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Motor vehicle speed

The U.S. Department of Transportation's Federal Highway Administration reviewed research on traffic speed in 1998. The summary says:

In the U.S. in 2018, 9,378 people were killed in motor vehicle crashes involving at least one speeding driver, which accounted for 26% of all traffic-related deaths for the year.

In Michigan in 2019, excessive speed was a factor in 18.8% of the fatalities that resulted from fatal motor vehicle crashes and in 15.6% of the suspected serious injuries resulting from crashes.

The Road and Traffic Authority (RTA) of the Australian state of New South Wales (NSW) asserts speeding (traveling too fast for the prevailing conditions or above the posted speed limit) is a factor in about 40 percent of road deaths. The RTA also says speeding increases the risk of a crash and its severity. On another web page, the RTA qualifies its claims by referring to one specific piece of research from 1997, and writes "Research has shown that the risk of a crash causing death or injury increases rapidly, even with small increases above an appropriately set speed limit."

The contributory factor report in the official British road casualty statistics shows for 2006, that "exceeding the speed limit" was a contributory factor in 5% of all casualty crashes (14% of all fatal crashes), and "traveling too fast for conditions" was a contributory factor in 11% of all casualty crashes (18% of all fatal crashes).

In France, in 2018, the speed limit was reduced from 90 km/h to 80 km/h on a large part of the local outside built-up area road network in the sole aim of reducing the number of road fatalities.