#priceonomics

Every year, traffic engineers review the speed limit on thousands of stretches of road and highway. Most are reviewed by a member of the state’s Department of Transportation, often along with a member of the state police, as is the case in Michigan. In each case, the “survey team” has a clear approach: they want to set the speed limit so that 15% of drivers exceed it and 85% of drivers drive at or below the speed limit. Traffic engineers believe that the 85th percentile speed is the ideal speed limit because it leads to the least variability between driving speeds and therefore safer roads. When the speed limit is correctly set at the 85th percentile speed, the minority of drivers that do conscientiously follow speed limits are no longer driving much slower than the speed of traffic. The choice of the 85th percentile speed is a data-driven conclusion -- as noted Lt. Megge and speed limit resources like the Michigan State Police’s guide -- that has been established by the consistent findings of years of traffic studies. Yet most speed limits are set below the 85th percentile speed. We first investigated this topic at the urging of the National Motorists Association, a “member-supported driver advocacy organization” that has made raising speed limits to the 85th percentile one focus of its efforts.

Truth in Numbers: Ranking the Most Beloved TV Shows That Got Canceled

Truth in Numbers: Ranking the Most Beloved TV Shows That Got Canceled

Bowling most likely originated in Germany around 300 A.D. as a religious ritual in which participants would roll stones at clubs to absolve their sins. The annals of history reveal little about where or how bowling gained traction, but according to written record, the sport was so popular in England by 1336, that King Edward III had to ban it to keep his troops focused on archery practice.

In 1896, for example, the parents of a two-year-old killed due to the negligence of the Southern Railroad Company of Georgia asked a judge for compensation. They argued that their child performed errands worth two dollars per month, but they received nothing beyond the cost of a burial. The judge concluded “that the child was ‘of such tender years as to be unable to have any earning capacity, and hence the defendant could not be held liable in damages.’” Today, however, parents do not need to prove the economic value of a lost child to receive compensation. Instead they refer to their emotional pain. On this basis, a judge in a 1979 case awarded the parents of a three-year-old who died from fluoride poisoning at the dentist $750,000.