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Grayden Larson

Professor Richard Blake

English 2010

17 February, 2020

On The Dangers of Speeding

Public roads are a dangerous place. We all know someone who has been in an accident at

some point. As a healthcare worker, I’ve personally seen the catastrophic effects of motor

vehicle accidents. I work in the operating room at Primary Children’s Hospital and every month,

we get several pediatric patients that come in and have to get surgery because of a car accident.

Seeing these patients has really made me wonder what we can do to protect people and save

lives. There are all sorts of risk factors when you get behind the wheel but through research, I’ve

found that one of the major risk factors for the severity of a car accident is whether or not

someone was going over the speed limit.

So, just how prevalent is the speeding problem? Because this project involves field

research, I decided to take it into my own hands and do some research through personal

observation. As I drove to work and school, I went exactly the speed limit and counted the

number of cars that passed me on the road. On my thirty minute drive to work (at 7 p.m. when

there was hardly any traffic) I was passed by about 25 cars. Some were barely speeding but some

of them flew by me. Each and every one of us is at risk when we are on public roads. Even if we

are “safe drivers” we cannot control the actions of other people on the road. I realized that it is

pretty uncommon to go the speed limit when it’s possible to go faster. As crazy as it sounds,

people often get frustrated when people are going the speed limit because it slows them down! If
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they’re late to work or something, they don’t want to have to wait behind a law abiding citizen

who is going the speed limit.

Speeding is a regular, dangerous part of life. It seems like everyone speeds when they

drive. One staggering statistic I found on the NHTSA (National Highway Traffic Safety

Administration) website said that “in 2018, speeding killed 9,378 [Americans]” (Lee). Even

though the number decreased slightly in comparison to 2017, it is still an extremely large number

that is simply unacceptable. I tend to speed when I am late to things but I try not to go more than

six or seven miles per hour over the speed limit. No big deal, right? Wrong. “Research by the

Australian Transport Council shows even traveling [a few miles per hour] over the speed limit is

enough to double the risk of a casualty crash” (Bailey). In other words, when someone is

speeding, even a little bit, and they get in a car crash, the risk of fatality doubles. Now imagine

how much worse that statistic is when you add some bad weather.

In the past few months, we’ve had a few really bad storms that have resulted in hundreds

of car crashes. This was the last straw for the Utah Highway Patrol. In her article about these

storms, Reavy talks about the statement that the Utah Highway Patrol released a few months ago.

She says that “troopers [will] start pulling drivers over for speeding, no matter how little they are

going over the speed limit” (Reavy). I have several friends that know Highway Patrolmen

personally and they’ve told me that cops are going to be taking action against the speeding

problem in Utah. Thank goodness.

To sum it all up, the dangers of driving irresponsibly affect everyone, not only in Utah

but in all of America. Thousands of innocent people die every year as a result of speeding and

recklessness. I can’t help but think of the boy that came to the operating room a few weeks ago.

He had to get an emergency craniotomy, a serious surgery to relieve pressure on his brain. He
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was hit by a truck “traveling at 80 mph in 30-35 mph speed zones” (Klopfenstein). This truck ran

a red light and crashed into several cars: the boy from my story was in one of them. I doubt this

boy left his house that night and thought he would end up in the operating room. I doubt his

mother thought her family members would be involved in a fatal accident that night. I hope this

helps you see and understand the extremely dangerous effects of speeding and driving recklessly.

If we can all take the time to be a little more patient and responsible when we’re behind the

wheel, the effects would be tremendous.

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Works Cited

Bailey, Mark. “Every Speeding Driver Puts People in Danger.” Courier Mail, The (Brisbane), 24

Oct. 2019, p. 26. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?

direct=true&db=n5h&AN=9X9CMLNEWSMMGLSTRY000407378187&site=eds-live.

Klopfenstein Jen RiessJacob, et al. “10-Year-Old Boy, Father Dead after Multi-Car Crash in

Moab; Driver Arrested.” KSL.com, 2020, www.ksl.com/article/46715544/driver-arrested-

after-multi-car-crash-in-moab-leaves-1-dead-2-injured.

Lee, Amy. “Speeding.” NHTSA, 12 Dec. 2019, www.nhtsa.gov/risky-driving/speeding.

Reavy, Pat. “If You Don't Think Going 5 Mph over Will Get You a Ticket, UHP Says Think

Again.” KSL.com, 2019, www.ksl.com/article/46686959/if-you-dont-think-going-5-mph-

over-will-get-you-a-ticket-uhp-says-think-again.