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New speed limits on I-81 at Tennessee line (environMENTAL alert!)
WDBJ7 ^ | February 5, 2007 | Associated Press

Posted on 02/07/2007 8:52:37 AM PST by Tolerance Sucks Rocks

KINGSPORT, Tenn. Motorists are warned to watch their speed on Interstate 81 after they cross into northeast Tennessee. The speed limit has dropped there, starting today. The Tennessee Department of Transportation is posting new lower speed limit signs.

The speed limit for truckers will drop from 70-to-55 miles per hour. The new speed limit for everyone else will be 65 miles per hour.

The reductions will affect more than 22 miles on I-81 and 12-and-a-half miles on I-26, from the Tennessee-Virginia border to the Sullivan-Washington county line.

Local officials requested the change to help bring the county into line with the Environmental Protection Agency's air quality health standard for ozone.

Tennessee state troopers will issue warnings, rather than speeding tickets, for the first two weeks the lower limits are posted.

Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Government; News/Current Events; US: Tennessee
KEYWORDS: airpollution; environment; epa; i26; i81; interstate26; interstate81; liberalagenda; o3; ozone; speedlimit; tennessee; tn
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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks

"Proponents of the proposal, speaking on behalf of the Ozone Action Partnership, said transportation officials think making trucks go 10 mph slower than cars would be "a wash" on safety because it will mean "more car onto truck, but less truck onto car and less sideswipes."

More sideswipes, since more vehicles are traveling at a different rate of speed.


21 posted on 02/07/2007 9:34:02 AM PST by RegulatorCountry
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To: RegulatorCountry

Exactly. Slow trucks require much changing of lanes, and impatient fast lane drivers. It equals more accidents.


22 posted on 02/07/2007 9:35:15 AM PST by dinoparty
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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks

I have found (through bitter experience) that police will usually not give tickets for going 75 in a 65 mph zone, but they WILL give tickets for going 78 in a 70 mph zone. The "grace zone" is less when the official limit is increased, so I don't think an increase or decrease makes much difference as far as risk of getting a ticket.


23 posted on 02/07/2007 9:38:26 AM PST by dinoparty
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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks

what political party is doing this?

the evil democrats or the stupid republicans?


24 posted on 02/07/2007 9:39:55 AM PST by greasepaint
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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks

About six years ago I was taking a bus from Warsaw, Poland to Berlin, Germany and as we approached the German border there were miles of trucks parked along the roadside. It was a Sunday, and I was told that the trucks were not allowed to enter Germany during certain hours on the sabbath. It seemed a strange prohibition in a country where fewer and fewer people can be found in church - perhaps a part of the "noise restrictions" imposed there at certain times.


25 posted on 02/07/2007 9:43:23 AM PST by Malesherbes
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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks

I'm guessing that IF this truly has any effect on air quality, it will be because of the lower volume of traffic resulting from people finding alternate routes.

What a pantload.


26 posted on 02/07/2007 10:05:24 AM PST by ChildOfThe60s (If you can remember the 60s......you weren't really there)
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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks
Ozone is probably only bad there 2 weekends/year when Bristol is overrun by 100,000 NASCAR fans stuck in 5 mph traffic for 6 hours at a time.

The other 50 weeks out of the year, the roads are practically empty.

This is a big government solution to a problem that doesn't exist.

27 posted on 02/07/2007 10:27:07 AM PST by UNGN (I've been here since '98 but had nothing to say until now)
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To: SierraWasp

"The ONLY good thang Billie Bob Clinton ever did... was to dump that stupid 55mph national speed limit!!!"

It was done after the 1994 election; it was the only good thang the Republican congress ever did except lower taxes.


28 posted on 02/07/2007 11:06:09 AM PST by gcruse (http://garycruse.blogspot.com/)
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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks

I was nailed for going 70 along there back in 1991.


29 posted on 02/07/2007 11:58:17 AM PST by ElkGroveDan (When toilet paper is a luxury, you have achieved communism.)
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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks; SierraWasp

"Supporters also said better air quality could help promote economic development in the county."

That is the most stupid statement I've read in months. Eco-fascists will say anything, tell any lie to promote their Marxism.

If it were true, my county would be buried in factories and Starbucks. (The nearest Starbucks is 250 miles away.) And manufacturers are leaving my county because of our communist governor and her draconian soviet socialist policies. In her State of Socialism address last night, the clueless twit promised to raise taxes on everything to promote economic development and lure business to the state.


30 posted on 02/07/2007 12:35:54 PM PST by sergeantdave (Consider that nearly half the people you pass on the street meet Lenin's definition of useful idiot)
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To: sergeantdave

Welcome to Michigan: More like western Europe every day!


31 posted on 02/07/2007 2:15:06 PM PST by Tolerance Sucks Rocks (“Don’t overestimate the decency of the human race.” —H. L. Mencken)
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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks

Welcome to Michigan: More like western Europe every day!

In my analysis, the former soviet socialist union fits as a better analogy here in Michigan.

