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.'"

Comments

Re:It's an Effing Toll Road

[Anonymous Coward]

Shhh, hush, hush. Baby steps, remember, baby steps. First, take the time to find a softer way to break it to the pampered city-boy/girl that people actually exist in places not on an ocean coast. Once that's clear, graduate from there to the concept that those non-coastal-city people ARE actually human beings, not some sub-human animated piles of refuse (trust me, THAT'S the hardest part to get city people to understand). Then, work up from there. If you try to leap straight into "we have cars AND roads out here, and most of the time those roads aren't in a neat grid pattern" without some prerequisites, their Starbucks-addicted brains will overload and shut right the hell down.

Re:There's nothing Darwin about it.

[geekoid]

Driving fast does increase fatalities.

". It's the car going 35 MPH+ one way that encounters another car going 35 "
wow, you ass must be pretty empty after pulling all of this out of it.

You discount the same thing everyone discounts. YOU are not the only person on the road. That means you are depending on every one else to be able to be alert enough to be safe, and fast enough reflexes to begin to correct for a situation, AND the knowledge of how to do that at that speed.

If you are going 64, it have a slight period longer to correct for the on comming pylon.

Yes, it's divided and that is safer. Presumable it is built with materials, and engineered with 100MPH in mind. SO some variable have been limited

The other point is people regularly drive over the speed limit, regardless of the speed. SO when you are doibng 85, some a hole is doing 120. Drive at 120 is different the 65 and 85. Wind and air pressure at 120 can cause you to lose control.

Nations and their mental defects

[Qbertino]

"We could possibly see drivers going 95 up to 100 miles per hour."
Hate to break it to Sandra, but that's the usual speed in many parts of Texas.

100mph ~ 160km/h, correct? ... You american sissies, that's not fast.
220km/h - that's fast. Sometimes.

Jokes aside:
If only the americans were so prissy about guns as they are about speeding and germans would be as prissy about speeding as they are about guns, the western world would be a much, much safer place. The western world really needs US speed limits in Germany and German gun laws in the US. Seriously, that would really solve a lot of our everyday problems, both in the US and in Germany. And unnatural deaths would plummet.

My 2 cents.