Federal Group Wants Crackdown On Speeding

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MIAMI (CBSMiami) - Speeding is almost as big a factor in deadly crashes as drunk driving, according to federal regulators who say a news study found nearly a third of deadly crashes from 2005 to 2014 were related to speeding.

Now a government group is calling for using more speed cameras, but less than a third of states allow them.

The National Transportation Safety Board has identified more than a thousand deaths due to speeding between 2005 and 2015. That's nearly as many killed in alcohol related crashes.

"Every mile an hour that you increase by, you're increasing your likelihood of a crash," said Robert Sumwalt, the Acting Chairman of the NTSB. "This study showed that we can improve the way that we set speed limits and enforce speed limits."

The NTSB is calling for the expanded use of speed cameras. Currently, only 14 states and Washington D.C. use them and only rarely on freeways where drivers go the fastest.

Another recommendation encourages installing point-to-point enforcement, which is used in Australia and Great Britain, where a driver can be ticketed for getting from Point A to Point B faster than the time it would take by following the speed limit.

Traffic deaths have surged an estimated 14-percent to around 40,000 people killed annually. The NTSB said an unintended consequence of states raising the speed limit has been the additional deaths.