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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.
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.
When I was stationed in (middle-of-nowhere) Texas in 1987--8, the drivers were courteous to a fault, and pulling over onto the (fully paved) shoulder to allow a faster car overtaking one was the norm.
Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow.
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
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..."