Speed limit

[Wesley]

It appears that Texas is upgrading a section of Highway 130 between Austin and San Antonio and posting the speed limit at 85 MPH. Will this ease heavy traffic on local routes? Will the higher speed limit cause more fatal accidents?

In my opinion, if there is good visibility and a wide berm on both sides, 85 is fine. People drive that fast anyway on poorly maintained and twisty roads, why not give them a clean shot on a good road? I have no reason to go to Texas, but I think I would like to go there just to legally drive very fast for a little while. Perhaps after that I can go up to Montana where sections have a posted limit of,"Safe and prudent speed" which means as fast as you wanna go!

[chex]

85 isn't that fast. I drive that fast on the thruway occasionally. And that was normal for us on the autobahn.

[Clarence]

I usually drive 120 on the highway and never go over that unless I pass someone.

[chex]

Is that kilometers, Clarence?

[Wesley]

Yeah, he's a Canuk, so he's talking all Metric, eh?

[Shay]

When I drove two and from Ohio and Nebraska, I drove on average 80-90 mph the entire time when the speed limit is only 65, and sometimes 70 mph. I often drove 80 mph in Ohio as well, but speeding there was quite customary. It wasn't very often you got pulled over in Ohio for speeding.

[Yaz Pistachio]

*raises hand* My mom got pulled over in Ohio for speeding. The cop was a real smurf though.

[Wesley]

People already drive 85, so posting the limit as 85 will get people driving 100. As long as it is on a clear, clean stretch of road with good visibility, I am totally okay with that.

[Beany]

What's the highest speed you're generally allowed to go in America, or does it vary state to state? Here it's 70mph, but they can't fine you unless you're more than a tenth of the required speed above.

I think that this change might cause a few more accidents, but the accidents will be more serious than previously.

[chex]

It varies by state, since the landscape is so different throughout the country. http://www.upstatenyroads.com/speedlimits2.shtml <--New York speed info.

[Shay]

Enjoy!

http://www.ghsa.org/html/stateinfo/laws ... _laws.html

[Dowster]

My van doesn't go any faster than 70MPH

My old car - the Renault Laguna, used to reach 130 quite easily, and actually the cam belt snapped (after 113k miles on the clock) when I was doing about 30MPH, 2 miles down the road from a 8 mile stretch of dual carriageway that I had just covered at 110-120. So it was probably the speed that stressed it too much, combined with the fact that it should have been changed at 75k, 10k before I even bought the car