AP reports that Montana lawmakers are drafting bills that would raise the daytime speed limit on Montana interstate highways from 75 to 80 and possibly as high as 85 mph. “I just think our roads are engineered well, and technology is such we can drive those roads safely,” says Art Wittich noting that Utah, Wyoming and Idaho have raised their speed limits above 75, and they haven't had any problems and drivers on German autobahns average about 84 mph. State Senator Scott Sales says he spent seven months working in the Bakken oil patch, driving back and forth to Bozeman regularly. “If I could drive 85 mph on the interstate, it would save an hour,” says Sales. “Eighty-five would be fine with me."
A few years ago Texas opened a 40 mile stretch on part of a toll road called the Pickle Parkway between Austin and San Antonio. The tolled bypass was supposed to help relieve the bottleneck around Austin but the highway was built so far to the east that practically nobody used it. In desperation, the state raised the toll road speed limit to 85 mph, the fastest in the nation. "The idea was that drivers could drop the top, drop the hammer, crank the music and fly right past Austin," says Wade Goodyn. "It's a beautiful, wide-open highway — but it's empty, and the builders are nearly bankrupt."
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 02 2014, @12:09PM
But if someone from California were to drive on such a highway, they would roll their car.
I myself don't have a problem driving a pickup truck at 100 MPH, but I'm not going to suggest that just anyone can do so.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by DrMag on Tuesday December 02 2014, @12:26PM
I grew up in Montana, during the wonderful time where our speed limit was "Reasonable and Prudent". It made sense for us. Generally the only people that I would see pass me were from out of state, so you're right.
More importantly, they need to have a clear law that explains why the speed limit is no longer 85 MPH at night during a heavy snow storm. Montana natives would never think of driving even 65 MPH during such conditions, but someone who has never experienced snow might not have a clue how stupid it would be to do so.
(Score: 2) by bootsy on Tuesday December 02 2014, @01:20PM
I think the French system is pretty sensible. It's in km per hour but it is basically 80mph in the dry and 70mph if it rains.
The UK system is silly. 70mph for a car on a daul carriage way and a motorway yet vehicles over 2.5 metric tonnes can go faster on a motorway than a dual carriage way. We acknowledge motorways are safter than dual carriageways and allow faster driving apart from for cars.
Everyone basically does 80mph in car and the police don't seem to ban. We have an instant driving ban if you do over 100mph.
Last year UK motorways were the safest roads in Europe per distance travelled which given how full they are is an impressive result as European roads tend to be quieter.
(Score: 2) by nitehawk214 on Tuesday December 02 2014, @02:45PM
I think the busy part of the Autobahn system would work better. Digital signs that controllers set the speed limit on depending on traffic and conditions. In the wide open part of the road when there is no weather? Whatever you want.
"Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
(Score: 2) by dyingtolive on Tuesday December 02 2014, @09:59PM
We had those for about a year in a part of St. Louis in a half-assed probably-way-too-expensive means to combat the rampant traffic issues that plague St. Louis due to the fact that we allow morons to drive.
To no one's surprise, after a day of half the people trying to obey the signs calling for 40 mph on the highway because traffic was fucked while the other half was whipping around them doing about 70 and then slamming on their brakes (usually) stopping just before they hit the guys in front of them who were at a standstill, generally no one paid any attention to the signs at all, and just went on doing the things that they were doing before.
I think the biggest problem that they had though was that they didn't take the signs below 40. There were times that in order to actually have fixed the traffic, they should have had people going 5 miles an hour. At least that would be a better indicator that it's just time to turn around and try again later.
Don't blame me, I voted for moose wang!
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday December 02 2014, @03:20PM
I liked "reasonable and prudent," myself. If I was doing a flat, straight stretch between Lewistown and Great Falls, I opened it up. Going up the Swan to the Flathead valley, I slowed down. You drove the speed that made sense. Of course, you never really got to go very fast for very long because there are just too darn many motor homes and semis on the road in Montana. The biggest benefit I saw was the absence of stress from having to look over your shoulder for the highway patrol.
