Speeding up
As of Tuesday, stretches of Interstates-71 and -75 south if I-275 are eligible to have their speed limits raised from 65 mph to 70.
Congress repealed the national maximum speed law in 1995 and many other states already have raised their limits on rural sections of highway.
Today is the effective date of Kentucky’s revised speed law, but it will be up to the Transportation Cabinet to then do traffic studies to decide which eligible roads are safe enough to raise the limits. It should be noted that nationwide as speed limits have been raised, so have traffic fatalities.
Once the limit is raised, it probably won’t be long before the Kentucky State Police write their first ticket for some driver who thinks 70 really means 80.
posted by David Wells at 5:42 PM
4 Comments:
at 11:06 AM, June 26, 2007 
Anonymous said...
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at 10:47 AM, June 27, 2007 
Anonymous said...
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at 9:27 AM, June 28, 2007 
Anonymous said...
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at 2:25 PM, July 04, 2007 
SpongeBob SquarePants said...
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Post a Comment*you state that as speed limits have gone up, fatalities have increased. clearly, the only logical thing to do is to ban travel and force us all to stay home bringing a fortunate and timely end to traffice fatalities.
speed limits are being raised....so what?
Saturday June 23 I was driving from north I-71 to east I-275 in Ohio. As I came up the ramp, I had to speed up to 80 mph in order to merge into traffic safely; that's how fast everyone was going. I use my cruise control on the highway, and I set it for 70 mph (which is 5 miles over the posted limit). I was passed like I was standing still. We all passed a police car in the median; everyone slowed down to 70, then speeded back up once we cleared his vision. The cop never moved.
Speed limits, and enforcement here, are a joke. Montana obliterated their speed limits years ago, and people there drive upwards of 100 mph in places. While that's not something I want to do, it is what most people want. So, let them. Get rid of speed limits altogether, and let people drive as fast as they want. Yes, more people will die. That's their choice, just like wearing a seatbelt. Yes, our dependence on oil will remain at ridiculous levels. But Americans don't care about this stuff, they want to drive big cars, and they want to drive them as fast as they can, and by God, get out of their way.
The other, more intelligent option is what they do in St. Louis. People drive faster and more aggresively there than they do here. But there, cops on I-70 are slick; they post guys with a radar gun and binoculars on an overpass, in plain sight of everyone. The next onramp is packed with 5-6-7 police cars. As people fly down the road, the radar guys recite license plates and speeds, and the cops swoop down and nab them. They especially love big trucks, since they bring more revenue. It's common to see a string of cars and trucks pulled over, all getting speeding tickets. Mind you, speeding sweeps are announced in advance, much like DUI checkpoints here, so don't bother crying 'entrapment'. And the cops don't nab you until you're at least 15 mph over the limit, which brings a higher fine. You think it doesn't work? Ask any trucker, they'll tell you to be careful speeding in the city.
The financial woe of speeding is also remarkable. In St. Louis, folks will pay hundreds of dollars (upwards of $500) to keep a speeding ticket off their records. Why? You get one, your auto insurance doubles. Two, and you're cancelled, and no other insurance company will touch you. Even accidents don't have this kind of impact on insurance rates there.
Does it work? Not entirely. Folks still speed like they were on racecourses. But at least the city's making money and so are the courts, and they make first-time speeders a bit more cautious.
So if folks here want to speed at 80+ mph, either make it legal to do so, or let them pay for the privilege. In America, money talks. So let's start speaking their language.
Accidents and fatalities also go up when people drive more. More people are driving than ever before.
When the feds lowered the national speed limit to 55 MPH, people cut back on their driving to conserve gasoline. A few years after the energy crisis people started driving more and eventually some states raised their speed limits.
The first comment is correct: the only sure-fire way to eliminate motor vehicle accidents is for everyone to stay home!
Ideally we shouldn't need speed limits. Engineers select a "design speed" when they design a road. The design speed should dictate a driver's speed, not some random speed limit.
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