Gentlemen, start your pick-up trucks. High speed rail is out in the Lone Star State, but high speed trail may be in. A bill has been introduced into the Texas legislature that would raise the speed limit to 85 miles per hour.
Please note that ABC News frames this as an anti-conservation story, not a states rights story:
Consumers will see an “increase in demand for petroleum because as we go faster our cars get a lot less fuel efficiency,” says Patrick DeHaan, a senior petroleum analyst for GasBuddy.com, a gas price sharing website.
The bill, introduced by Texas Rep. Lois W. Kolkhort, would make the 85 mph limit the highest in the country, according to the Dallas Morning News. A similar plan is being considered by the state Senate, according to the AP.
But first the measure, which is part of a larger transportation bill, must pass engineering testing and other studies before the Texas Department of Transportation authorizes it.
It’s almost guaranteed that the Feds are going to hate this law almost as much as they hate Arizona’s illegal alien law. Why, how dare those damn cowboys flaunt their disrespect for President Obama’s Department of Transportation.
Good luck getting your electric pick-ups up to 85 mph, buckeroos.
Source: ABC News
View Comments (15)
I lived in San Angelo for 5 years and am familiar with most of the western part of the state of Texas. If I'm not mistaken, in 1991 you could drive 70 miles an hour on the intersates in most parts of the state. 80 mph is cool and 85 mph is even cooler, but I have just one gnawing question: how does this new speed limit square with the possibility of $5.00+ a gallon gas prices in the very near future?
Just asking.
Why should you or the federal government worry about the increased speed limit and $5 gas?
I'll be paying for MY gas so why would it be your -or- the governments concern?
Just telling.
MY, MY plwhit, did I strike a sore nerve or something? I'm not the least bit concerned about who will be paying for YOUR gas. I'm just wondering how driving 85 MPH is even going to be affordable when the average cost for a tank of gas goes from $50+ to almost a $100+. I don't have that kind of green to throw around, but I'm glad that some of us do. I can't speak for the federal government, don't care to, and I'm sure that they don't give a rats ass how much you're going to have to pay for YOUR gas either--because they're the ones causing the problem in the first place. Happy Trails!
Nope, just wondering why someone is worried about why someone would worry about driving 85-100 MPH and pay for gas....
The people who want to drive these speeds:
~ don't give a rats ass about the cost of gas
~ don't like driving slow
So what is the point you are trying to make? That you can't afford to drive? Point well taken, you have my sympathy.
No, it's not that I can't afford to drive, and thanks for the empathy BTW, it's that I can't drive as fast as I want because I have a vehicle that hasn't learned how to sip it's gas, but I'm not about to buy one of those greenie weenie cars coming out of Detroit.
So, do you think a Volt can do 85?
Let 'er rip, 85 sounds good to me. I make several trips a year to the Houston area to visit relatives and from Fort Stockton to San Antonio there is nothing but wide open highway. If you are in the Dallas-Fort Worth area? If you ain't going 80 you better be in the slow lane!
Having driven San Antonio to El Paso a few times I'd rather see an unlimited speed limit on the interstate. As another has said, there is NOTHING out there, the roads are flat and for the most part completely straight. Even with the 80MPH speed limit now in place that's still too slow for the territory.
The FUD that ABC pumped out might play well with the people who know better than everyone else but hey, they can stay in the right lane hunched over the steering wheel heart pounding in their chest eyes wide with fear as they drive 55MPH on the open roads of Texas....
Almost true. There is some piss-ant town that has a cop who religiously writes tickets in that area when the speed drops from 80 to 65 for an instant, just long enough to pop me and thousands of others who don't travel that road often enough to know where the scalpers are.
There is a simple solution to that problem, quit looking at your hood or the bumper ahead of you. I guess they don't teach the "big picture" in drivers education anymore. Keep your head up, keep your eyes moving, pay attention to all those little square signs on the side of the highway? Pretty simple way to keep from getting a speeding ticket on any road or freeway.
The speed limit is already 80 mph in west Texas and the Apocalypse hasn't come. I like how they speak to people in the city and show footage of backed up freeways when this is obviously about speed limits in the middle of nowhere. West Texas is some beautiful country, but it is almost completely uninhabited. Hell, I was just in Terrell County last week. It only has two towns. One of them population 9. There are more Border Patrol agents than civilians.
What about all the illegals crossing the highways on foot? I mean the undocumented democrats exercising their right to be pedestrians where it is illegal for us to walk. Come on ABC save some lives here!
Two Words: Auto Bahn !!! Yes, I know it's one word. Gimme a break.
It WILL, however, be more difficult to shoot the road signs with a shotgun at 95 MPH.
I know, I cannot STAND him! But he was better than the alternative *grunts in disgust* However with all of that said Texas IS more for liberty and small government than other states, however we are SLOWLY moving towards the crap whereas California and MA, in my opinion, got there on a bullet train.
We can still reverse the issues that plague the state.
Um... you're spreading a stereotype... we're not all "cowboys" driving "pickup trucks" in Texas. And have you ever driven on I-10 anywhere between El Paso and Junction? There is NOTHING... and I mean... NOTHING out there. Making speed limits here in Texas 85 is just a start. It should be higher. Another misconception you're advancing is that Texas is the incubator of liberty and small government. That's a joke... have you met Rick Perry? Really?