We are in the wall street journal now!


States Boost Speed Limits On Major Highways
Moves Come Despite Concerns Over Safety, High Gas Prices; 80 Miles Per
Hour in Texas

By STEPHANIE CHEN, The Wall Street Journal

With gasoline prices approaching an average of $3 a gallon and Middle
East strife escalating, it might seem like a bad time to encourage
drivers to burn even more fuel. But speed limits on stretches of
freeways around the country are rising -- just in time for summer road
trips.

States around the country, including Texas and Michigan, have recently
increased speed limits on hundreds of miles of interstate highways and
freeways. Other states are expected to follow soon.

Near Detroit, drivers long confronted by signs telling them to go no
more than 55 miles per hour or 65 mph are seeing new signs with 70 mph
speed limits. By November, cruising at 70 mph will be allowed on nearly
200 miles of road, including parts of Interstate 75 and M-59, a major
suburban route. Texas has begun erecting 80 mph signs along 521 miles
of I-10 and I-20 in 10 rural western counties, giving them the highest
speed limit in the U.S. In September, Virginia is likely to boost the
speed limit on I-85 near the North Carolina border to 70 mph from 65
mph. Driving faster may get people to their destinations more quickly,
but it can also add to the rising cost of owning a car. The Department
of Energy estimates that every five miles per hour a person drives
above 60 mph costs an extra 20 cents a gallon, for a fuel-efficiency
loss of 7% to 23%, depending on the type of car and gas. That's because
higher speeds increase aerodynamic drag on a car, requiring more
horsepower. Over a year, it costs roughly an additional $180 in gas to
drive 75 mph instead of 60 mph, according to the Environmental and
Energy Study Institute, which promotes energy efficiency and renewable
energy.

Bruce Jones, director of the Minnesota Center for Automotive Research
at Minnesota State University in Mankato, calculates from federal data
that driving 75 mph, rather than 65, would increase gas expenses by
about $121 a year for a 2006 Pontiac G6 sedan and $217 for a Hummer.

But lawmakers in Texas, Michigan and other states say that raising
speed limits will make roads safer by restoring credibility to
speed-limit signs and making driving speeds more uniform. While
transportation engineers acknowledge that raising speed limits hurts
fuel efficiency, they contend that careful studies of traffic flow and
driver behavior show that many speed limits are actually too low. Most
drivers who exceed these low speed limits are doing it safely. "In
Texas, they are already going [80 mph] anyway," says Carlos Lopez,
director of traffic operations at the Texas Department of
Transportation. "People are driving where they feel comfortable."

John Stinson, a home remodeler who lives in Mount Clemens, Mich., says
the new 70 mph speed limit on the Van Dyke Expressway gives him an
extra "cushion" during his commutes of as much as 200 miles throughout
southeastern Michigan. "There won't be the slow people holding everyone
up and the fast people weaving in and out," he says.


It has long been thought that higher speed limits lead to more road
fatalities. But the link has been disputed. Many modern roads are built
to accommodate vehicles moving at faster speeds, and many drivers are
now protected by front and side airbags.

In 2005, the number of injuries per mile on the U.S. interstate-highway
system fell to the lowest level since it was established by President
Eisenhower in 1956, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety
Administration. But Russ Retting, a senior transportation engineer at
the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, a research group funded by
auto insurers, says fatality rates were 17% higher in states that
raised speed limits from 1995 to 1999 than in states that didn't.

"It's difficult to generalize information out of all the noise," says
Karl Zimmerman, an assistant research engineer at Texas Transportation
Institute, part of Texas A&M University, adding that many crashes are
caused by weather, driver inattentiveness and road conditions that
aren't connected to speed limits.

Recent speed-limit increases in Indiana, Iowa, Michigan and Texas are
the latest in a string of jumps dating back to the 1995 repeal of the
nationwide 55 mph speed limit, mandated by Congress in 1974. More than
a dozen states quickly gave drivers the freedom to push the pedal
closer to the metal, especially in Western and Midwestern states with
less congestion, scattered populations and wide, straight interstates.
A total of 31 states now have a maximum speed limit of at least 70 mph,
according to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.

Shaunee Lynch, spokeswoman for the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet,
says the state agency hopes that lawmakers will agree early next year
to raise the speed limit to 70 mph from the current 65 mph to keep up
with surrounding states that already let drivers go that fast. Drivers
aren't happy when signs at the border warn them to slow down, she says.
In Louisiana, state Sen. Joe McPherson says he plans to revive his
unsuccessful bill that would have raised the speed limit on Louisiana
interstates to 75 mph from 70 mph and on limited-access freeways to 70
mph from 65 mph. "If 35 mph is more fuel-efficient than 55 mph, then
why don't we all just drive 35 mph?" he says in response to
fuel-efficiency critics.

State lawmakers typically set statewide speed limits, with
transportation officials determining which stretches of roads can
safely handle faster-moving traffic. It isn't clear if the urge to
increase speed limits on interstates will trickle down to smaller roads
and streets, usually controlled by local officials.

Speed limits for cars and trucks can vary, with Illinois restricting
truck drivers to no more than 55 mph -- or 10 mph slower than the
maximum interstate-highway speed for cars. A bid to increase the speed
limit for trucks to 65 mph was vetoed by the Illinois governor in 2004.
In Michigan, the speed limit for trucks will be raised to 65 mph by
November -- but that still keeps them slower than cars.

It is too soon to tell whether some speed demons will see rising speed
limits as an excuse to go even faster. But Michigan transportation
officials are encouraged by the results of boosting the speed limit on
Interstate 69 near Flint to 70 mph last August. When the speed limit
was 55 mph, about 1.8% of all vehicles zipped along at more than 80
mph. That fell to 1% after the change.


July 20, 2006

.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: These guys are either incredibly, incredibly brave
    ... :> into the street and beaten by an angry mob for writing.. ... :>:Or the stupidest people I've ever seen. ... three abreast on the interstate and drive exactly 55 mph. ... How many more people _will_ die as a result of higher speed limits? ...
    (rec.sport.football.college)
  • Re: Ah yes - The joys of SLOW DRIVING
    ... When speed limits are set below the 50th percentile, ... it's clear that the majority of drivers don't feel that the law is ... Most speediots read that and miss that 60 mph equal 2 ... What does that have to do with drivers breaking the law? ...
    (rec.autos.driving)
  • We are in the wall street journal now!!!
    ... States Boost Speed Limits On Major Highways ... Moves Come Despite Concerns Over Safety, High Gas Prices; 80 Miles Per ... States around the country, including Texas and Michigan, have recently ... more than 55 miles per hour or 65 mph are seeing new signs with 70 mph ...
    (rec.autos.tech)
  • Re: We are in the wall street journal now!
    ... I stay in the middle or right hand lane, ... roads' in this section, either, so either I'm on the interstate, or I've ... and 45 mph) to the trip. ... the majority of people want to increase the speed limits because they ...
    (sci.geo.geology)
  • Re: Texas DOT vetoes 80 MPH speed limit
    ... other than maybe wanted a road built or not wanting a road built, ... Texas has rejected design speed as an excuse for lowering a speed ... liability for speed limits above the design speed they would have ... As a general rule in the United States, discretionary policy ...
    (misc.transport.road)