Fewer than 40,000 people die each year from traffic accidents – with 5,000 of them pedestrians, where even low speed impacts with an auto are fatal.
The first known speeding ticket was issued to cab driver Jacob German in 1899 in New York City on this date. A policeman on a bicycle stopped German for driving at 12 miles an hour on Lexington Avenue. Neither his license nor his registration was looked at because neither was required until two years later.
Today more than 100,000 people a day receive a speeding ticket in the U.S. – it’s a big revenue raising business for local governments and the makers of speed traps with automatic cameras. The average citation costs $150 and often results in sizable increases – for years – in insurance rates based on dubious claims from insurance companies, since traffic fatalities are at an all-time record low and have been dropping for decades.
Fewer than 40,000 people die each year from traffic accidents – with about 5,000 of them pedestrians, where even low impact speeds with an automobile are fatal. Still industry sources claim that 12,000 of the fatalities are speed related.
