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This story was corrected on Jan. 29, 2013. An explanation follows the story. The speed limit on the Intercounty Connector could reach 70 miles per hour if a bill, introduced during the General Assembly's current session, passes. Del. Aruna Miller (D-Dist. 15) of Darnestown and Del. Neil Parrott (R-Dist. 2B) of Hagerstown are co-sponsoring the bill that would raise the maximum speed limit on interstates and expressways statewide from 65 to 70 miles per hour. The speed limit on the ICC would automatically increase from 55 to 70 miles per hour if the bill is passed. The Maryland Transportation Authority...

WASHINGTON - The Intercounty Connector, a highway that stretches between Gaithersburg and Laurel in Maryland, could see an increase in its speed limit this year. An engineering study found the speed limit of the highway could be raised from its current limit of 55 mph to 60 mph. The ICC, which opened in 2011, gives commuters a quick way to get from Interstate 270 to Interstate 95. "We wanted to have one year of actual operating experience before we looked at speed limits at all," Maryland Transportation Authority Executive Secretary Harold M. Bartlett tells WTOP. Bartlett says he thinks there...

WATCHTexas opened the fastest highway in the nation this weekend, but before a single driver got onto the road, Texan John Hennessey was cruising down the freeway at more than 200 mph. Hennessey, who specializes in making some of the fastest cars, asked lawmakers if he could test whether the TxTag toll tag system could capture license plates and tags at the new high speeds, according to Jalopnik. Texas officials gave him the thumbs up to test the system on the open road. Hennessey topped out his car at 220 mph, and the tag system grabbed his tag and license...

MUSTANG RIDGE, Texas, - Before long, a stretch of Texas toll road will have the nation's highest speed limit -- 85 mph. Motorists desiring to zip along at that speed legally will only be able to do it about 29 minutes at a time, however. That's how long it will take to traverse the 41-mile section of Texas 130 between Mustang Ridge near Austin to Seguin going 85 mph. The speed limit approved by the Texas Transportation Commission goes into effect when the toll road is completed, which is expected to be Nov. 11, the Houston Chronicle reported Thursday. The...

The Texas Department of Transportation is considering the move on a portion of state Highway 130 that would run north-south between Austin and Seguin, a town just east of San Antonio, spokesman Mark Cross said Thursday. The agency is looking at the toll road's topography, checking what speed most drivers are traveling on existing parts of the highway and ensuring the access points and cross-sections would still be safe with an 85 mph speed limit, Cross said.

AUGUSTA, Maine — If you drive along Interstate 95 in the nation's far northeastern corner, "it's trees, trees, trees" for mile after mile, says one motorist. So why not set the cruise control on 75 mph? That's what a lot of drivers have been doing for years, but now it's legal on one lonesome stretch, making Maine the only state east of the Mississippi River where drivers aren't breaking the law by driving 75 mph. The new law authorizing the higher limit went on the books Wednesday, though it actually takes effect when new signs replace the old 65 mph...

New laws regulating speed limits on state highways in Texas are beginning to take effect. Some speed limits will increase. Gov. Perry signed House Bill 1353, which takes effect today. This legislation allows the Texas Department of Transportation to create a 75-mph speed limit on any state highway found to be reasonable and safe through a speed study. TxDOT will be reviewing existing 70-mph limits to determine where a 75-mph speed limit may be safely posted. HB 1353 also eliminates the 65-mph nighttime speed limit and all truck speed limits. On Sept. 1, the existing nighttime and truck speed limits...

WOODSTOCK -- The last few days have been busy for Shenandoah County emergency personnel on Interstate 81. Or, as some people may feel, it's been like old times. Four notable crashes in a 10-mile stretch since Thursday afternoon -- there were two that day, one on Friday and a tractor-trailer overturned Tuesday morning -- may have been the most in such a short period of time since the Virginia Department of Transportation raised the posted speed limit throughout most of the jurisdiction to 70 mph last the fall. Official crash data, though, is not yet available for the past few...

Ohio Turnpike traffic could speed up just a bit come spring: the Ohio Turnpike Commission is to vote Monday on a proposal to increase the toll road's speed limit from 65 mph to 70 for all vehicles. Getting trucks off parallel secondary roads such as State Rt. 2 and U.S. 20 is the idea, said Pioneer, Ohio, Mayor Edward Kidston, the turnpike commission member who has placed the proposal on the board's agenda. Pioneer is on U.S. 20 in western Williams County, just north of the turnpike. Eliminating the turnpike's split speed limit, under which trucks and private buses were...

One of the newest videos to come out of Volkswagen’s “fun theory” initiative involves trying to get people to go the speed limit. As with the other projects that have come out of this the idea was to use fun to get people to do something good. Here is what happened. Its a nice idea where speed limits are in place at proper levels in order to make road travel safe and efficient. Of course anybody whose ever driven on an American highway ever knows that speed limits aren’t always in place at proper levels in order to make road...

