[fielderLS3]

EXACTLY. I fully agree that it is not speeding that kills, ("speeding" itself is a specious notion, in that it is defined relative to an often arbitrary or artificial number). If anything kills, it is setting the bar too low for licensing. Everything highlighted in that video is a result of lowest common denominator thinking, that always ruins things for 90% of the people in the name of making systems suitable to those on the fringes of the bell curve. What causes accidents are those outliers in the flow of traffic that go to slow, and make sudden, unexpected moves on the road for no apparent reason.

I spend a lot of time on the roads (I just got back from my last cross-country road trip last weekend), and those moments on the roads that are most sketchy and most risky (you all know what I am talking about) are almost always caused by a car going way too slow for conditions. When traffic is moving along at a good clip, often 5-10 mph above the limit, cars move at steadier speeds, and tend to spread out more and make fewer sudden or unexpected moves.

However, when there is that one car going 10 under the limit, lines of cars back up behind it, following distances accordion, and speeds are constantly changing increasing amounts with distance back in the line. Cars shuffle around more, making more lane changes and other sudden, unexpected moves, made more dangerous by the closeness the backup itself causes, or worse yet, have to make 2-lane road passes.

And the damnedest thing about it, more than 80% of the time, that one slow and/or non steadily moving car causing all that havoc, is a Toyota. Why is that?