Slow Down

Milford Police say tech makes roads safer

While the state studies the implementation of speed cameras, there has been another technology that has proven effective in combatting speeding on local streets that is much less punitive: the digital radar sign. According to a recent article in the CT Post, the City of Milford has seen excellent results in using the road safety infrastructure.

Over the last several years, CT&C has written about the growing concern of traffic safety. Each year, more and more pedestrians are being hit, and there has been a stark increase in vehicles driving the wrong direction and generally being distracted whether by screens in their dashboard or on their phones.

And the speed a car is driving when an accident inevitably happens can mean life or death for a pedestrian. According to Radarsign.com, the fatality rate of a pedestrian hit by a car going 40 mph is around 90%. Drop that speed to 20 mph and the fatality rate drops not just by half, but to 10%.

One major reason why there is an 80% drop in fatality rate is because it takes longer for an image to register when you are traveling faster. At 40 mph it might take upwards of 60 feet to even realize that you need to react, and an additional 80 feet to actually bring your car to a complete stop. A car going 20 mph would take 60 feet total, according to the National Association of City Transportation Officials.

Speeding is clearly a major factor in the safety of our streets, so do the radar signs actually work? The Milford Police Department did a traffic study reported on in the CT Post that showed they were incredibly effective in their city.

One sign located at Gulf Street indicated such an effect.

“The speed limit at the Gulf Street sign is 25 mph. According to the state DOT, the Gulf Street sign showed the 8th percentile speeds, the speed at which 85 percent of vehicles travel at or below, were about 36 mph. The addition of the radar sign, combined with a speed limit sign resulted in 8th percentile speeds dropping between 2 and 7 mph.”

While that won’t put them at the 25 mph speed limit, it did bring them down to a more moderate speed. This success was echoed by the Ra- darsign.com information which said that “speeders WILL slow down up to 80% of the time.” Continuing, “Typical average speed reductions are 10-20%, and overall compliance with the posted speed limit will increase by 30-60%.”

We might be years from speed cameras, and they might not even be right for your municipality. But radar signs have shown at least in one city the effectiveness in getting people to slow down and think about how fast they’re really going. It could be a life-saving thought.