Indiana interstate fatalities surge?
Do they really? The Star’s piece Indiana interstate fatalities surge puts the lie to it’s own headline in the first sentence:
Fewer people have died on Indiana roads in the year since the General Assembly raised speed limits, but deaths on the six main interstates with new 70-mph stretches rose by 40 percent.
I see their purpose is to isolate those segments of Indiana Interstates that increased the speedlimits to 70mph. But the headline is disingenious at best.
Still, all things considered hiway travel today is safer than ever. That doesn’t stop some people, problably people with ill-maintained small cars that don’t do well at hiway speeds, from trying to hold the speed limits down. Some may even recall that the speed limits were where they are today before the 70′s oil shortages caused the Governent to use Federal road funds to force States to reduce their speed limits to the National 55mph limit.
Thirty-odd years later States across the Nation are thumbing their noses at the Federal Government and bowing to citizens demand that the limits be raised. We drive, today, the safest automobiles ever made, anywhere. And not only are the new vehicles incredibly safe, they’re easier to handle than ever making it easier to control them. Even in my inexpensive Ford Taurus running 70mph down the Interstate is a simple task. One which becomes rather ho-hum boring in my Wife’s more up-scale Grand Prix GT.
Lastly, fuel economy; driving a late model car at 55mp may gain an extra mile or two to the gallon of gasoline, but, as they say, time is money. I drive 68 miles each way to work and the difference between 55mph (~74 minutes) and 70mph (~58 minutes) is 16 minutes, mathematically, and for many professional people that’s real money.