Speed still a concern

THE EDITOR: Speeding continues to be the most commonly reported factor associated with crashes, yet, few drivers view speeding as an immediate risk to their personal safety. It doesn’t matter how good of a driver you think you are, there is no such thing as speeding safely.

Speeding on the nation’s roads continues with little or no law enforcement and is a major problem that must be addressed immediately since, speeding increases both the likelihood and the severity of a crash.

Speeding contributes to the increased danger of losing control of your vehicle and putting other road users at risk for injury or even death. At high speeds, vehicles become more difficult to manoeuvre.

Driving within the speed limit provides a greater opportunity to avoid a serious crash and makes it highly unlikely that either you or another driver will lose control of their vehicle. Even exceeding the speed limit by a small margin can have a devastating impact.

While speeding is not the primary cause of all accidents, higher speeds increase the likelihood of a crash occurring. Speed has proven to be the major cause of many crashes in TT so, while we don’t expect that reducing the speed limit will stop crashes from occurring, reducing speed will most certainly reduce both the risk and severity of crashes.

We all have important places that we need to go and sometimes we want to reach there as quickly as possible but it’s never the right decision to put ourselves, our families and other innocent people in harm’s way to get there faster.

SIMON WRIGHT, Chaguanas