测速摄像头网络以及实施减速措施能大幅减少这些伤亡的绝对数量——这一趋势在英国、澳大利亚、法国和其他国家很明显，但在美国却并非如此，美国提高了限速且没有测速摄像头网络。速度的小幅增减与死亡人数的大幅增减之间的牛顿关系说明了速度控制的必要性。速度适应性以及速度与其他伤害风险决定因素（包括拥堵和应对措施）之间的相互作用也体现在这些关系中。测速摄像头网络和减速措施能大幅、持续且极具成本效益地降低道路死亡和受伤人数，并且应该针对全体人群，而不仅仅是高风险亚组或情况。然而，基于“速度致命”这一发现的预防策略存在重大障碍。要实现零交通事故愿景（即无道路死亡的目标），需要从道路速度向铁路速度转变出行方式、降低车辆最高速度以及建立测速摄像头网络。在美国，因延缓降低速度而付出的人命代价可能高达每年20000人丧生。
