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.
About Ken Zino
Ken Zino, editor and publisher of AutoInformed, is a versatile auto industry participant with global experience spanning decades in print and broadcast journalism, as well as social media. He has automobile testing, marketing, public relations and communications experience. He is past president of The International Motor Press Assn, the Detroit Press Club, founding member and first President of the Automotive Press Assn. He is a member of APA, IMPA and the Midwest Automotive Press Assn.
He also brings an historical perspective while citing their contemporary relevance of the work of legendary auto writers such as Ken Purdy, Jim Dunne or Jerry Flint, or writers such as Red Smith, Mark Twain, Thomas Jefferson – all to bring perspective to a chaotic automotive universe.
Above all, decades after he first drove a car, Zino still revels in the sound of the exhaust as the throttle is blipped during a downshift and the driver’s rush that occurs when the entry, apex and exit points of a turn are smoothly and swiftly crossed. It’s the beginning of a perfect lap.
AutoInformed has an editorial philosophy that loves transportation machines of all kinds while promoting critical thinking about the future use of cars and trucks.
Zino builds AutoInformed from his background in automotive journalism starting at Hearst Publishing in New York City on Motor and MotorTech Magazines and car testing where he reviewed hundreds of vehicles in his decade-long stint as the Detroit Bureau Chief of Road & Track magazine. Zino has also worked in Europe, and Asia – now the largest automotive market in the world with China at its center.
