Mid-Life Rider

I offer this clip from an article on CNN about speeding without further comment . . .

Since 1995, states have been free to set their own maximum speed limits, leading to long debates on safety standards. To some folks, the speed limits are just insane — either too low or too high, depending on their views about what makes driving safe.

Advocates of low speed limits won’t find much to like about Texas. True to its frontier roots, it stands out as the land of the fast getaway. The top rural speed limit is normally 70 mph, but in 2006 it set a maximum daytime speed of 80 miles per hour, the highest speed limit on the country, on more than 500 miles of rural interstate in its southwest corner.

This includes parts of Interstate 10 between Kerrville and El Paso and of I-20 between Monahans and the I-10 interchange.

The speed limit for rural roads in Montana is 75 mph. As a result, it takes just three hours to travel the 228 miles from Billings to Butte at the posted speed. But that’s much slower than a Montana driver could have made the trip in early 1999. At that time there was a six-month speeders’ honeymoon when the state had almost no control over rural speeds, partly as a result of an unfavorable court ruling.

Oh, all right, I will comment by quoting this . . .

Political scientist Robert Yowell, a professor at Northeast Lakeview College in Texas, examined what happened after states began setting higher rural speed limits in 1995. With the federal 65 mph limit gone, it was possible to compare the accident rates before and after the new limits went into effect.

The results were clear: “By and large, across the 50 states, there was no discernible effect from the higher limits,” Yowell said. “Two or three states actually had a decrease in fatalities.”

And this . . .

Ride on

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Tags: speed, speeding, speed limits, midlife rider, motorcycles