“Can’t drive 55? … 65? … 75? How about 85?
A stretch of Texas highway may soon be the first road in the country to have a posted 85 mph speed limit.
The Texas Department of Transportation said this week that part of a toll road being built between Austin and San Antonio will be tested to see if motorists can safely push it to 85.
“It was designed under extremely high design parameters,” Darren McDaniel, the state’s Speed Management Director told WOAI radio.
Texas and Utah are the only states with 80-mph limits on some roadways. But Texas turned heads when lawmakers gave the green light to go to 85 if needed.
“The higher the speed limit, the more accidents there are, the more injuries and the more deaths,” Jerry Johns, president of the Southwest Insurance Information Institute, told Reuters last year.
Eighty-five mph would be the second-highest posted speed limit in the world, according to the European auto rental firm Rhino Car Hire, Reuters reported. Some roads in Poland reportedly allow speeds of about 86 mph.
Texas hopes the faster toll road will help relieve one of the country’s most congested interstates, between Austin and San Antonio.
“It’s in a straight, flat area,” TxDOT spokesman Mark Cross told Yahoo. “Safety is a priority. We want to make sure people understand that.””
Its about time. Though I do think they should strongly enforce a law that keeps the left lane open for passing, and the middle lane for cruising or pant shitting, also a minimum speed limit for the assholes that enjoy driving at 15 miles below the speed limit.
Audubon rules. People should have to go through a little more to get their license. In this country people treat it as a right and not a privelege. Just pist a sign at the begininng: “No drinking, no texting, no doctors”
you can travel at about that speed pretty steady on the highways in Ontario without to much trouble… maybe 75 - 80mph without issue. I’ve gone through a number of speedtraps at that and the police don’t budge.
it certainly is pushing it for some drivers though. 65+ year old folks should probably not be allowed on that highway, or resigned to the right lanes.
[sarcasm]We’re talking MPH not KPH Bing![/sarcasm]
85mph posted = 95mph / 100mph realistic cruising speed. Brushing triple digits without much angst from law enforcement is awesome.
However if I was driving my truck on those roads I’d probably stick to about 90 (car is a different story) in line with studies that say the faster the limit, the less people break that limit. I think that’s the fastest I’d want to drive my truck as there are diminishing returns increasing speed while decreasing fuel economy.
When NYS increased the speed limit from 55 to 65 there were people who claimed there would be many more highway deaths & accidents when in fact those numbers went down. We’ll see if the same plays out for Texas.
There was a 28.3% decrease in absolute mortality and a 42.6% decrease in mortality adjusted for VMT, on the NYS thruway after the speed limit increase from 55 mph to 65 mph. When compared with roadways, where the speed limit remained unchanged, there was a 52.4% reduction in fatality rates below the predicted rates after the speed limit increase (p = 0.009). On the NYS interstate system, there was a 13.5% decrease in absolute mortality and a 29.2% decrease in mortality adjusted for VMT, after the speed limit increase. The percentage of traffic traveling >10 mph faster than the speed limit dropped from 39% to 8% on roads, where the speed limit was increased from 55 mph to 65 mph. In the NYS interstate system, “flat” roads (elevation <200 m) had a 30.2% reduction in absolute mortality, whereas “mountainous” roads (elevations >200 m) had a 17.6% increase in absolute mortality in response to the speed limit increase (p < 0.001).
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those stats are really curious. Intuitively you would think it would be the opposite or if anything, not nearly as pronounced as those results appear to be. Why not raise it another 10mph then if there is a negative correlation between speed and traffic fatalities?
The I-10 in west texas is already 80mph and has been so you can easily cruise at 90mph. The 45 between Dallas and Houston is posted 75 but no one does less then 90mph, on my way to the Nascar truck and Indy race this weekend I had my truck’s cruise set on 95 and slid up onto the 100-105 area for long periods of time. I can’t wait for the 85mph zones to start popping up all over the state.
Also I don’t know why a redneck tuck is any worse then a white trash civic at those speeds. My GMC and Chevy both handle 100-130 just fine. My F150 I don’t like above 80ish though.
Old cars they wanted to make illegal that went faster than 20mph. Why we settled that 55 and then 65 were proper speed limits amazes me. Now that people don’t even pay attention when they drive, they should be making speed limits lower so people aren’t as dangerous when they text and eat in their cars.
No one fucking drives anymore. People use going from point a to point be as a time to take care of any phone calls and things they need to get done.
Essentially what it shows is that there are more variables involved in the equation than just speed (like geography for example.) It’s likely that somewhere else this might not hold true, but that the “common” premise of “increased speed = increased death” isn’t accurate. Same goes for the gun bans in Chicago & D.C. where gun crime actually increased despite the bans.
Some things are just too complex to distill down to “bad” or “good” …unless you’re in the media & looking for a headline.
