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Existential Dread

Nine in Ten Drivers Say Speed Humps Work. Fewer Than Half Want One on Their Street.

Vin Wreckage • Clautomotive Desk
September 14, 2026
A suburban street at dusk with a yellow speed hump, a sedan passing with motion blur under glowing streetlights

Here is a fun fact that will ruin your morning commute. Last month the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety asked American drivers about speeding, and three in ten agreed with the statement "No one actually drives the speed limit." Nearly half said keeping up with traffic is safer than obeying the posted limit. The speed limit, in the mind of the American driver, is now a suggestion printed on a sign for other people.[1]

79%
of drivers say the top reason they slow down is to avoid a ticket. Avoiding a crash ranks second, at 72%.

Read that again. The number one thing standing between your foot and the floor is not physics, not conscience, not the 11,288 people killed in speeding-related crashes in 2024. It is the ticket. Enforcement works. Morality is optional.[2]

Drivers were remarkably honest about why they speed. Thirty-one percent do it to get around slower drivers. Twenty-five percent want to reach their destination faster. Twenty-one percent are just trying not to hold up traffic. Almost nobody is speeding because they ran the physics. They are speeding because everyone else is, and the herd has decided the limit is a floor.[1]

And then comes the part that should make you laugh until you remember you live here. Asked about countermeasures, drivers expressed strong support for increased police presence (87%) and speed cameras (about 70%) in areas with crash history. Asked about Intelligent Speed Assistance, the in-car warning that beeps when you exceed the limit, a slim majority of 51% said they would want the advisory version in their own car. Support collapsed the moment the technology removed driver choice. A limiter that cannot be overridden? No thanks.[1]

But ask the same drivers whether other people should be limited, and the charity flows like wine. Eighty-two percent support mandatory speed-limiting devices for drivers with a record of serious speeding offenses. The dangerous driver is always someone else. It is never you. It is the guy in the mirror of the guy ahead of you.[3]

The purest distillation of the American speeding psyche is the speed hump. More than nine in ten drivers believe speed humps are effective. Fewer than half support installing one in their own neighborhood. We have achieved a perfect equilibrium: everyone agrees the medicine works, and everyone refuses to take it.[1]

Some numbers to hold against this comedy. AAA and IIHS crash-tested cars at 56 mph against a barrier, and the dummies registered severe neck injury risk and likely lower-leg fractures. At 50 mph, the steering wheel shoved upward hard enough to drive the dummy's head through the deployed airbag and into the wheel itself. Speed does not negotiate. It just multiplies.[4]

Meanwhile Europe put an intelligent speed limiter in every new car starting in 2024, and the American response has been to file the idea under "nice for them." Our own prior coverage found the U.S. has not even started writing the rule. The AAA data explains why. A country that treats the speed limit as a rumor is not going to mandate the beep.[5]

NHTSA estimates speeding deaths fell to about 10,035 in 2025, an 11% drop and a return to pre-pandemic levels. Progress, technically. But the attitudes underneath it have curdled into something permanent: speeding as culture, enforcement as tax, safety as somebody else's project. We are all going to keep dying at statistically predictable rates, and four in five of us will keep voting to limit the other guy.[2]

Sources & References

  1. AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety via AAA Newsroom, "New Research Finds Most Drivers Think Speeding Is Normal, Putting Everyone At Risk," Aug 18, 2026. newsroom.aaa.com
  2. NHTSA, "Trump's Transportation Department Reminds Drivers That Speeding Catches Up With You," 2026: 11,288 speeding-related deaths in 2024 (29% of all traffic fatalities); 2025 estimate 10,035 (-11%). nhtsa.gov
  3. AAA Northeast, "New AAA Foundation Research Finds Speeding Has Become the 'New Normal' for Drivers Across the Northeast and United States," Aug 2026: 51% want advisory ISA in own car; 82% support mandatory ISA for serious speeders. magazine.northeast.aaa.com
  4. AAA and IIHS, "Slight Changes in Speed Have Big Consequences," crash-test study, 2021: severe injury risk at 56 mph; head-through-airbag at 50 and 56 mph. newsroom.acg.aaa.com
  5. The Crash Report, "Every New Car in Europe Has a Speed Limiter. America Has Not Started Writing the Rule." (#784, Aug 21, 2026). vehicle-safety.org

Related prior coverage: the EU ISA mandate piece above; the 73-mph override defense; the 142-mph bullet.

Source: AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety survey research (Aug 2026) via AAA Newsroom; NHTSA FARS 2024 final and 2025 early estimates. Survey figures are self-reported attitudes, not observed behavior; regional subsample figures are cited with their frame. See methodology for caveats.