Current state speed limit increase proposals

[Buffaboy]

85 isn't that fast (it is, in fact, the speed limit in at least one part of the country). I'd be in favor of changing the law to 110 or something outrageous, with increasing penalties up to that point. Why so high? To prevent incriminating commuters who just happen to be travelling in a pack of cars going relatively fast.

Not to incriminate myself, but I've driven at 100 miles/hour for a few hundred yards in Southwest Washington on occasion. It sounds fast but it really isn't. Or to put it another way, it's fast on paper -- in the real world? Not so much.

The left lane travel speed in the lower Hudson Valley and on parts of Long Island approaches 100 on a regular basis. There are several places in this country where that isn't out of the range of what is common.

Likewise on I-96 between Howell and Farmington, Michigan.  I've been caught in 95 mph flows there and been passed while going 90-95.

Actually, that reminds me....

On one occasion, I was driving between Edmonton and Calgary, Alberta, on Highway 2, in July of 2014. It was the last day of a holiday weekend, and there was plenty of traffic filtering between the two cities. Traffic was peaking at 100 MPH for much of the journey. I even pulled off the freeway for a bite to eat, and when I rejoined, traffic was still going near 100, so it wasn't an anomaly. When I met up with some family in Calgary, they informed that the Alberta RCMP is pretty lax with speed enforcement on holiday weekends.

During my only trip to England, I was going about 80 on the motorways, but I was being passed a lot. At one point, between Dover and London, I was going 100+ easy, and I was still being passed. Must have been a bunch of continental traffic? Lol.

Sticking to Canada, the QEW doesn't have a speed limit. Ontario Provincial Police doesn't do much enforcement and traffic often exceeds 85-90 MPH. Keep in mind that reckless driving there is 50 km/h over and they can take your car when they pull you over.

I thought it was 100km/hr?

[lordsutch]

I for one would like to see some of the rural interstates and parkways in the western Kentucky increased to 75 or 80mph, that is if the roads are safe enough.

Georgia's I-75 could also use a speed increase to 75 or 80 while keeping the 85mph Super Speeder law in place . That way, drivers won't just go to 90+ and will instead close the speed gap between law abiders and speeders. Currently, you have a small amount of law abiders going 70 and lots of speeders going between 80-85.

I don't think you could reasonably keep the Super Speeder law as-is with an 80 mph speed limit given that Georgia also has the 10 mph buffer on ticketing based on radar enforcement.

That said I'm not sure I-75 traffic would allow a free-flow speed at 75-80 mph during a lot of the day anyway. From Dalton south to Perry traffic makes it hard to lock in at the expanded 70 mph limit a lot of the time even under nominally "free flow" conditions, between the truck volume and drivers who refuse to use cruise control.

Hypothetically, I-16 from Twiggs County east to Pooler, I-20 west of GA 5, and I-20 east of Covington to the Richmond Co line would be better candidates for 80 mph zones based on traffic volumes. Realistically though I'd settle for GDOT being even more aggressive in signing 65 zones on rural four-lanes, including flush median sections like GA 57 through Twiggs County and parts of GA 300.

[Pink Jazz]

FYI, there are rumors of Puerto Rico considering 70 mph speed limits for its Autopistas, as well as increasing the truck speed limit to 60 mph.  I found this on Wikipedia, so I don't know if this is true or not.  Apparently the person who added that info is a roadgeek who added has a lot of info on speed limits in different states.

[tckma]

It largely mentions I-68 (portion(s) of it) getting the 70 mph limit; I wonder what other stretches of highways in MD will be getting such?


Is there really much else that could qualify? Most of the state is pretty suburban

Yes.  Most of I-70 between the Baltimore Beltway and Frederick, as well as from I-81 west to the PA state line, are rural enough to easily handle 70 or even 75, as could I-95 north of White Marsh and Route 43.  I-795 could *probably* support 70.  Not sure why it's 60 instead of 65 anyway.

By the way, resurrecting an old sub-thread here -- has anyone seen a 70 speed limit on I-68 (or anywhere in the state for that matter)?  I don't get out to Western Maryland much -- I was last on 68 about April of last year...

[MASTERNC]

It largely mentions I-68 (portion(s) of it) getting the 70 mph limit; I wonder what other stretches of highways in MD will be getting such?


Is there really much else that could qualify? Most of the state is pretty suburban

Yes.  Most of I-70 between the Baltimore Beltway and Frederick, as well as from I-81 west to the PA state line, are rural enough to easily handle 70 or even 75, as could I-95 north of White Marsh and Route 43.  I-795 could *probably* support 70.  Not sure why it's 60 instead of 65 anyway.

