Missouri has a deadly speeding problem. Here’s the right solution | Opinion

On Oct. 14, 2023, my mother Michelle Dunmore was walking to a bus stop on Troost Avenue in Kansas City when a driver hit her and kept going. My mother was and will forever be 59 years old. She was her mother’s only child, a daughter, a mother and also a grandmother. She was a caregiver for my children and a light in our lives.

The driver, just 20 years old, later admitted she had been speeding and was not paying attention to the road. She hit my mother, did not render aid, drove away — and acted like my mother’s life didn’t matter.

My mother did not have to die in that very tragic way. The driver chose to speed. She chose not to stop. Those decisions were made by a person who had decided that the rules did not apply to her, and my mother paid for them with her life.

In the two years since, I’ve learned that this kind of recklessness is not unusual. It is tragically common on Missouri’s roads. According to the Missouri Coalition for Roadway Safety, excessive speed is the single most common factor in Missouri fatal crashes. Speed is involved in 36% of all traffic fatalities, and cited twice as often as impaired driving. In 2023 alone, 359 Missourians were killed in speed-related crashes, and unfortunately my mother was one of those numbers.

These are not abstract numbers. They are mothers and grandmothers. Fathers and grandfathers. Sons and daughters. They are people who left home and never came back.

Target drivers with revoked licenses

Missouri legislators are considering a bill that takes direct aim at the most dangerous speeders on our roads. House Bill 3317 would give habitual speeders a path to getting their license back, but only if they agree to install an intelligent speed assistance device on every vehicle they drive. The bill targets drivers whose licenses have been revoked because of repeated speeding violations. Intelligent speed assistance mechanisms use location-based technology to prevent a vehicle from exceeding the posted limit. If you have one of these devices installed on your vehicle, it works to prevent you from going 70 in a 50-mph zone.

Some will ask whether that means the government is tracking their movements. It does not: The device uses location data only to verify speed limits and detect tampering — not to monitor where you go or report your whereabouts to the government.

This is not a mandate on ordinary drivers. It does not affect anyone who has not already lost their license because of a pattern of dangerous speeding. It is a targeted, proportionate response to a specific, small group of drivers who have already demonstrated, through their repeated behavior, that fines and warnings have not been enough to prevent them from becoming habitual offenders.

Missourians understand personal responsibility. We also understand accountability. When someone has lost their license for repeated dangerous speeding, it is entirely reasonable to attach conditions to their restored privilege of driving. We already do exactly this for drunk drivers: Ignition interlock devices are required for many people convicted of driving under the influence across Missouri. Nobody calls that government overreach. H.B. 3317 would apply the same principle to extreme speeders. It would not imprison anyone. It would not permanently revoke anyone’s license. It says: You can drive again — just within the law.

State Rep. Sherri Gallick, the Republican lawmaker carrying this bill, put it plainly: “Missouri families deserve roads where dangerous drivers are held accountable, not just fined and sent back out to do it again. H.B. 3317 gives habitual speeders a path back to driving, while making sure they can’t put the rest of us at risk. This is about personal responsibility and public safety, and that’s about as Missouri as it gets.”

Missouri’s legislature has the chance to make our roads meaningfully safer. I am asking members to consider what this bill means to the families who have already lost someone — and what it could mean to the families who haven’t yet.

My mother deserved to come home that night. So does everyone else’s.

Asia Dunmore is a Kansas City resident and member of Families for Safe Streets, a project from the 501(c)(3) nonprofit Transportation Alternatives.