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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.'"
The German Autobahn's have no speed limits in rural areas. I have driven at 160 Kph (i.e., 100 mph) and been routinely passed by faster vehicles. In fact, if you are in the left lane at that speed, they may get pretty annoyed with you if you don't get over immediately.
My understanding is that the German Auto Club serves a function much like the US NRA. Touch the speed limit, and your political career will be limited.
If you can't safely keep up with traffic you need to switch to a road where you can. If your work truck can't reach the speed limit, take a different route. IMO, there should be an implied minimum speed of 5 under the posted limit with very few exceptions. I'd be willing to bet that you'd see fewer accidents if that were the case.
I'm not saying you're wrong, but look at it from the other car's perspective. They're gaining on the truck at 40 KPH, which is fairly quick, and they check their mirror and see nothing so they go for the pass. Before they get around the truck you've shown up gaining on them at 130 KPH. Before they can accelerate out of the way you have to slow down to avoid rear-ending them.
No one is at fault for this - it's just the nature of a road system that allows such diverse speeds. In the US on roads which allow high speeds, typically greater than 60mph, there is also a minimum speed not more than 30mph below the maximum. If you don't have a maximum speed designated for the road it's much harder to manage a minimum speed.
One thought I've had is to have speed ranges defined per lane. It works best on roads with 3 or more lanes. Lane 1 would be 50-100 KPH, lane 2 would be 80 - 150 KPH, lane 3 would be 130 - 200 KPH, lane 4 would be 180 - unlimited KPH.
No sig for you. YOU GET NO SIG!
Years ago when we finally got rid of the double nickle speed limit there were people predicting carnage on the nations highways. I tried to run the numbers and came up with inconsistent results. Here's a couple of stats I remember from that era:
AAA reported that over eighty percent of injury accidents occur at speeds under forty miles per hour and within a few miles of home. This was in their monthly magazine.
At the same time it was widely reported that half of all traffic fatalities were the result of intoxicated drivers. (Alcohol, drugs.)
Those two stats leave very little room for accidents on high speed freeways where speed is the sole factor in the accident.
That happens anytime you raise the speed limit. from 55 to 65.
Accident rates in Colorado lowered when they raised the speed limit from 65 to 75.
One good reason you are not accounting for is that no matter what the speed limit is, drivers drive at a speed they consider comfortable on a highway. That means that people like you imperil everyone else by sticking close to an old and arbitrary speed limit. Once you raise the limits there is a much greater equalization of people driving around the same speed, making the whole road safer.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Montana ran with NO SPEED LIMITS, and overall, fatal accidents INCREASED when limits were put in again. Let's stop pseudoscience and politics from spreading death on our roads.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
most of us are driving 70-80mph anyways when the limits are 55-65mph...and arbitrarily enforced. Why not just make the limits 85mph...
The safety freaks will say people will start going 95-105mph if you raise the speed limit to 85, and people listen to them.
I can guarantee you that unless it's a steep downhill, there's no way I would've done so with the $500 cars I used to drive or the much nicer vehicle that I drive now. (which is an SUV -- I'm not often motivated to go 90) The only time I ever hit 100 was going downhill on Nevada's highway 6 (I think that's it, it's near 50 which is the "lonliest road in America"), which has no other traffic whatsoever and is generally a long straightaway. Yeah, you have your performance freaks who are already frequently going 90 and weaving in and out of traffic who might gain the confidence to make 100 their average, but that fringe does not represent the majority.
I sure hope safety is taking a back seat. We've gone WAY too far in terms of safety to the point where it's become some kind of mortality derangement. Life is a fatal disease, and there's no way to prevent driver fatalities unless we all go 10mph and prevent the physically infirm from driving. Frankly I find the chaos of Mexico's highways more appealing than the excessively proactive, taxation-masquerading-as-safety scheme we have on American highways today.
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