Out-of-staters driving too fast on winter roads, especially when they're used to the salted roads back East, do present a hazard to Western drivers who know that sort of thing is suicidal. But in the end those people tend to stick to the Interstate, which can more or less handle those speeds, or they Darwin award themselves out of our company on the smaller roads. It kind of reminds me of the Canadian biker who took a thousand-foot header off Going-to-the-Sun highway in Glacier National Park in the 80's. He was drunk and going 65mph on a road that's iffy at 25. No one else hurt. Gene pool improved.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by q.kontinuum on Tuesday December 02 2014, @02:40PM
It's entirely a matter of driving conditions. If the road is straight and empty and the engine powerful enough, anyone reaching the gas pedal can drive fast. If the road is curved and icy, no-one can. in between there are several combinations of skill levels and advisable speeds.
Registered IRC nick on chat.soylentnews.org: qkontinuum
(Score: 1) by zzw30 on Tuesday December 02 2014, @05:03PM
Hi, Californian here.
Try driving down 5 or across 80 before claiming that Californians would roll their car at 85mph. Flow of traffic on both of those is typically 80mph unless conditions warrant elsewise. Many of us also grew up with snow, in spite of the stereotype being that we're all beach bums from LA or San Diego.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 02 2014, @05:39PM
Un-possible. Everyone in CA that wasnt a bum moved north at some point between 1980 and 2000. Those of you still there are bumbs, by definition.
(Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Tuesday December 02 2014, @08:22PM
Californian here.
Every Californian knows that the greatest local threat to motorists is Asian women behind the wheel. They tend to congregate in Orange county, Silicon Valley, and wherever A UC campus is located. They can often be spotted due to the pink "Pinay Pride" or "Exotic Princess" stickers on the backs of their Honda civics, driving 40 mph in the fast-lane and not signaling or even checking before doing fucking anything, as if they were the only drivers on the road.
Being serious, as somebody who makes a lot of racial jokes, this is the only stereotype I have encountered that is infallibly true.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Raul on Tuesday December 02 2014, @12:57PM
Seems like USA got a nice cut in gas prices recently...
(Score: 4, Funny) by Leebert on Tuesday December 02 2014, @01:30PM
May I suggest an alternate title to this story:
"Montana Lawmakers Propose Legalizing Current Typical Speeds on Montana Interstate Highways"
(Score: 2) by frojack on Wednesday December 03 2014, @12:24AM
Exactly so.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_limits_in_the_United_States [wikipedia.org] shows states where 80mph is legal, and everyone there will be going 10% over.
Pretty much everyplace you go, other than notorious speed trap towns, the US speed when not impeded by heavy traffic is 10% over posted, and police don't even notice you.
With a modern car on a straight flat road, 85 is like 65 in terms of handling, when compared to the cars we drove in the 60s.
The fuel savings claimed for 55mph turned out to be an illusion [wikipedia.org].
On interstate highways in wide open country there is also not a strong traffic death toll relationship to speed, according
to some studies:
http://www.motorists.org/speed-limits/lave-65-mph [motorists.org]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Maximum_Speed_Law#Safety_impact [wikipedia.org]
http://www.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/pubs/pdf/pa346.pdf [cato.org]
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Tuesday December 02 2014, @01:30PM
A road in great condition that is flat and straight, on a clear day? Sure, go 85 mph, just don't hit anybody. The same road at night in a snowstorm with large wind gusts? 45 mph is probably best, to ensure that a good gust of crosswind on a hidden ice patch doesn't spin you out (this happened to me going 55 mph in similar conditions in Ohio, so I know that's too fast).
A curvy mountain road, or a street through the middle of town? Heck no, 85 mph is simply dangerous.
Unfortunately, the way things are in the US you can't leave the definition of "unsafe speed" up to cops' discretion, because they can and will abuse that.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 02 2014, @02:35PM
Of course, for a mountain road, or a street through the middle of the town, those conditions are permanent, and therefore you also can put a permanent, road-specific speed limit there (indeed, for roads in the town, you have a common separate speed limit anyway). Also speed limits dependent on conditions are not uncommon (I don't know about America, but here in Germany it's quite common to have speed signs qualified e.g. with "bei Nässe" (= when wet) or a time interval (typically those are for reducing noise at night).
(Score: 2) by nitehawk214 on Tuesday December 02 2014, @02:43PM
How many interstates are curvy mountain roads?
"Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday December 02 2014, @03:02PM
I-90 across the Idaho panhandle to Spokane is pretty darn curvy with some excellent sheer drops off the sides. There's also a stretch of I-15 that's quite curvy where it clips the northwestern corner of Arizona. I once took that I-90 stretch at 75mph with my brother while my wife followed in another car. We grew up in the Montanan Rockies and had a blast. She grew up in Long Island and cussed me out for a solid 15 minutes once we stopped in Spokane.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Tuesday December 02 2014, @03:05PM
Not too many, but an example of one is I-93 in the White Mountains [youtube.com] of northern New Hampshire. You can't take that at 60 mph safely, and in the winter you often have to take it at closer to 35 mph.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday December 02 2014, @03:24PM
True, but you would have the consolation of contemplating the exquisite Pemigewasset River drainage as you sail off the road.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by nitehawk214 on Tuesday December 02 2014, @09:29PM
Ok fair enough, there is stretch of I-79 near my home where it curves through the hill on the way down to the Ohio river. However the posted speed limit here is 35 or 40 (though it is fun to whip around there in a sports car at 60).
So I would assume this 85 mph limit is simply 85 mph only where it is safe to do so.
And besides, with the all-too-straight roads around here, it is actually easier to go faster when the road is slightly curving, allowing drivers to see much further head in traffic. This lets people slow down earlier and reduce the "compression wave" effect of people having to slam on their breaks in traffic jams. The Germans figured this out in the 30's when building the Autobahn; Americans decided to just make the roads as straight and boring as possible. Though, i don't expect any place in Montana at all has traffic jams like the midwest cities do.
"Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
(Score: 2) by frojack on Wednesday December 03 2014, @12:40AM
Yeah we can all list a few locations where you have to slow down.
Its pointless to list them here.
But So what?
All of these places already have the yellow advisory speed signs to warn you of the sharp curve, steep descents, turning traffic etc.
That there are places such as these doesn't matter in the long run if the highway is properly signed.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by dublet on Tuesday December 02 2014, @02:50PM
As far as I'm aware, a speed limit is an upper limit to your speed, not the mandatory minimum speed over that road.
Driving to weather conditions is an important part of driving safely. French motorways for instance have a weather dependant speed limit: 130km/h if it's dry, 110km/h if it's raining.
Personally, I think speed limits are not the best way of ensuring safety. Not all vehicles can stop at the same rate, nor handle adverse conditions in the same way. It is, however, the easiest to police as it merely requires a speed camera. I'd rather have more traffic cops actually patrolling to see if drivers were driving safely.
"If anyone needs me, I'm in the angry dome. [dublet.org]"
(Score: 2) by tempest on Tuesday December 02 2014, @04:01PM
About half of Montana is just that: flat and strait, with comparatively low levels of traffic compared to most of the U.S. While everyone is keen on saying the weather is either good or bad, when I often drove a few hours between Fargo and central North Dakota there was often a "outrun the weather" effect. Going faster sometimes meant outrunning a snow storm. In winter going faster when it was clear sometimes meant I spent more time in daylight before the sun set. Over a long distance there have been times when it was that last half hour which were by far the worst (particularly with highway hypnosis), so shaving some time off isn't necessarily a bad thing when conditions are okay. Also I'm pretty sure they aren't required to have the speed limit the same across the whole state. It's not like they can't be reasonable and post a lower limit in the mountainous parts.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by bucc5062 on Tuesday December 02 2014, @01:37PM
"It's a beautiful, wide-open highway — but it's empty, and the builders are nearly bankrupt."
And that's my problem how? I seem to remember that the US build good highways that did not require a toll to pay for it. Even more amazing, people would drive on such a road for they reasoned, I paid for this already so I'm going to enjoy using it.
Now some rich asshat builds a road to (gasp) make money by charging a toll and (gasp) no one wants to drive on it so they go bankrupt...boo hoo. Here in SC they built a toll road that run between Rt 85 and Rt 385, cutting about 20 minutes travel time if you went the regular route to where they connect. That 10 mile piece of tar and concrete costs a driver over $2.50 to drive the whole route. If you have a trailer, $3.00, a double axel, $5.00. They wonder why no one uses it? When I lived in the Garden State i drove the parkway from Asbury Park to Union. Total distance was @ 40 miles and it cost me a dollar (4 $.25 tolls) which was at least reasonable and given it was a parking lot on Fridays and SUnday's they raked in the coins. Toll roads are legalized extortion and they do not belong in our society.
