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Texas Opens Fastest US Highway With 85 MPH Limit
Hugh Pickens writes "Most highways in the U.S. top out at 75 mph, while some highways in rural West Texas and Utah have 80 mph speed limits. All that is about to change as Texas opens a stretch of highway with the highest speed limit in the country, giving eager drivers a chance to rip through a trip between two of the state's largest metropolitan areas at 85 mph for a 41-mile toll road between Austin and San Antonio. While some drivers will want to test their horsepower and radar detectors, others are asking if safety is taking a backseat. A 2009 report in the American Journal of Public Health found that more than 12,500 deaths were attributable to increases in speed limits on all kinds of roads and that rural highways showed a 9.1 percent increase in fatalities on roads where speed limits were raised. 'If you're looking at an 85 mph speed limit, we could possibly see drivers going 95 up to 100 miles per hour,' says Sandra Helin, president of the Southwestern Insurance Information Service. 'When you get to those speeds, your accidents are going to be a lot worse. You're going to have a lot more fatalities.'"
Well, that's 136km/h - that's what our recommended travelling speed (130) on the "Autobahn" is in Germany.
It has proven to be an excellent balance between emission (gears and cars are tuned to that speed), moving forward, but not braking too much due to other people's influences.
Once again I have deep mis-respect for you "best country in the world" guys.
Don't like the higher speed limit? Don't drive on it.
Doesn't get any simpler than that.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
The sad fact is that its not speed that kills, its differential speed. Unfortunately our drivers training here is not really up to the standards it should be with modern machines. If you look at Germany they take drivers ed a lot more seriously, as well as licencing, with 6 month courses costing thousands of dollars being the norm. As well the rules of the Autobahn are strictly enforced, if you're going slow in the left lane you WILL be pulled over, just as quick if not quicker than you would for "speeding". Same with sudden lane changes, and just general bad driving. Speed doesnt kill, dumb drivers do.
That happens anytime you raise the speed limit. from 55 to 65. from 45 to 55. from 10 to 20. We've already had this argument brought up multiple times, and you lost. Take that argument and go away.
Statistically speaking anyway, once you're hurtling down the road at 65 mph or faster, you're already well over the curve for speed-to-lethality tradeoff. Dropping your odds of survival from 2% to 1.8% really doesn't impress me that much.
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
Just stay out of the left lane when not passing and driving will be much safer for everyone.
I've seen Autobahn drivers - they're mostly courtious, follow the rules, and usually don't do anything stupid.
Here we're talking about Americans - specifically Texans. Expect to see many many shoot outs, accidents, law suits and fatalities.
Not necessarily. The problem with speed limits is they do not take into consideration the vehicle that's being driven, the vehicle's tires, or other various factors that contribute to the safety of those speeds.
I agree that it increases the potential for Darwinism, but just because one drives at 90-100 MPH on the freeway does not necessarily mean that he or she is driving any more risky than someone driving at 60. Those of us who value our own (and our family's) well being don't drive based entirely on the speed limit. In certain conditions, I drive much slower than the speed limit because that's what's wise. It would be nice if I were also allowed to drive faster when safe.. you know, to make up for the times that I had to drive slower.
Ultimately, I feel the real problem is that people have been trained to rely on the government to tell them what's right and wrong, what's safe and what's dangerous. It's total bullshit.
Come back when team medicine has advanced to the point where the other guy being held liable is sufficient to scrape my central nervous system off the steering column... Ideally, bring a population of replacement humans who don't have a hilariously dodgy risk-discounting algorithm as a matter of empirical fact...
The 1980's 55 MPH federal mandate was not done to save lives. It was done to conserve energy. In fact, some states at the time even issued tickets for people driving over 55 that read "failure to conserve energy", not "speeding". The federal government still has its hands in regulating energy used by cars. Although we have now learned that it is more effective to regulate at the manufacturing stage, not at the operating stage.
There is nothing unsafe about driving very fast on roads designed for driving very fast. You are FAR safer driving on a restricted-access divided highway at 100 MPH than you are driving on a 45 MPH city street with cross traffic, or a country road. Especially now that many states are putting up those cables in the median that prevent cars from getting across into oncoming traffic.
Even the article summary has to grasp for straws in trying to provide a "balanced" summary.... this 85 MPH divided highway is apparently unsafe because.... driving fast on country roads increases fatalities!
But a divided highway is not a country road.
Accidents between two cars going in the same direction at relatively the same speed (+/- 10-15 mph) are rare. It's the car going 35 MPH+ one way that encounters another car going 35 MPH+ in a different direction (hed-on or cross traffic) that kills people. Divided highway fatalities are usually coming up on stopped traffic in fog or at night, or falling asleep and leaving the highway.
One more point to note ... if you're going to get in a single-car accident at 65 MPH and hit a pylon or something, you're dead. If you do it at 85 or 90 MPH, you're just REALLY dead. Same difference.
paintball
If California is on par with the rest of the states wrt drivers tests, then yeah, having an autobahn (which I have driven on during a vacation) would be a very, very bad idea in the states. Driving is a privilege not a right, you should have to work hard to get it (learn to drive and be tested accordingly).
Be glad you're in California, it's actually got one of the better driver training & licensing programs in the country. In the Midwest the program seems to be, "let's assume you've been driving your Father's tractor since 8 years old and call that equivalent experience". Out East I've had natives in New Jersey honk at me for not turning left across traffic at a red light; what lack of training is needed to think that is acceptable should be criminal. California may not have the most courteous drivers, but it could be a lot worse...
"Space Exploration is not endless circles in low earth orbit." -Buzz Aldrin
There are also well published statistics about how fatalities increase as a result of going at a higher speed (which should be pretty obvious if you give it more than a few minutes of thought).
Fatalities increase with speed, yes. Because higher speed means a crash has more destructive force than a lower speed. However, that does NOT mean that a higher speed CAUSES more crashes. It just means the crashes that may or may not have occurred either way are far more likely to kill you. And even at 65mph, if you wipe out, you're going to have a really bad day more often than not.
"So after all this, you make my case for me. To end this stalemate, you must die..."
You don't think road crews in America check to make sure the highways they build are level? You don't know what you're talking about.
People refuse to obey the speed limits because the speed limits are retarded. Take any major highway in North America and you'll find massive stretches of more or less completely straight road where there's no reason you couldn't drive all day at your car's top speed, except, the posted speed limit is a third (or less) of said top speed.
This will never change because the government strongly prefers to keep everyone a criminal, they're much easier to control that way. If speed limits were strictly enforced (and not increased to sane values), there would be riots in the streets.
Game! - Where the stick is mightier than the sword!