The death rates in those states will go up proportionally, especially if semi-trucks are given the same limits and unlimited lane usage.
The few more dead people could help save social security...(sarcasm...)
Iowa will also double fines...and they say they're going to enforce the new limit strictly.
I seem to recall the crash and fatality rates went down when Montana recently had no daytime speed limit, and back up again when they imposed one. Ah, here's the document I was thinking of:
http://www.motorists.com/pressreleases/montana.html
In 1999, after 4 years of no numerical or posted daytime speed limit on these classifications of highways, outside of urban areas, Montana recorded its lowest fatality rate. For the last 5 months of no daytime limits in Montana, the period after its Supreme Court had ruled that the Reasonable and Prudent law was unconstitutional, reported fatal accident rate declined to a record low. Fixed speed limits were reinstated on Memorial Day weekend 1999. Since then, fatal accidents have begun to rise again.
I've never been to Texas, but 80 seems like a high speed limit. But I guess in rural areas it makes sense. Fastest I've ever been in a car is on the autobahn in Germany. 190 kph and it was raining. And people were passing us. And no, I wasn't driving.
Explain how the autobahn is one of the safest roads in the world despite no speed limit at all?
BS. The problem isn't the high speeds, it's the differential in speeds (and corresponding backup) that are created by 1) artificially low speed limits, and 2) constantly changing speed limits.
As for semi-trucks, they should be restricted to the two right hand lanes on a three lane road. I believe this is the case for most of the US interstate system that has 3 lanes.
I'll bet you $10 they won't; let's give it five years and settle it then.
It's 400 miles from Dallas to Amarillo. much of it on roads that are empty. Besides, the German Autobahen used to have no speed limit but there were not an extraordinary number of deaths. You have a point aboiut the trucks. But the big problem is their speeding in urban areas.
People said the same thing when we (Texas) raised the limit to 70. The death rates did not increase. However, DPS officers did step-up enforcement of driving regulations and were more prone to issue citations and tickets for moving violations.
Its tough to imagine the semis barreling through at 80, but in California where they allow auto traffic up to 70 but limit trucks, trailers to 55 you see a jamming up of the freeways that follows every heavy vehicle. I am not sure what makes the most sense, because of course even if all can travel at the maximum posted speed there will always be those who travel at a lower speed and cause crowding.
And your source for this unfounded speculation is?
Hopefully those truckers will wipe out the obnoxious folks who park their fat asses in the No. 1 lane and only go 55-60 MPH.
That's always the assumption. However, a leading cause of accidents is road fatigue and falling asleep at the wheel, and studies have shown that higher speed limits reduce that. So it ain't as simple as you might believe.
People are already doing 70 in a 55 here in Indianapolis. That just means they'll do 100.
It will be interesting to watch the crash statistics, as I have done for insurance companies since '68.
Take seat belts, for example. The 3 states with the weakest seat belt laws have the lowest fatality rates. Why? The evidence points to the fact that when people do not place their trust in the magical powers of some inanimate object they are more likely to accept that they are responsible for the avoidance of a crash.
So one key question is how a change in the speed laws affects the drivers belief that he is responsible for avoiding a crash vs it is not his responsibility. Is part of that a good advertising campaign? Is part of it the impartation of certain values from his parents?
Another key question is how the slow drivers react. A significant portion of crashes occur when a driver does not keep up with traffic and blocks traffic. The impatient get frustrated and start to shift lanes to move up in the line. The people who are passed by the impatient then get po'd. It gradually escalates into road rage or some other attitude that leads to crashes.
Another factor is whether the police will shift from an emphasis on speeding tickets to enforcing the truly dangerious drivers, especially the DUIs. Statistics consistently show that whereas seatbelts are meaningless, the reduction in DUI drivers through strict enforcement has a major impact on a reduction in crashes of all severities, including fatalities.
MHT wrote:
The death rates in those states will go up proportionally, especially if semi-trucks are given the same limits and unlimited lane usage.