The more things change, the more they look the same
(Score: 2) by iwoloschin on Tuesday December 02 2014, @02:42PM
Really? Extortion? Who's making you use the toll road, you could just take all the surface roads around it instead, but then you're driving slow, waiting at traffic lights, etc.
Toll roads are not inherently evil, they're actually a really neat concept. However, the use of funds generated by tolls can be mismanaged. Tolls should exist solely to fund maintenance for the road they are on, including everything from snow removal in the winter to building that new bridge because the old one is about to collapse. That way those who use the toll road pay for it, versus "wasting" everyone's gas tax money on maintaining a road that only a "few" people use.
The only time tolls are inherently evil is when idiots refuse to adopt new technology. Today there is no reason to wait in line at a toll booth, get an EZ-Pass, or utilize optical recognition to capture license plates and mail a bill, all while traffic is moving along at highway speeds. Here in Massachusetts some of the worst backups are caused by poorly designed toll plazas that force traffic to slow down to 5 MPH, regardless of if you're using an EZ-Pass or paying cash.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday December 02 2014, @03:07PM
I read somewhere in the last 6 months about a proposal to make a toll road with really high tolls so that rich people can enjoy the high-end cars they buy without sitting in traffic with the plebes. I thought about the German banker who was killed by a roadside bomb planted by the Red Army Faction when I was an exchange student in Cologne and thought that might not work out the way the toll-road backers plan.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Wednesday December 03 2014, @01:00AM
Got a link, or are you just blowing off steam?
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday December 03 2014, @05:57PM
RAF killed Alfred Herrhausen [wikipedia.org]
The RAF really did kill a rich German banker with a road-side bomb. I didn't make it up. If you consider the prospect of a private road only for rich people, I suspect you will see repeats of that incident.
I submit that you could abstract the issue from a road to anything. Concentrate the rich behind gated communities. Then they become a concentrated target for their victims. Concentrate the rich from a slightly-more-successful segment of society to an absurdly more exploitative privileged stratum, then you sacrifice the deflective quality of the narrative of if-you-only-worked-hard-enough-you-could-be-one-of-us for an elitist, neo-aristocratic one.
Perhaps you consider yourself one of them. Perhaps you are an aspirant. If you are the latter, I can assure you that no matter what you might come to consider yourself, they will never accept you as such. I live in New York. I rub elbows with those people. I guarantee you they do not see themselves as even part of the same species as you and I. There are so very many extremely intelligent, able people in this world who are not rich. How long do you suppose the idle, incompetent, rich can survive while systemically denying progress to those? I give them 10 years, and that's being very generous.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Wednesday December 03 2014, @07:05PM
Yes, yes, Nice rant, but where is the link to THIS:
read somewhere in the last 6 months about a proposal to make a toll road with really high tolls so that rich people can enjoy
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Friday December 05 2014, @03:29PM
http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/hot-lanes-better-way-attack-urban-highway-congestion [cato.org]
http://www.marketplace.org/topics/business/lexus-lanes-and-price-saving-time [marketplace.org]
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/26/automobiles/hov-access-to-the-car-pool-lane-for-a-price.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0 [nytimes.com]
The New York Times, Marketplace, and the Cato Institute have all written about it, but I must have made it up, right?
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Friday December 05 2014, @07:11PM
These things already exist, and the toll is never so high that only the rich can afford them. Making the same trip with one other person in the car gets you into that same lane for free, so its just silly to assert they are reserved for the rich.
This shouldn't be taken to assume I like HOT lanes or HOV lanes. They are not working to increase car pooling where they have been installed, and serve no real purpose. The make traffic operate in ways that are contrary to the way roads are designed, and pervert the flow of traffic.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Wednesday December 03 2014, @12:58AM
Really? Extortion? Who's making you use the toll road, you could just take all the surface roads around it instead, but then you're driving slow, waiting at traffic lights, etc.
You sir, are sadly misinformed.
Many states are converting US Interstate highways [www.ssti.us] (long since paid for by tax dollars) into toll roads. They are using a special exemption [dot.gov] in Title 23 to get around the general prohibition on the imposition of tolls on Federal-aid highways.
