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Speed Limiters, Too?
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Car Guy
85 MPH: Almost a Speed Limit
A lonely exception on a lonely stretch of Texas highway.
On a stretch of road near Austin, Texas, there is an actual speed limit. Or at least, close to one.
You can drive up to 85 MPH on Texas Highway 130 — and not worry about receiving a “reckless driving” ticket. Or even a “speeding” ticket.
It’s a start.
Almost 60 years ago — during the presidency of Dwight Eisenhower — construction of the Interstate Highway System began. Inspired by the German Autobahn, it was specifically intended to be a system of superhighways — with traffic flowing at speeds of at least 70 MPH. Much higher speeds were anticipated — and designed for. There are portions of the Interstate system that were laid out with 100-plus MPH average speeds in mind. By implication, speed limits would have been considerably higher.
But, let’s stick with 70-75 average speeds for just a moment — and reflect on Texas’ 85 MPH maximum today.
In the late 1950s, when the Interstate system was being laid out, the typical new car had manual drum brakes at all four corners, rode on skinny (by modern standards) whitewall bias-ply tires, had loosey-goosey steering and a suspension not far removed from what was used in Model Ts: Leaf springs, non-independent rear axle — perhaps shock absorbers. Really bouncy ones. That’s it. No anti-sway bars, no four wheel independent suspension — let alone four wheel disc brakes with ABS. And yet, the very smart — and very sober-minded — men who designed the Interstate system considered that the average car of circa 1958 (and the average driver of circa 1958) was sufficiently competent to safely handle steady-state cruising speeds of around 70-75 MPH.
It is nearly 60 years later — but we’re rarely allowed to travel faster. In fact, it’s a fairly recent development that we’re even allowed to drive at speeds that were allowable in the late 1950s and through the 1960s. Just 16 years have passed since the federal 55 MPH National Maximum Speed Limit (NMSL) was finally repealed. For almost 20 years prior, motorists were routinely mulcted by costumed enforcers for “speeding” — that is, for driving at speeds that were formerly lawful and well within the designed-for speeds envisioned by the engineers who laid out the Interstates… back when Eisenhower was in office.
Today, we can once more drive at late 1950s speeds — and not worry about “speeding” tickets. Celebration!
But people might ask whether, just perhaps, it might be reasonable to reconsider circa 1950s speed limits in light of the exponentially higher limits of modern cars. If it was “safe” and “reasonable” for a 1958 Chevy with drum brakes and bias-plys to operate at 70, what of a 2013 Chevy with high-performance four-wheel disc brakes and 17-inch alloy wheels shod with modern radials designed for safe travel at continuous speeds in excess of 130 MPH? There isn’t a new (or recent vintage) car that isn’t inherently safer (more controllable, less likely to crash) at 90 MPH than any car of 1958 — or 1968 (or 1978) — was at 70. Yet speed limits are, for the most part, just about back to where they were circa 1970.
So, while the 85 MPH max in Texas is good news, it’s also sad news. It is a barometer of the extent to which the public has been brainwashed — and browbeaten — on the matter of “speeding.” Few know much, if anything, about the Interstate system’s origins as a superhighway system — let alone that 70-75 was considered routine (and legal) more than 40 years ago. But they do remember the NMSL — and Drive 55 — and so are grateful to be allowed to run 70-75 once more. Eighty-five seems downright sparkling. Except that on that lonesome Texas highway — with the road straight and stretching to what seems like infinity — running 85 is damn near boring.
Ask any Texan.
A real limit on that road (and many other roads) would somewhere in the neighborhood of 120. Many drivers — in countless modern cars — could safely handle much higher speeds. They do so routinely (and safely) on the first Interstate Highway System — Germany’s Autobahn. But that would mean less revenue. Less payin’ paper. Less excuse for the dons of the insurance mafia to ladle out “surcharges.”
Perhaps by 2030 we’ll be able to lawfully drive as fast as we should have been allowed to drive back in 1990.
But don’t count on it. There’s too much revenue at stake.
About the Author
Eric Peters is an automotive columnist and author of Automotive Atrocities: The Cars You Love to Hate (Motor Books International) and a new book, Road Hogs.
Appleby| 11.16.12 @ 6:35AM
The drivers in 1958 were not speeding with earbuds jammed in both ears, volume cranked up to eleven, and a Device between their thumbs resting on the steering wheel, texting OMG and LOL to their BFFs.
