Last night as I was driving down a two-lane highway with a speed limit of 60, I got caught behind a group of cars, the lead car going 45 to 50. What amazed me was that people were passing him when it wasn't safe to do so: double yellow solid lines, on hills, corners, etc. I finally passed him (safely and legally) and the driver was a guy who looked to be in his mid-thirties. He was leaning in toward the center of the car like he was playing with the radio or reaching into the glove compartment. And I thought "here's a guy, driving stupid slow and apparently distracted, and could cause an accident, yet it's doubtful any cop would write him a ticket for going too slow. Yet I go a little fast where traffic is light, and no cop would hesitate to write me a ticket."
Well, at least it's harder now to get a ticket in Virginia. Not that I ever drive in Virginia, but the state made the right move recently increasing its speed limits. As Joseph B. White writes in the Wall Street Journal (sub probably required):
The Virginia legislature last week passed legislation raising the speed limit on rural interstate highways to 70 mph from 65 mph. The state's new Republican governor, Bob McDonnell, put boosting the legal speed limit high on his list of priorities, and got action less than three months after taking office.
Which is a good thing, because 70 is about what people drive on interstates:
Left to their own devices, American drivers confronted with an open stretch of interstate highway tend to drive at about 70 miles per hour—whatever the legal speed limit happens to be.
That's the finding of an analysis of speed data gathered by TomTom Inc., a marketer of GPS navigation devices. This helps to explain why safety advocates and conservationists are losing the long-running debate over lowering freeway speed limits.
Some people aren't happy about higher speed limits (of course):
Insurers and other safety advocates, including groups such as the Governors Highway Safety Association, have consistently called for motorists to slow down, and for state and local authorities to get tougher on speeding enforcement.
"Higher speeds are bad on any road," says Anne McCartt, vice president of research for the Insurance Institute of Highway Safety, a research arm of the insurance industry.
Which is, in my opinion, sophistry. Would Ms. McCartt say my 45 mph driver was being safer than someone driving closer to the speed limit? Plus, highway deaths are declining:
But advocates of relaxing speed limits point to federal statistics which show that both fatalities and fatality rates on U.S. highways are declining even as speed limits rise. The U.S. Department of Transportation last week reported that its latest estimate of highway deaths in 2009 is 33,963—the lowest number since the government began keeping these grim records in 1954. The fatality rate is estimated at 1.16 deaths per 100 million vehicle miles traveled.
Frankly, I still think most speed limits are too low by about 10 miles per hour (and yes, that means speed limits on interstates should be around 80). And most drivers vote with their right foot for higher speed limits.
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