between 1995 and 1999, Montana exercised no numerical speed limit on most rural roads, instead requiring drivers to simply use “reasonable and prudent” speed.
The accident count and death toll dropped. Come the summer of ’99, the state reimplemented speed limits…and the accident rate began to climb again.
When you’re driving as quickly as you feel comfortable going, your mind is devoting all its attention to the task of piloting the car. When you go slowly, though, the conscious brain grows bored and hands the driving baton off to the older, unconscious part—
the reptilian complex, if you will