Originally Posted by
Jay Turberville
Sure. But speed is never "by itself". There is always something else involved. Another car, mechanical failure, road conditions, weather, etc. For instance I use to live across the street from a machinist who built and ran his own top alcohol dragster. While he helped up to hot rod our cars (400 ci small block in a Triumph TR7 for my friend) he also said that racing was for the race track. Years after he was no longer our neighbor we heard that he died while racing his dragster. His drag parachutes failed after deployment and he crashed into the netting at the end of the track. If the track would have been a lot longer, he'd have probably been fine. Even on a racetrack with only one other driver, there's always something other than just speed.
It’s all about calculated risk. The potential consequences of something going wrong at high speed are always worse, but the risk itself may still be relatively low. For example I would quite happily take the risk of driving at 100+ mph on a clear stretch of motorway in a modern high performance car. The only thing that stops me is the potential court visit and driving ban. On the other hand I’m not too keen on driving around in old cars that are often lethal death traps in any collision with modern cars or roadside furniture.
Ultimately travelling at speed is a risk, but often not the biggest risk on the road. Driving unusually slow can be a much bigger risk in many situations. One of my pet hates is drivers merging from motorway slip roads at less than half the speed of traffic flow on the main carriageway. Do they not understand how much easier and safer it is to merge at the same speed as the traffic?