These are roads your parents paid for. Roads your gas tax is supposed to maintain.
Alternate routes generally don't exist or are simply too long or too slow, and that isn't by accident. It is precisely those locations that are ripe for tolling. Its happening in almost every state.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by McGruber on Tuesday December 02 2014, @03:23PM
When I drive from Atlanta to Columbia or the SC coast, I avoid the I-185 toll road because it is shorter (and quicker) for me to take the two lane wide Routes 8 and 418 connection between Interstate-85 to Interstate-385.
(Apparently those SC toll-road investors never heard of Google Maps or Garmin!)
(Score: 2) by bucc5062 on Tuesday December 02 2014, @08:42PM
As do I though when hauling horses, I'd love to stay highway the whole trip to Anderson (for a smooth drive). I also take 418/8 and every now and then I get a yahoo who loves to hit quick brakes, but still better than the fleecing 185 gives.
The more things change, the more they look the same
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday December 02 2014, @03:30PM
At least in eastern Montana. Western Montanan roads are too constrained by geography to safely permit those speeds. And even if they weren't, there are too many motor homes and logging trucks crawling those roads to travel 85mph for long, even in good weather. And even if those larger vehicles weren't there, the sudden pockets of deep shade from the mountains and ever presence of deer make those speeds risky. In the east you can get away with it much more easily, especially on the interstate. Personally, I found the era of "Reasonable and Prudent" speeds in the state refreshing mainly because you no longer had to worry about the highway patrol. You could enjoy driving.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 1) by pTamok on Tuesday December 02 2014, @04:01PM
Denmark raised the speed limit on many of its motorways to 130 km/h (~80 mph) about 10 years ago, without increasing the accident rate. The 'deal' was that the speed limit was raised, but enforced more strictly.
One of the things to be aware of is that the kinetic energy of a vehicle increases as the square of its velocity (this is basic physics/kinematics), so the difference between a car travelling at 70 mph and 85 mph is a ratio of kinetic energy of 1:1.47. This means your brakes have to dissipate a great deal more heat to stop in the same distance at at 70 mph (or you plan for considerably longer stoppping distances), and the energies involved in accidents are also correspondingly higher. This can transform a survivable accident into a non-survivable one. Higher speeds require drivers to adapt their driving style to the higher speed, and be aware of what the engineering limits of their vehicle is.
I have driven entirely legally at just over 130 mph on German autobahns - it is tiring, and you need to be very alert for vehicles pulling out in front of you overtaking even slower vehicles in front of them, as the speed differential between you and heavy goods vehicles (trucks) is huge. Even supposedly disciplined German drivers don't always check their mirrors before pulling out.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 02 2014, @05:36PM
Germans kill people.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 02 2014, @06:03PM
And air resistance is to the 3rd power. So traveling 2x the speed costs you 8x the horsepower. This is why 90km/h is the most economical speed for most road passenger vehicles, where the fixed and linear friction (eg. tires) vs. air resistance is at optimum vs. fuel consumption.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drag_%28physics%29#Power [wikipedia.org]
If you bike around or even have a motorcycle, you can really feel air resistance. Going 50km/h creates a lot less drag than 100km/h.
Drivers in their cages have a perverted sense of speed and most don't really know how fast and deadly their speeds are. Highway deaths continue to be the main place of road fatalities despite them accounting for less than half of distance driven. These are the facts. Raising speed limits is counterproductive to both safety and energy efficiencies.
(Score: 2) by strattitarius on Tuesday December 02 2014, @08:42PM
Slashdot Beta Sucks. Soylent Alpha Rules. News at 11.
(Score: 2) by strattitarius on Tuesday December 02 2014, @08:43PM
Slashdot Beta Sucks. Soylent Alpha Rules. News at 11.
(Score: 1) by captainClassLoader on Wednesday December 03 2014, @09:13PM
It's called SH-130 by the locals, and it's not as unused as indicated here. Plenty of people are willing to travel a few miles east to avoid the hell that is the traffic on I-35 in downtown Austin. My ex used to travel most of her 102 mi (164km) round-trip daily commute on it, and said that on some days 85MPH (136kph) represented a lower bound on speed, Texans being Texan and all.