Practical Implications
While Solomon’s research focused on speed deviation, and not speed per se, some commentators have cited Solomon’s research to support the conclusion that raw speed and crash risk are not directly related. On the other hand, while recognizing Solomon's research reveals the importance to safety of variability around average speed, Leonard Evans concludes in Traffic Safety and the Driver that control of absolute driver speed, and not variability, should be the primary focus of traffic safety regulation. Both views support the fact that the seminal research underlying the Solomon curve shows that the greater the difference between a driver’s speed and the average speed of traffic—both above and below that average speed—the greater the likelihood of involvement in a crash. Consequently, many states and safety organizations advise drivers to “drive with the flow of traffic”.
Read more about this topic: Solomon Curve
Famous quotes containing the words practical and/or implications:
“Some minds are as little logical or argumentative as nature; they can offer no reason or “guess,” but they exhibit the solemn and incontrovertible fact. If a historical question arises, they cause the tombs to be opened. Their silent and practical logic convinces the reason and the understanding at the same time. Of such sort is always the only pertinent question and the only satisfactory reply.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Philosophical questions are not by their nature insoluble. They are, indeed, radically different from scientific questions, because they concern the implications and other interrelations of ideas, not the order of physical events; their answers are interpretations instead of factual reports, and their function is to increase not our knowledge of nature, but our understanding of what we know.”
—Susanne K. Langer (1895–1985)