Virginia will increase speed limits to 70 mph on 680 miles of interstates by the end of the year. Gov. Robert F. McDonnell announced the change Wednesday. It will affect interstates located in areas that are rural or less populated. It includes segments of Interstate 66, from Faquier County to Interstate 81 and Interstate 95 from south of Fredricksburg to Ashland and from Prince George County to the North Carolina border. The Virginia Department of Transportation outlined the plan at a meeting of the Commonwealth Transportation Board on Wednesday. State officials said in a statement that the change should help...

A Virginia highway official is recommending the state raise the speed limit on most interstates to 70 mph by year’s end. That would include nearly all of Interstate 81 in Virginia, except for major urban areas including the stretch between Christiansburg and Roanoke, and parts of I-64, I-66, I-85 and I-95. Connie Sorrell, chief of system operations at the Virginia Department of Transportation, said this afternoon that she will brief the Commonwealth Transportation Board on her recommendation Wednesday. Sorrell said she recommends the higher limit for “areas that we felt could be operated safety at 70 miles per hour.” Sorrell...

State highway officials have mapped several stretches of Interstate 81, including several in Southwest Virginia, where the speed limit could be raised from 65 to 70 mph as soon as July 1. The General Assembly voted earlier this year to authorize selective raising of the interstate speed limit, and Gov. Bob McDonnell concurred. The Virginia Department of Transportation has the final say. VDOT said it will evaluate 741 miles of Interstates 64, 66, 77, 81, 95, 295 and 395 during an opening round of required studies. A new map posted Monday to the agency's Web site shows areas under initial...

Virginia Becomes the Latest State to Raise Its Speed Limit; Drivers in Mississippi Go Really Fast

Just because the speed limit on Virginia highways can go to 70 miles per hour on July 1 doesn't mean it will. Gov. Bob McDonnell signed a bill Monday to raise the maximum potential speed limit on interstates and other major roads from 65 mph, effective in the new fiscal year. But it's the Virginia Department of Transportation that decides whether to implement an actual increase and, if so, where. That process could take four months or longer, transportation officials said Thursday. Before it decides, VDOT intends to scrutinize each eligible section of road from a physical standpoint and crunch...

HOUSTON (KTRK) -- A man has proof you can beat a speeding ticket, but it's not easy. Even if the state admits it put up the wrong speed limit sign. A retired police officer figured his wife was guilty when she got a ticket, until he drove through the intersection where she was ticketed. That's when he decided to fight the ticket she got at FM 1314 and Old Sorters Road in Montgomery County. When his wife told him she got a speeding ticket, Joe Gadus figured she deserved it, she'd pay for it, and they'd move on. "Like all...

Regulating Trucks by: Melinda Zosh, July 08, 2008 When Atlanta residents Stephen and Susan Owings ate breakfast, prayed and said good-bye to their two college-age sons after Thanksgiving, they had no idea that only one of their sons would return for Christmas. Nearly six years ago, on Dec. 1, 2002, 22-year-old Washington and Lee student Cullum Owings, a business major, died when a 70,000-pound tractor-railer driving 72 m.p.h., the equivalent of a car driving more than 300 m.p.h., slammed into his door. “My rear-view mirror has turned into a time machine,” said Stephen Owings. “Every now and then when I...

Cutting the speed limit from 30 mph to 20 mph on the wrong roads can pump up CO2 emissions by more than 10 per cent1, AA research has discovered. The UK's leading motoring organisation is now warning local authorities that some well-intentioned safety schemes may backfire in environmental terms. On average, petrol car fuel consumption on longer and relatively free-flowing 20mph urban streets can worsen by 5.8 miles per gallon (1.3 miles/litre). Over a year this will significantly increase CO2 emissions. In the first piece of research for its new Fuel for Thought campaign, updating widely-used test results from 1999,...

If there's one thing that's worse than paying $4 per gallon for gasoline, it's the resurgent talk of lowering speed limits to conserve fuel. Because, of course, these lowered limits won't be enforced as a "conservation" measure. Any curtailment of speed limits will be treated as a saaaaafety issue -- just as happened during the Dark Decades of the 55 mph National Maximum Speed Limit. "Speeding" tickets will be issued and "points" assigned. At the stroke of a lawmaker's pen (and the cop's, too) driving "x" MPH will suddenly become "unsafe," rather than merely wasteful. This is the most intolerable...

Toll road contract in Texas allows state to lower speed limits on nearby interstate freeway to avoid paying penalties to a private company. The Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) has agreed to consider lowering the maximum speed limit on a stretch of interstate highway that competes with a planned toll road. Cintra-Zachary, a joint Spanish-US venture, paid TxDOT $1.3 billion for the right to collect tolls on 40-miles of State Highway 130 set for construction beginning in 2009. Although TxDOT suggested that free market competition was part of the goal of using a public-private partnerships to construct and operate roads,...