Willfull Ignorance on the Highways

Over the last 20 years, since the national 55-mph speed limit was lifted, many states have increased their speed limits. Most have raised it to 65 or 70, but some have raised freeway speeds to 75, 80 and 85 mph.

South Dakota just raised their speed limit to 80. Texas allows speeds up to 85. I suppose you can justify these limits on the basis that people should be made to spend as little time as possible in those states, but there are other considerations.

State legislatures who raise these limits have ignored one important thing: truck tires are not designed for speeds above 75 mph:

"It's a recipe for disaster," said James Perham, president of Extreme Transportation Corp., an automobile-hauling company near San Diego that filed a complaint with regulators about Michelin tires after seven blowouts caused an estimated $20,000 to $30,000 in damage to its rigs.

Even if you've never looked at a speed limit sign, the evidence of these increased speed limits is easy to see: these freeways are covered with shredded truck tires.

Shredded tires are major menace, especially to motorcycle riders. A 22-year-old motorcyclist died in Vadnais Heights, MN, when she hit tire debris on the road one night and was thrown into the path of an SUV. A tire flew off a trailer in Iowa and killed a motorcyclist in Iowa last August.

Officials from states with higher speed limits are completely oblivious to tire safety. Caught with their pants down, they have refused to answer questions from the AP, or they offer lame excuses:

In Wyoming, which raised speeds on some rural highways to 80 mph last July, "it doesn't look like necessarily there was any consideration of truck tire speed ratings," said Bruce Burrows, a spokesman for the state Transportation Department. Wyoming hasn't seen a spike in tire failures, he said.

Burrows also noted that the speed limit doesn't require truckers to go 80 mph, and said they should be aware of how fast their equipment can safely travel — a common refrain among state officials.

What planet do these guys live on? First, because time is literally money for truckers, they always go as fast as possible. Second, nothing inspires road rage more than someone poking along a highway at less than the speed limit. Third, disparate vehicle speeds increase the chance of accidents because there's more passing and a greater likelihood that inattentive drivers will rear-end slower vehicles. Fourth, most truckers have no clue that their tires aren't rated for more than 75 mph. They just assume that states wouldn't let them drive at unsafe speeds.

Then there's physics. Kinetic energy is related to mass times velocity squared. A truck traveling at 85 mph has twice the kinetic energy of a truck going 60 mph. Ergo, a truck going 85 takes twice as long to stop as one going 60.

Finally, there's human physiology. The average person's reaction time is 250 milliseconds. At 85 mph you'll travel 31 feet before your brain can even register that something has happened. Even the most conscientious driver can be distracted for a couple of seconds -- changing the radio station, adjusting the volume, cursing at some nitwit who cut him off at 90 mph. In that time you go the entire length of a football field and ramming into the back end of a family minivan "poking along" at 65.

Highways aren't NASCAR speedways. Trucks and cars are driven by regular Joes, not trained stuntmen. Animals run across highways all the time. Limits over 70 are just too fast for these conditions.

Not surprisingly, all the unsafe speed limits are in solid red conservative states. Are these legislators  just ignorant, selfish, impatient yahoos who don't give a damn who gets hurt? Or are they slyly making sure the numbers of self-inflicted gun deaths in their states don't exceed traffic fatalities?