Killingworth does indeed have its share of problem drivers.  Based on my experiences many of these drivers are either younger people with their usual sense of immortality or elderly people with their usual keen sense of mortality.

While I applaud the "Drive the Limit" Challenge and agree that we would all like to re-educate the dangerous problem driver that we see on our streets, I also feel that we must be realistic and pragmatic in our approach.  Someone close to me was recently pulled over by a very eager young State Police Officer for driving; get this, 30 MPH in a 15MPH zone.  Has anyone ever actually tried to drive 15 miles per hour?  I think that my nine year old can ride her bike faster.  Much of Route 148 has a speed limit of 25MPH.  How long do you think it would take to get from Route 81 to Route 79 at 25 MPH?  Does anyone think that these speed limits are a little slow?  When where these speed limits evaluated last, 1940, 1950? 

On a recent business trip to the city of Chennai in India I was amazed by the fact that I did not see one stop sign, traffic light or speed limit sign.  This in a city of over ten million people.  Denmark has recently experimented with the abolishment of speed limits, stop signs and traffic lights in some urban areas and has found that astonishingly, the accident fatality rate plummeted.

One byproduct of living in an affluent town, fortunately or unfortunately depending upon your perspective, is that many can afford high performance cars that can accelerate quickly, handle well and brake faster than most cars.  A lot of research has gone into making these cars faster and safer than ever before.  Again, based upon my experiences, I see very few of these types of cars involved in most of the accidents in our town.

No one is saying that speeding should be condoned but I prefer not to exchange speed enforcement for life in a police state.  I recommend a comprehensive review of our town’s speed limits and encourage the designation of pedestrian zones.  While speeding is a very serious issue we could only benefit by being more realistic about automobile speeds in Killingworth in the 21st century.

Tim Withington