Speeding

Your chance of death or serious injury in a crash doubles for every 10 miles per hour (mph) over 50 mph your vehicle travels.

Speed Limits & Restrictions

  • 75 mph maximum on rural segments of freeway with a 40 mph minimum
  • 75 mph on the Kansas Turnpike, unless otherwise posted, with a 40 mph minimum
  • 70 mph on some improved highways in rural areas
  • 65 mph on improved two-lane highways
  • 55 mph on two-lane paved highways, unless otherwise posted
  • 30 mph in residential areas, unless otherwise posted
  • All speed limits are enforced as posted.

Speed Safety Facts

Speeding reduces the driver’s ability to steer safely around curves and avoid objects on the road.

Speeding increases the distance necessary to stop a vehicle. In fact, just a small increase in speed greatly increases the amount of room you need to stop. For example, at 70 mph a vehicle in proper working order takes 351 feet to stop, while at 55 mph a vehicle can stop in 217 feet.

Speeding increases the distance your vehicle will travel before you can comprehend there is an emergency and react to it. Each mile per hour you travel equates to 1.467 feet traveled per second. Therefore, a vehicle going 55 mph will travel 80.685 feet each second.

Helpful Trick

Here is a simple way to figure how many feet per second your car is going. By simply adding half of the miles per hour you are going to your speed you will get your approximate speed in feet per second (within 2%). Next time you are driving, think of your speed in feet per second (at 60 mph you are covering approximately 90 feet per second). Now, consider how fast you can react.

Then, consider your car’s kinetic energy. Kinetic energy, the moving force possessed by your vehicle, can be simply explained as the amount of force, or kick, your vehicle would have if it hit another object. For example, a small car (weighing about 1 ton) moving at a speed of 40 mph strikes with the same force as 18, ten-ton steam rollers traveling at 3 mph!

Now imagine you are driving a standard car at 60 mph (approximately 90 feet per second). Your kinetic energy now is more than that of 100 ten-ton steamrollers moving at 3 mph! Now you understand why speed kills!

Things to Consider

The Minnesota Safety Council, in an experiment, had 2 drivers travel over the same 1,000-mile route in similar vehicles. The fast driver passed 2,000 cars, braked 1,339 times, and covered the distance in 20 hours, 12 minutes. The slow driver flowed with traffic, passed only 13 cars, and braked 652 times. It took him 20 hours, 43 minutes, just 31 minutes longer than the fast driver. The faster car used 10 gallons more gas, and the driver’s pulse rate rose because of the tension and the risks he had taken. Is traveling faster really worth it?