Spot Speed Study

Engineering 191H
Autumn, 2011

Frederic Carrier, Seat 36

Erick Dommer, Seat 33
Nathan Kidder, Seat 34
Darren Nash, Seat 35

Instructor: Brooke C. Morin

Class Section: 9:30

Lab Section: Wednesday, 9:30-11:18

Date of Experiment: 10/5/11
Date of Submission: 10/12/11

1. Introduction
The purpose of this lab was to see if current speed limit enforcement is
enough to keep drivers going the speed limit. To do this, cars were timed
going through a 176-foot long speed trap. The resulting times were then
used to find the average speed of cars.
The data was gathered using the experiment described in
Experimental Methodology in Section 2. The data that was gathered is shown
in Results and Description in Section 3 and discussed in Discussion in Section
4. An overview of the experiment and a conclusion can be found in the
Conclusion in Section 5.
2. Experimental Methodology
This experiment only required a stop watch, a measuring device, and
something used to mark the sidewalk. It also needed 3 people to run as
smoothly as possible: a flagger, a timer, and a recorder. First off, a 176 foot
long speed trap was measured and marked on the sidewalk. A diagram of the
proper setup is shown in Figure 1 at the beginning of the next page. The
flagger stood at the beginning of the speed trap and signaled to start the
stop watch whenever a car drove by. The timer, who stood at the other end
of the speed trap, had to use the stop watch to time how long it took for
each car to cross the speed trap. The recorder marked all the times on the
field sheet in order to find out the speed. This process was repeated many
times to ensure good data. The experiment was performed under fair
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weather and dry roads from roughly 10 AM to 11 AM on October 5th, 2011

along northbound Olengtangy River Road which is a 35 mph zone.times

Figure 1: Diagram showing the proper way to set up the experiment.

3. Results and Descriptions
All the times recorded were written down on the field sheet where they
were converted from time groups into speed groups using the calculations
shown in Equation 1.

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176 feet
1mile
t sec
3600 sec
5280 feet
Speed ( mph )=
1 hour

Equation 1: Conversion of time into speed

The complete set of gathered data can be seen in Table A1 in Appendix
A and in Figure A1 and A2. Table A1 shows the frequency of each speed
group while Figure A1 and A2 show the graphs of frequency distribution and
the cumulative frequency respectively. Other information such as mean,
estimated standard deviation and calculated standard deviation were
calculated using Equation B1, B2 B3 in Appendix B and charted in Table 1.

Table 1: Key information about the data.

Data Information
33.5-43.5
Pace
Percentage of vehicles

mph

in pace
Median
Mode
Mean
85th percentile
15th percentile
Estimated standard

72%
38 mph
41 mph
39.68 mph
43 mph
34 mph

deviation
Calculated standard

4.5 mph
5.12 mph

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deviation

4. Discussion
One thing that the data clearly shows is that most drivers did not care
about the speed limit that morning. This is easily seen when one looks at the
mean, mode and median, all of which are higher than the 35 mph speed
limit. Although the mean of the data was higher than the speed limit, the
data still followed a somewhat normal distribution with a little skew to the
left.
The data followed a normal pattern with 72% of its points located in the
pace between 33.5 mph and 43.5 mph. One can also see from the
cumulative frequency graph that only about 16% of drivers respected the 35
mph speed limit that morning. The data does not show much dispersion
except a few outliers. Although the speeds would be much higher, one could
expect around the same amount of dispersion doing the same experiment
with race cars at the Indy 500 in normal green flag conditions, meaning that
most car speeds would cluster around the mode of the data with minimal
dispersion and few outliers. This is due to the fact that in both cases there
was not anything near such as traffic, stoplights or pedestrians that would
require drivers to stop causing more dispersion. If the same experiment had
been conducted on a random Saturday down High Street with average traffic,
pedestrians and many stop lights, one could assume that there would be
much more dispersion and inconsistency in the data.
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Although the experiment gathered some good data, it could have been
much more accurate if human error would have been taken out of it. If the
experiment had some kind of sensor instead of a flagger and a timer armed
with a stop watch, the data could be much more accurate and it would rid
itself of error due to human error and reaction time. Another way to get more
accurate data would be to make the data gathering process a little bit more
discreet as to not let the drivers know they are being timed. Some drivers
either accelerated or slowed down when they saw that they we being timed
throwing off our data in the process. One way to fix this would be once again
using small sensor or spreading out the groups and the group members to
make it less obvious to the driver that they are being timed. The way this
experiment was carried out gave good data but not complete data. Since it
was conducted under fair weather and the road was dry when the
experiment was done, we only have data for fair days with dry roads. Also,
we only have data for the hour between 10 AM and 11 AM. Peoples driving
tendencies might be affected a lot by different things such as the road
condition, the time of day and the weather. In order to get a very complete
and accurate set of data, the experiment would need to be carried out a few
more times under different road conditions, weather conditions and at
different times of the day.
5. Summary and Conclusions

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To see if current speed enforcement was enough to keep people driving the
speed limit, a spot speed experiment was conducted. It was done by creating
a speed trap and recording how long it took cars to go through the speed
trap. Using some calculations, the times were then converted into speeds
and graphed to allow for easier analysis. Looking at the data, it is easy to
conclude that current law enforcement is not enough to get people to obey
the speed limit on Olentangy River Road. 50% of the drivers who were timed
were driving more than 3 mph above the 35 mph limit. Even if the
experiment yielded some pretty conclusive data, it should be repeated under
different road and weather conditions using something more accurate than a
stop watch and something not as noticeable as a group of people standing
on the sidewalk in order to get more accurate data.

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Appendix A
Figures and Charts

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Table A1: Complete data table with speed groups, time groups and frequency

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Appendix B
Equations and Sample Calculations

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Mean Calculation*:

x =

ni s i
N

(B1)

ni=Frequency of observations groupi

s i=Middle speed of group imph
N=Total number of observations
x =

229+1133+1635+1437+ 1639+ 2841+ 1043+545+547+ 549+155+163

114

x =39.68 mph

s est =

Estimated Standard Deviation**:

P85P 15
2

(B2)
P85=85 th percentile
P15=15 th percentile
S est =

4334
2

S est =4.5 mph

S=

Calculated Standard Deviation**:

( x i x )2
N1

(B3)
2(2939.7)2 +11 (3339.7)2 +16(3539.7)2 +14(3739.7)2 +16(3939.7)2+ 28(4139.7)2+
114
S=

B1

2
2
2
2
2
2
10 (4339.7) +5 (4539.7) +5 (4739.7) + 5(4939.7) +(5539.7) +(6339.7)

S=5.12 mph

*: Equation was taken from Analysis Write Up under the 191H Course
Materials at Carmen.osu.edu
**:Equation was taken from Spot Speed Lecture Slides under the 191H
Course Materials at Carmen.osu.edu

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