ROANOKE TIMES 
                      Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times

DATE: Sunday, May 26, 1996                   TAG: 9605290066
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL   PAGE: A-8  EDITION: METRO 
DATELINE: WASHINGTON
SOURCE: Knight-Ridder/Tribune| 

LESS THAN HALF OF DRIVERS OBEY SPEED LIMIT THE RESULT IN 1995 WAS 41,700 CRASH DEATHS

During your travels this holiday weekend, know that hundreds of travelers won't return alive because too many Americans are hooked on speed.

Nationally, less than half (43 percent) of all drivers say they obey the speed limit, according to a study on auto safety released Friday by Prevention Magazine.

And the percentage of drivers who ignore speed limits is higher today (57 percent) than just five years ago (52 percent).

``America is unable to keep its collective foot off the gas,'' said Ed Slaughter, said the magazine's director of research. ``We get a little crazy out there.''

And kill one other. In 1995, an estimated 6.8 million crashes resulted in 3.3 million injuries and 41,700 deaths. The cost in insurance and medical care was $140 billion a year, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA)

NHTSA's administrator Ricardo Martinez notes that more people die on America's highways every day than perished in this month's tragic ValuJet airliner crash near Miami.

Dumb things adults do in cars too often kill their kids, Martinez said.

``Incredibly, 40 percent of children still ride in cars unprotected by seat belts or child safety seats,'' he says.

That's like holding a child ``out of a window three floors above ground,'' he said.

The survey found other bad news:

* Nearly one in 10 adults still rides in the front seat without using a seat belt.

* Some 17 percent admit to driving after drinking.

* And 20 percent of car owners have a cellular phone; 5 percent say they've come close to crashing while on the phone. And 9 percent say they've had near misses because another driver was talking on a phone.

Generally, the study found that America's highways and roads are safer now than they've ever been because more drivers and passengers wear their seat belts, don't drive if they've been drinking and are protected in cars by air bags and anti-lock braking systems.

The death rate on the highways is half what it was in 1980 and one-third the 1960 rate. There are 1.7 deaths for every 100 million vehicle miles traveled.

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