R Martin| 11.16.12 @ 5:24PM
Wait...those buds go to eleven?
mike 3/505| 11.16.12 @ 7:37AM
Appleby My Darlin', the device is between the knees to avoid being seen, thus causing the distraction. Texting laws cause MORE accidents.
Regards,
Mike
Moe Blotz| 11.16.12 @ 8:58AM
Mike my man, between the knees would put the device beneath the steering wheel and out of sight of the driver. From my vantage point five feet above the roof of the electronic device using drivers, I can see them using the texting capability and/or just conversing. No matter where phone users place the unit for use, it is a distraction that takes the driver's focus away from where it belongs. Anti-texting laws are useless other than making those who voted for them feel good about themselves. Imagine some fool hauling arse at 85 + mph across Tx 130 while relating the experience to his amigos on his iPhone. The driver would be twisted amongst the mesquite trees and horned toads in a matter of miles.
TrueBlue | 11.16.12 @ 2:44PM
And we'd be down one more idiot, not seeing the problem...
Since they're still doing it at lower speeds and causing the same risk of harm to other drivers, I don't see any reason not to allow higher speeds. It's absurb that people think driving slower is somehow safer. Any real accident over 25mph is likely to end up with at least one person dead or seriously injured.
Alan| 11.16.12 @ 7:51AM
Also remember that the police on the autobahn don't patrol looking for speeders, they patrol looking for IDIOT drivers, something epidemic nowadays, but then there isn't much revenue in that is there? Ohio still has a 65MPH speedlimit on their interstates while ajoining states are all 70, couldn't be because they get more revenue with the 65 could it? Michigan had or does have a proposal to push the limit to 75 on its northern interstates much to the anguish of the "save us from ourselves" crowd.
TW in SC| 11.16.12 @ 10:49AM
Very true. When I lived in Germany in the 80's, there were two distinct driving "styles". The Germans, in their natural, uber-professional way, considered driving an occupation and took it seriously. The Americans stationed there drove as they did in the 'states and pulled out in front of people at the last second and lolly-gagged, chatting and sightseeing.
It takes a fair amount of cash and time to get your licenses in Germany. And, one cannot be taught by anything other than an approved driving school. Not that I'm a fan of socialism but it seems it's one place where it works because mummy and daddy cannot pass on their bad driving habits (one foot on the brake, one on the gas, lane changing, tailgating, rolling stops, turn-signal [non]use, etc) to their offspring.
GI's get a license on-base by taking a class and watching some safety movies. Then they go out and drive just as badly as they always do.
And, on the autobahn, most of the time people still travel about at ~75 mph (120 kph). The worst thing that happens is when traffic rolls into a fog bank suddenly at that speed and visibility is reduced to near-zero.
But driving there is a distinct pleasure and I fell in love with Porsche there. Cars designed to cruise safely at very high speed and that look good doing it, but it's taken seriously there.
SCMike| 11.16.12 @ 7:53AM
If higher speeds serve to clean the gene pool of those with a tendency to multi-task their way to oblivion, so be it, Higher speed limits drive the Greens and other members of the Anti-Destination League bonkers, so we should pursue higher limits on those roads engineered for them.
John Navratil| 11.16.12 @ 8:27AM
With the exception of landing, there is nothing as difficult in flying a small airplane as backing an automobile down the driveway. Yet to become a licensed pilot requires a minimum of twenty hours dual instruction, twenty hours solo including two cross-country flights of 50 miles or more, a test which actually requires some study and preparation and a check ride. Usually more time is required to meet the required standard.
I don't think the incompetent who drives 45MPH in the left lane of the freeway is competent to drive 90MPH.
Perhaps when we start treating a license to drive as something more than a 16th birthday present we will have drivers trustworthy enough to drive at such speeds. It's not the mechanical aspect of driving at 90MPH which is any more difficult than driving at 30MPH, it's the anticipation which is required.
Pecos Pete| 11.16.12 @ 8:36AM
Not to worry. EPA regulations for minimum miles per gallon of gas will create cars that maybe might exceed 55 mph and that certainly will, when meeting another object, kill and maim. Speed limits will be reset to 35 mph. Problem solved.
Al Adab| 11.16.12 @ 10:10AM
Pete:
Van Horn to El Paso, 55 minutes.
