Posted on 09/10/2013 8:58:31 PM PDT by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
BOSTON — Rep. Dan Winslow wants to raise the speed limit on certain stretches of interstate highways in Massachusetts from 65 miles per hour to 70 miles per hour.
“Our roads are designed for 70. Our cars are designed for faster than 65,” Winslow told the Committee on Transportation Tuesday.
If approved, the bill (H 3175) would increase the speed limit on parts of the Massachusetts Turnpike, Interstate 91, and Interstate 95.
Newton resident John Carr, who told the News Service highway speeds have been “an interest of mine for about 15 years,” favors an increase in the speed limit, and said highways where the 55 mile per hour speed limit is disregarded by all but a small percentage of drivers are dangerous. He named Rte. 3 in Burlington as an example.
Carr said other areas of the country with higher speed limits, which includes much of the southern, midwestern and western states, have safer roads where people obey the higher speed limits.
“If you set your cruise control to 80 out there, you’re the fastest car on the road,” Carr told the committee.
“By having a law that’s on the books that’s not being enforced, we actually incur sort of a lawless approach to driving in Massachusetts, which makes it all the more fun,” said Winslow, a Norfolk Republican. “But my hope is that we can at least join the majority of states by having the maximum speed be 70 rather than 65.”
Winslow’s bill is cosponsored by Reps. Angelo Scaccia of Hyde Park, Randy Hunt of Sandwich and Cleon Turner of Dennis, a former police officer in Maine and on Cape Cod.
That will help get rid of the surplus population.
Like the minimum wage... “Why only 70? Why not 110?”
That’s the speed limit on rural 2-lane roads in MT.
You are just starting to warm up the tires at 70...
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more yankees to add to my yankees i like list
That will help get rid of the surplus population.
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Hell to thin out the Lib Herd in Mass they need to raise it 90 and give them all Hastings Mobiles.
Given the vast expanses of nothing people have to drive through, I understand why the speed limit is that high. However, for roads without some kind of barrier in the middle, any kind of head on collision above 35 mph probably means a trip to the morgue for both parties.
Now that is an agreeable thought.
I’m the slowpoke going 80 on 130 ;)
Too funny!
Old map. That stretch has been open for about a year or so. There were four collisions with feral hogs the night it opened. For now, truckers who get on from IH 10 and go north of Georgetown and get on IH 35 there, pay car tolls.
We have 75 mph stretches of Interstate here in Idaho and Montana. Wasn’t that long ago there was no limit in portions of Montana - the speed limit signs said “Reasonable and prudent”.
The odd thing about that is I don’t want to fly through there.
Be careful out there.....
It is 75 here and I tend to push it 5 mph over on the interstate.
I laid in the road and looked at the stars one night in Montana.
Good for them, though I’m a bit surprised. The road may be designed for that speed, but the environment isn’t. There aren’t many areas in Mass where the highway is level enough, and the sightlines are long enough, to justify that speed. Too, Mass has a fairly high deer population, and they do get out onto the highways, so the higher speed will make it harder to avoid them. Maybe the stretch of 90 from 91 through to 495 will work, but I can’t think of anywhere else where the higher speed would be really needed.
Beyond that obvious fact, many drivers are not capable of much over 55-60 mph. Lousy reflexes, poor eyesight, abysmal decision making skills.
Have advocated for decades, licensing tiers based on real world physical capabilities. Never happen of course, half of southern Florida would possibly lose the right to drive.
But they did have a night time speed limit, which was strictly enforced.
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