By the way, resurrecting an old sub-thread here -- has anyone seen a 70 speed limit on I-68 (or anywhere in the state for that matter)?  I don't get out to Western Maryland much -- I was last on 68 about April of last year...

Yes, 70 MPH is posted on nearly all of I-68, with the exception of the stretch between Truck US 220 in LaVale and US 220 North east of Cumberland.

[Pink Jazz]

This is a bit old, but Kansas' 80 mph bill is now dead.  It seems there has been a big slowdown of state speed limit increases after several in recent years.

[vdeane]

The NMA has an article summarizing all the current ones: https://www.motorists.org/blog/speed-limit-roundup-march-2016/

[J N Winkler]

This is a bit old, but Kansas' 80 mph bill is now dead.

Legislative testimony from KDOT and the KHP was very unfavorable.

[Ingsoc75]

FYI, there are rumors of Puerto Rico considering 70 mph speed limits for its Autopistas, as well as increasing the truck speed limit to 60 mph.  I found this on Wikipedia, so I don't know if this is true or not.  Apparently the person who added that info is a roadgeek who added has a lot of info on speed limits in different states.

That Wikipedia page is awful. The map posts Washington at 75 and Nevada at 80 (even though neither state has any highways posted at those speeds since it was put into their code). The Texas county smorgasbord of speed limits is an eyesore as well.

[jeffandnicole]

FYI, there are rumors of Puerto Rico considering 70 mph speed limits for its Autopistas, as well as increasing the truck speed limit to 60 mph.  I found this on Wikipedia, so I don't know if this is true or not.  Apparently the person who added that info is a roadgeek who added has a lot of info on speed limits in different states.

That Wikipedia page is awful. The map posts Washington at 75 and Nevada at 80 (even though neither state has any highways posted at those speeds since it was put into their code). The Texas county smorgasbord of speed limits is an eyesore as well.

Since the page is the maximum speed limit permitted in each state, those states are correct, although it should be noted that the max limit isn't actually signed.

Barely visible, it shows DC as 65 mph as well. That isn't correct.

I never understood why someone has to differentiate Texas based on county, since the page is supposed to simple be speed limits by state.

[corco]

I never understood why someone has to differentiate Texas based on county, since the page is supposed to simple be speed limits by state.

It made a lot more sense a few years ago, before it was pretty uniformly raised to 75. It's also disingenuous to say the speed limit in Texas is 85..

[jeffandnicole]

I never understood why someone has to differentiate Texas based on county, since the page is supposed to simple be speed limits by state.

It made a lot more sense a few years ago, before it was pretty uniformly raised to 75. It's also disingenuous to say the speed limit in Texas is 85..

But it is...even if it's only in a limited area.  Other states have or have had limited stretches of highway at the maximum limit without such notation (ie: MD only has one highway at 70 mph)

[corco]

I never understood why someone has to differentiate Texas based on county, since the page is supposed to simple be speed limits by state.

It made a lot more sense a few years ago, before it was pretty uniformly raised to 75. It's also disingenuous to say the speed limit in Texas is 85..

But it is...even if it's only in a limited area.  Other states have or have had limited stretches of highway at the maximum limit without such notation (ie: MD only has one highway at 70 mph)

By percentage, though - Maryland has a far greater percentage of its road/freeway mileage posted at 70 than Texas at 85. A single 40 mile stretch of toll road in a state the size of Texas isn't enough to say "the speed limit in Texas is 85" without giving really inaccurate information.

[cl94]

I never understood why someone has to differentiate Texas based on county, since the page is supposed to simple be speed limits by state.

It made a lot more sense a few years ago, before it was pretty uniformly raised to 75. It's also disingenuous to say the speed limit in Texas is 85..

But it is...even if it's only in a limited area.  Other states have or have had limited stretches of highway at the maximum limit without such notation (ie: MD only has one highway at 70 mph)

By percentage, though - Maryland has a far greater percentage of its road/freeway mileage posted at 70 than Texas at 85. A single 40 mile stretch of toll road in a state the size of Texas isn't enough to say "the speed limit in Texas is 85" without giving really inaccurate information.

I agree. Most states have relatively uniform upper "rural" limits or are in the process of implementing them (i.e. Pennsylvania). Texas doesn't because the 80 and 85 zones are very limited with the limits defined by county.