The two chipmunks under the hood of the "government motors" cars will save us all. Oil bad remember, even though the US is about to become the worlds leading producer again. Good thing Texas is on its own grid.
TrueBlue | 11.16.12 @ 2:47PM
The amusing thing is, these high performance cars would actually get better mileage at those higher speeds because that is what they were designed for!
pogybait| 11.16.12 @ 8:50AM
Speed limits? How about real driving schools and real diving tests not just the ability to k park.... how many times have I seen people behind the wheel unable to back their vehicle into a simple parking space let alone understand the limitations of driving their particular vehicle...
PeteM1999| 11.16.12 @ 8:58AM
Appleby - you are correct. Most cars didnt have AC so all of the windows were open, the vent windows we set to blow air onto the driver. The kids were screaming in the back seat and either mom or dad were always threatening "Don't make me reach back there and smack you!". The radio required constant fiddling because it was AM and had to be constantly adjusted. Instead of texting, their was a map being consulted because there was no GPS and if you were alone it was open on the steering wheel. Let see what were the other distractions, almost everyone smoked and it wasnt unusual to see some one crouched down trying to light a cigarette out of the windflow or jumping around as the lited end fell into their lap. Drinking and driving was an accepted thing. Sometimes peoples memeories of the good old days forget some of the bad old things.
Kingofthenet| 11.16.12 @ 8:58AM
85 is a STUPID speed limit, first it wastes HUGE amounts of gas, than you have the ACTUAL speed limit north of 90. Driving MOST top heavy SUV's above 65, makes them a bit unstable, and every 10 miles over that, they get more and more so, leaving little room for error or a blown tire. You get a blowout at 90, you are going to flip those bad boys.
John Navratil| 11.16.12 @ 9:10AM
Kingofthenet,
As someone who blew a front right tire on a 1995 Ford Explorer at 80MPH, I can attest that it did not flip. It helps to know how to drive.
Also, if I want to buy my own gas, it's none of your business what I do with it.
Al Adab| 11.16.12 @ 10:12AM
Correct John:
As long as I am willing to pay the price, it is no concern of KOTN or the Government to decide what I do with it.
Slacker| 11.16.12 @ 1:18PM
In practice the wasting fuel claim never materializes because most roads are congested at peak travel hours.
Faster speeds mean a section of road can move more cars per hour. Conversely lower speeds require additional lanes for the same traffic flow. It isn’t quite this simple because you need more space between vehicles at higher speeds but, higher speeds generally reduce congestion. On the whole this saves fuel.
The safety aspect works similarly. Congestion causes crashes. What we really need is good traffic flow. Speed isn’t so important.
It’s all a bit counterintuitive.
TrueBlue | 11.16.12 @ 2:50PM
A lot of traffic issues could be fixed if people actually knew how to merge into, and allow people to merge into, the flow of traffic. It is constantly annoying to see people using onramps going 30-40 onto a highway with a limit of 65+ (and then doing the same to exit). THAT is the crud that causes accidents.
RandyH| 11.16.12 @ 10:48AM
The 85 mph speed limit on this road was designed to attract more drivers. It is a toll road operated by a private consortium to make money. This road was constructed as a bypass around Austin. However it's terminus is approximatley 1 hour east of San Antonio. Thus the 85 is an incentive to use the toll road to 'save time' going around Austin. It's all about the $$.
Al Adab| 11.16.12 @ 11:53AM
Nothing wrong with making money, especially when there is a cost-benefit to the plan.
RandyH| 11.17.12 @ 2:40PM
Agreed, however the Consortium has as one of it's partners a French firm. So much of the money won't stay in the USA
Petronius| 11.16.12 @ 10:50AM
Said it before. Ban low performance drivers, not high performance cars. FREEDOM. Am I the only one left who understands the meaning of this word? This country is all but finished because we are now Ruled by brain dead WEENIES! We need to repeal every law designed and intended to protect people from themselves. Seat belt laws, helmet laws, warnings on every product, anti smoking and other prohibition movements, diet nazis, vegans, and all the other buttinskis making careers by taking away Our Liberties; just shit can the lot and leave Us to live as We like. No way in this land of too many lawyers and collective allergy to Responsibility. But this is the mark of success in Amerika today. Start a nonsensical non-profit concern. Raise money from infantile idiots. Party with the powerful trial bar who file suits for alleged damages caused by your preselected enemy and put your feet up.
