Hi, thanks for your comment and apologies for the somewhat belated response!
On increasing travel times—yeah I think this is a really interesting point and something that we didn’t consider when modeling the CEA. I think it may be best to discount the income effects of this intervention as a result of this. After a quick Google search, I have found some data on this from the UK—“Each 1 mph reduction in average traffic speed costs the UK economy in excess of £1Bn in lost productivity through extended journey times” (https://www.abd.org.uk/press-release-hes-proposed-motorway-speed-limit-reduction-to-60mph-borders-on-economic-vandalism/). This suggests the impact could be quite significant, though as the World Health Organization found that the economic impact of road traffic injuries is approximately 3% of GDP, I think the economic impacts would still be net-positive.
Clare’s point on traffic jams is an important consideration here, both for your point and for the promise of this intervention—if drivers are never getting up to the speed limit, then decreasing them looks less promising. This was a concern we were aware of, but we felt unable to address from our desktop research, but this is something we will highlight to the founders of this organization, and it is something that they will be able to assess when doing country scoping visits.
Perhaps these considerations make advocacy on seat-belt legislation look more promising than advocacy to reduce speed limits. This would be good to pass on to the potential founders so that they can weigh up these considerations.
On the stress of getting pulled over by the police, I am not sure I can comment usefully on this as I don’t know too much about it, but thanks for raising the concern, and thanks Clare for the insight from Sierra Leone.
Hi, thanks for your comment and apologies for the somewhat belated response!
On increasing travel times—yeah I think this is a really interesting point and something that we didn’t consider when modeling the CEA. I think it may be best to discount the income effects of this intervention as a result of this. After a quick Google search, I have found some data on this from the UK—“Each 1 mph reduction in average traffic speed costs the UK economy in excess of £1Bn in lost productivity through extended journey times” (https://www.abd.org.uk/press-release-hes-proposed-motorway-speed-limit-reduction-to-60mph-borders-on-economic-vandalism/). This suggests the impact could be quite significant, though as the World Health Organization found that the economic impact of road traffic injuries is approximately 3% of GDP, I think the economic impacts would still be net-positive.
Clare’s point on traffic jams is an important consideration here, both for your point and for the promise of this intervention—if drivers are never getting up to the speed limit, then decreasing them looks less promising. This was a concern we were aware of, but we felt unable to address from our desktop research, but this is something we will highlight to the founders of this organization, and it is something that they will be able to assess when doing country scoping visits.
Perhaps these considerations make advocacy on seat-belt legislation look more promising than advocacy to reduce speed limits. This would be good to pass on to the potential founders so that they can weigh up these considerations.
On the stress of getting pulled over by the police, I am not sure I can comment usefully on this as I don’t know too much about it, but thanks for raising the concern, and thanks Clare for the insight from Sierra Leone.