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 This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
"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.
Exactly. Slow trucks require much changing of lanes, and impatient fast lane drivers. It equals more accidents.
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.
what political party is doing this?
the evil democrats or the stupid republicans?
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.
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.
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.
"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.
I was nailed for going 70 along there back in 1991.
"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.
Welcome to Michigan: More like western Europe every day!
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?"
"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.
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.
"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.
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.
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.
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.
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