As to driving 85: Pretty soon no vehicle sold here will be capable of doing more than half that because of the self serving heel grinding Freedom killing EPA with its damned CAFE mileage law.
Al Adab| 11.16.12 @ 11:56AM
Let me suggest for your consideration that it is only the remaining ability of Americans to get in their cars and move about that allows them to accept a tyranny from their government more onerous than that the Founders faced so long ago. Without the independence the automobile provides, they would see more clearly and feel more directly, the heavy hand upon them. If The Left is successful in depriving them of that ability, as they wish to do, it just may be that they provide the seed for their well deserved destruction.
Butch| 11.16.12 @ 3:22PM
I hate to tell you this, PK, and with all due respect, it all got started with anti-smoking. That is the model for all the subsequent control-the-behavior-of-others movements.
JeMeRappelle| 11.16.12 @ 11:46AM
Americans are, as you have repeatedly pointed out in your writing about cars and driving, less free than we were in the 1950s or at any time before. Every aspect of our daily lives is micromanaged by unaccountable regulators (whose tyranny we support, directly and indirectly, with our money) including the paramilitary-costumed tax collectors with their radar.
So far, we have demonstrated little in common with the generations that planned and built our highways. Those people defeated evil in a world war and fought it again to a temporary draw just a few years later. They understood risks and accepted responsibilities. Are we so fearful (or is it enamored?) of "authority" we will let it further dictate how, or even if, we drive?
james wilson| 11.16.12 @ 12:03PM
I was commuting from DC to Baltimore in 1972 along the old parkway as I-95 was being completed. It was not yet open, which actually meant that the highway patrol detail was not yet functioning. The road was finished, as I found out when I followed a coupled souls around the pylons. My old Plymouth would only make 95 mph, and I was the turtle all week, until the cops arrived.
Francis| 11.16.12 @ 1:35PM
Well, Nebraska has a "speed limit" of 75 on I80 from Council Bluffs, Ia to Pine Bluff Wy, however speeds routinely average 80-90 MPH, the truckers and cars all go that fast!!! No one is usually stopped, as the traffic is very heavy, would likely cause a pile-up!!!
Rhoetus| 11.16.12 @ 6:48PM
I've averaged 80 MPH on Interstate 10 from Phoenix to Quartzite in Arizona.
SUBVET| 11.17.12 @ 11:56AM
You have no choice on hwy 15 fom LA to LV....if you don't do 90 you will cause a wreck.
nathan| 11.16.12 @ 2:55PM
Let's analyze this a little further. 40,000 highway deaths a year. Per 100,000 miles the numbers aren't that much but 40,000 is a lot of dead bodies not to mention those that get maimed. Around 10,000 are drunk driving deaths, the "legal" drug that many of you indulge. That number is 3 times 911 EVERY YEAR. I don't see the same level of outrage directed at the those who drink and get behind the wheel and in many cases spend little or in the case of the Browns play NO jail time. So how about first we address this, with cars maybe that stop people under the influence from driving or simply say, drink/drive/get caught go to jail, don't expect to get out for a decade or three.
On weekends I'm on the road 3-400 miles. I see constantly what I call "moron" drivers. Tail gaters, reckless to the max. How do we get THEM off the road? Safer cars we have, but while I like Peters, I'm not sure we have the safer drivers to go with them.
And ask yourselves this. Drive with your GPS's. If you increase from 55-65 for 200 miles, your ETA doesn't go down much. Even adding another 10 doesn't cut that much time. At some point unless you're doing 4-600 miles in a day, even if you do 85+ you don't see your ETA drop by more than what 20 minutes? What do you gain much past 75/80? Not a lot and probably not worth the safety issues.
Frank Drackman| 11.16.12 @ 3:14PM
This is boring,
lets here personal bests, and I know its AlGores Internets so I can say I have an 18 inch penis and nobody can disprove it..
Car: whatever 220km/hr works out to, A8 zwischen Augsburg and Munchen, rented Nissan Maxima, 1997
Motorcycle: 150 mph, Suzuki GSXR750, could tell you where but I'd have to kill you, Statue of Limitations still running...
Frank
Frekki| 11.30.12 @ 9:57AM
This is just for the record, I'm two weeks late and 12 dollars short.
4 Kids so I must be man enough.
1968 6.3 300 SEL MBZ. I service it myself, or did before a Navy Lieutenant rear ended me. 145 MPH cruse, all day long and in comfort. A friend drove it from Manhattan to DC in 3 hours 20 years ago. 1937 K500 Zundapp (motorcycle). 16 horse power, but 70 MPH and more class that any rice burner.