If citizens want to see what America will look like under Hillary, just stop into Michigan - highest unemployment in the nation, taxes, taxes everywhere, a draconian bureaucracy, stealing from productive citizens and giving to welfare cheats and crooked politicians in the liberal cities.

This state has been flushed and is swirling around the toilet bowl.

Can you say "crap?"


32 posted on 02/07/2007 3:16:10 PM PST by sergeantdave (Consider that nearly half the people you pass on the street meet Lenin's definition of useful idiot)
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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks
Fascism, fascism, fascism
33 posted on 02/07/2007 3:19:08 PM PST by smug (Tanstaafl)
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To: ChildOfThe60s
Frankly, there are NO alternatives. I-81 is the main north-south artery between the mid-Atlantic and Northeast (Knoxville to NY state), and I-26 is now a primary, though yet to be finished, route between I-95 and south/central Ky. This whole deal is purely about air quality; folly in differing speeds between trucks and cars was likely a political compromise because NOBODY would have held to a 55 across the board limit if it applied only to the few miles in Sullivan County. The accident scenarios are a gamble that the county commissioners decided to chance. There is significant truck traffic due to the Kingsport industrial complex.
34 posted on 02/07/2007 5:39:50 PM PST by Amalie (FREEDOM had NEVER been another word for nothing left to lose...)
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To: sergeantdave

"Eco-fascists will say anything, tell any lie to promote their Marxism."

While your statement is true, in this instance, it was not the ecological aspect, rather the economic one. Due to the federal non-compliance issues, any new production/transportation-based businesses in the zone have been over a barrel with the EPA before they even get started (Kingsport was founded by the CC&O (now CSX) railroad to be an industrial city from the very start). There will be very little left if those businesses close down.


35 posted on 02/07/2007 5:47:34 PM PST by Amalie (FREEDOM had NEVER been another word for nothing left to lose...)
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To: Amalie
Frankly, there are NO alternatives.

Well then they really have drivers by the short & curlies. I haven't looked at a map, so I'll trust you on this.

Anyway, from a layman's point of view, the whole idea sounds like vodoo science. Another example of a computer model developed with a particular result in mind, because it can never work in the real world.

36 posted on 02/07/2007 6:14:42 PM PST by ChildOfThe60s (If you can remember the 60s......you weren't really there)
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To: Amalie

"Frankly, I'll drive slower there if it means we can still make the stuff we need for security and American manufacturing. "

If enviro regulations are hampering our manufacturing of national security widgets then the regulations need to be repealed.


37 posted on 02/07/2007 6:23:56 PM PST by Rb ver. 2.0 (A Muslim soldier can never be loyal to a non-Muslim commander.)
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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks
This is one of the few circumstances I favor upstream interference in what local governments mandate.

Periodically, the State of NM marches through my home town and makes the city take down all the stop signs, traffic lights, etc. that the city put up on state highways.

This is a good thing.

This would be an ideal circumstance for the feds to withhold highway funds if this isn't undone.

Another federal intervention I advocated in the mid-1970's was a local cap on mortgage interest rates.

Until the feds intervened, there was a severe capital shortage, which essentialy shut down construction, and home sales.

38 posted on 02/07/2007 6:33:47 PM PST by elkfersupper
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To: Amalie
Before everyone flies off the handle, this was due primarily to federal edicts on air quality, which in this case is directly related to the Eastman chemical plant, Weyerhauser paper facility, and Army munitions manufacturing concerns in the Kingsport area. This was the easiest way to get the feds TEMPORARILY off the county's back and buy some time. The chemical plant, despite multiple scrubbers and washers, processes numerous byproducts the leave air quality in the region moderate even on the best days, and eye-watering on the worst. Frankly, I'll drive slower there if it means we can still make the stuff we need for security and American manufacturing. If not, well, the Chinese will be doing it...

In certain prevailing weather conditions no county in East Tennessee can pass EPA standards. The Gulf Air Stream has as much to do with it as anything. Granted Eastman has had some rather bad environmental history especially in the 1960's. I remember the fish kills on Cherokee Lake years ago. A paper plant is a major source. Calhoun, TN and Bowater paper is a good example. Still the state as a whole is far more cleaner than it was in the 1960's when TVA Coal Steam Plants belched out black smoke.

I would say most of the origins are out of the hands of Sullivan County and even the state of Tennessee for that matter as to where the pollutiants originate and this is a futile effort to please the EPA. But the EPA being the control freak it is got what it wanted. Every County has their air quality problems in the Tennessee Valley even the ones that are rural.

Another well known place to bring tears to the eyes is east of Morristown a chemical plant called Enka {sp}. Not a good place to want to retire healthy from or used to be it wasn't.

39 posted on 02/07/2007 7:16:01 PM PST by cva66snipe (Rudy, the Liberal Media's first choice for the GOP nomination. Not on my vote not even in Nov 2008..)
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To: Amalie

BTW does'nt the speed limit drop down once you enter Virginia? I know for years it seemed like it did but it's been about 3 years since I went up through there.


40 posted on 02/07/2007 7:19:14 PM PST by cva66snipe (Rudy, the Liberal Media's first choice for the GOP nomination. Not on my vote not even in Nov 2008..)
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