[Ingsoc75]

Perhaps change Texas to a striped color (indicating 75/80/85)?

Kind of similar to what this site did almost 20 years ago.

[J N Winkler]

Frankly, I think indicating maximum speed limits through map coloring is a bit of a hopeless project because of the complexities of individual state laws.  In Kansas, for example, the statutes say plainly that the maximum rural speed limit off KDOT infrastructure is 55 MPH.  But a separate clause allows 65 on county and township roads; in practice this is often used to retain 65 on state highways returned to county maintenance (e.g. former K-14 between Arlington and the K-96 junction south of Lyon), but I know of at least one example (Road AA in Kearny County, just east of Deerfield) that is unlikely to have been part of the state highway system.  So what color do you use to indicate the maximum speed limit on rural county roads in Kansas:  the 55 color or the 65 color?

[cbeach40]

Sticking to Canada, the QEW doesn't have a speed limit. Ontario Provincial Police doesn't do much enforcement and traffic often exceeds 85-90 MPH.

High end operating speed on the QEW between Hamilton and St. Catharines is typically 120-125 km/h at best. The rest operates a fair bit slower, given its tighter design speed.
Only a very few outliers are really pushing more than than 130 km/h.

Keep in mind that reckless driving there is 50 km/h over and they can take your car when they pull you over.

I thought it was 100km/hr?

50 km/h over the limit, which results in a 7 day licence suspension, 7 day impounding of the car , a fine of $2,000-$10,000, plus extra fees (towing, licence reinstatement, court costs, etc).

[tckma]

Sticking to Canada, the QEW doesn't have a speed limit. Ontario Provincial Police doesn't do much enforcement and traffic often exceeds 85-90 MPH. Keep in mind that reckless driving there is 50 km/h over and they can take your car when they pull you over.

Pretty sure the last time I was up in that area regularly (late 2004 to early 2006), the QEW had a posted speed limit of 100 km/h.  Of course, traffic seemed to flow freely at around 80-85 MPH, whereas 100 km/h == 62 MPH.  Granted this was 10 years ago; they may have removed the limit, but I doubt it.

I was under the impression that 100 km/h was a federal highway speed limit across Canada (similar to how we had 55 MPH with the MSL).  Though, I recall large stretches of the Trans-Canada through northern Ontario had a posted speed limit of 90 km/h, so who knows.  I've only ever been to three provinces anyway.

[jakeroot]

I was under the impression that 100 km/h was a federal highway speed limit across Canada (similar to how we had 55 MPH with the MSL).  Though, I recall large stretches of the Trans-Canada through northern Ontario had a posted speed limit of 90 km/h, so who knows.  I've only ever been to three provinces anyway.

For the most part, Canada's freeways are posted at either 100 km/h or 110 km/h, though British Columbia posts 120 km/h, effective 2014.

[vdeane]

There are some provinces with limits of 110 and BC has 120, so if there was a federal limit (which seems unlikely, as Canada's federal government doesn't micro manage nearly as much as the US does), there isn't one now.  Ontario's 100 kph limit WAS established for the same reasons as NMSL, however.

[cbeach40]

There are some provinces with limits of 110 and BC has 120, so if there was a federal limit (which seems unlikely, as Canada's federal government doesn't micro manage nearly as much as the US does), there isn't one now.  Ontario's 100 kph limit WAS established for the same reasons as NMSL, however.

No federal limit, but yes, to borrow from Mayor Quimby, back in the 1970s the provinces saw which way the wind was blowing and let it not be said that they do not also blow.

[cl94]

I saw a report today that New York's new budget bill includes a provision to increase the speed limit to 80 across the state. Roadways getting the new 80 mph limit include the Thruway between Exits 15 and 49 and west of 56, I-86 west of Corning, I-81 north of Syracuse, and I-87 north of Exit 12.

[tckma]

I-87 north of Exit 12.

I assume you mean Northway exit 12, rather than Thruway exit 12 or Major Deegan exit 12?  (yet another argument for mileage-based exit numbering...)

[Pink Jazz]

I saw a report today that New York's new budget bill includes a provision to increase the speed limit to 80 across the state. Roadways getting the new 80 mph limit include the Thruway between Exits 15 and 49 and west of 56, I-86 west of Corning, I-81 north of Syracuse, and I-87 north of Exit 12.

Wow, 65 straight to 80.  That is a huge increase.

[jeffandnicole]

It's bill number 0401 if you want to read about the proposal.  Interesting read, although doing some research it seems to pop up every year in some form or another.