It's all about what you want and who you are.
Rhoetus| 11.16.12 @ 6:45PM
The Safety-Nazis come and go but the lust for revenue is endless. Taxation by other means, the ends justify the means. Where is my "Get out of Jail Free Card" ?
UpChuck.Liberals| 11.16.12 @ 10:53PM
Personally I'm all for real drivers training, not just handing a license to every Juan, Jose and Yan that comes across the border. Then there are the fools that weave in and out of traffic. Also trucks need to be able to go faster in their lanes. I'd enforce spacing laws and get fools off the road. Driving isn't an entitlement it's a privilege.
Occam's Tool| 11.17.12 @ 4:14PM
Europe's far lower numbers of cars and traffic fatalities are a major reason for the difference in life expectancies between us and them, not our superb medical system. However, freedom always carries risks, and this one is reasonable. When I visited Copenhagen (Population 1, 200,000) I was amazed that its traffic density very closely resembled Decatur, Alabama (town of about 60,000 in Northern Alabama with a metro area of 156,000) by my estimate.
I later found that the busiest intersection in Copenhagen was the following: (note the number of vehicles)Denmark's most car-congested, mixed-use road is the six lane wide Hans Christian Andersen Boulevard *. "It caters to 56,000 motor vehicles a day, which is also close to its peak capacity. It also also has 21,000 daily bicycle user."
I'd prefer to spend time in Decatur. Alabama women are prettier than those in Copenhagen.
Paul Murphy | 11.18.12 @ 10:48AM
hi:
You're right about the absurdity of the war on speed - but wrong on revenues.
Here in sunny Alberta there is lots of political support for speed law enforcement - as a result Alberta will write nearly 2 million tickets (more than half of them camera tickets) this year - and we only have about 3.6 million people.
These tickets will extract about $220 million in fines from Alberta tax payers - and running the enforcement and collection systems will raise that to a total taxpayer cost in the $350 million range. About half of those tickets will produce demerits, demerits raise insurance rates - and so another $200 million or so will go to various insurance carriers. (rates here are twice those in Wisconsin although we have half the population, issue four times as many tickets, and have comparable per capita accident rates.)
If, however, speed limits were raised significantly and enforcement reduced by at least half - taxpayers would pay less for enforcement and tickets, government would get more revenues (from the increase in fuel taxes: gas here is $5.50 a gallon, more than 60% of it tax), and less of our money would flow to out-of-province insurance companies.
Rhoetus| 11.18.12 @ 11:28AM
Traffic laws are used to extort money form citizens by manipulating the law for revenue generating purposes. It's a Legal mugging & if you can't meat their deadlines they confiscate your property/ drivers license thereby denying your ability to earn a living.
Aloysious| 11.18.12 @ 5:01PM
$15K of driver education and training compel me to offer 2 words: unconscious incompetence.
Your incompetence masks your incompetence and mistakes, and your motoring is nothing but a series of constant mistakes you can't recognize. (So is mine, but those mistakes are usually tiny and I remain aware of them; probably, one can _never_ be sure they aren't missing mistakes.)
I don't know what convinced you 15 seconds of training, half of which you have discarded, somehow makes you an expert.
You _never_ "practice". You wouldn't have any idea what to practice if you didn't scoff at the very idea of driving practice.
The only thing you practice while driving is rationalization, and you're masters of that already.
Your self-created standard of excellence is "managed to not crash or get a ticket", and if you do it was always the fault of the other guy, the cop, or the law, or the sign, ad infinitum.
You understand literally nothing about visual perception; you'll look for 10 minutes for the keys that were right in front of your face, then assume the way is clear with a glance for that right-turn-on-red you have no intention of stopping for.
Your success leads you to mistake luck for skill and infallibility, and when that runs out you invariably think you had an "accident".
"The first thing we must recognize is that crashes are not accidents."
-Ricardo Martinez, M.D., NHTSA Administrator, 1997
Thanks, if you've read this far. You can't say no one tried to tell you.
Rhoetus| 11.18.12 @ 6:31PM
I've been driving since 1967 and not been liable for One red cent of bodily injury claims.
Frank Drackman| 11.19.12 @ 3:38PM
I don't stop at the accidents I cause either...