REPLY:
You can just say no and boycott these states.
Better still drive in states with real slow speed limits so you can have a Feel Good Experience that your saving the world.
Liberal environuts penalized us years ago with 55 mph.
SOMETHING TO CHEW ON:
Speeds increase fatalities do not; NHTSA warning fails to pan out
June 14, 1999
By Henry Payne
Copyright 1999 Scripps Howard News Service
Washington, DC - In 1995, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration predicted that repeal of the federally mandated 55-mph speed limit would result in an additional 6,400 highway deaths each year.
The prediction was about 6,400 deaths too high.
This month, NHTSA announced that fatality rates on U.S. highways had fallen to 41,480 in 1998 from 41,817 in 1995, even as every state but Hawaii scrapped the 55-mph speed limit. For the third year in a row, the fatality rate per 100 million passenger miles dropped _ from 1.8 in 1995 to 1.6 in 1998, a record low.
State highway engineers say the reduction in fatalities is evidence that the 55-mph mandate, enacted in 1974, was ill-considered, and states' rights advocates criticize the agency for politicizing the 1995 debate with apocalyptic predictions of carnage on the highways.
As for the agency's 1995 prediction of 6,400 more deaths, Hurd says it was "just a worst-case scenario."
But in November 1995, the 6,400 figure was the centerpiece of a public campaign by NHTSA and the insurance industry to oppose a bill in Congress that would allow states to set their own speed limits. Safety activists warned of a blood bath.
On NBC's "Today Show," Judith Stone, president of Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety, a lobbying group for the insurance industry, said higher speed limits would cause "6,400 added highway fatalities a year and millions more injuries."
After President Clinton reluctantly signed the legislation, Ralph Nader concluded, "History will never forgive him and his allies in Congress for this assault on the sanctity of human life."
In addition to the record low fatality rate, continuing a steady downward trend from 6.1 deaths per 100 million passenger miles in 1956 when construction began on the interstate highway system, NHTSA's 1998 report also shows record lows for injuries and crashes.
In Colorado, where highway fatalities have fallen by 11 percent since the state hiked its speed limit to 75 in 1996, Colorado Department of Transportation engineer John Muscatell says the problem with the 55-mph limit was that it "caused a greater differential in speed."
On highways designed for 65-75 mph, Muscatell says the 55 limit is artificially low, thus widening the speed "band" and increasing the incidence of rear-end crashes and side swipes. "I want to see everyone at the same speed. I want to keep everyone within a 10 mile per hour band of each other," says Muscatell.
Stephen Moore of the Cato Institute in Washington, D.C., a proponent of states' rights legislation, says such interpretations of the data are flawed.
In a study of the declining fatality rates, Moore writes that "one impact of raising speed limits on highways is to reduce the travel times on those roads, thus drawing traffic from the more dangerous secondary roads." As a result, he concludes, higher speed limits in many states result in a few more deaths on interstates, "but far fewer deaths on statistically more dangerous back roads."
He also notes that in the 11 states that have posted speed limits higher than 70, fatality rates have actually declined faster than the rates in states that have not.
Asked if Colorado would ever consider lowering its 75 mph speed limit to 55 again, transportation engineer Muscatell says: "Whatever we're doing is working. We're not going to change a thing."
I started my maxillofacial residency in 1978. It seem that sometimes after that the speed limit was lowered to 55 nationally. We saw a huge drop off in severe facial and head and neck injuries. Of course as a resident we lamented the reduction of big panfacial fracture cases but now I don't miss them at all. If the speed limit goes back I will be getting a lot more ER calls and much more lengthy and complicated cases. I am getting to old for that stuff and I kind of like my nights and weekends. Seat belts and air bags also help so hopefully the new technology will prevent to "good" old days from returning.
bttt
Does this mean that Texas will drop the warrant it has on me for an umpaid ticket for driving 80 mph on a deserted expressway?