🚀 go-pugleaf

Oscar Voss <ovoss@erols.com> wrote:

>Dan Nagle wrote:
>> 
>> Hello,
>> 
>> Hear, hear!
>> 
>> Note that Va.'s wonderful Gov can't decide to send money to
>> Northern Va to fix the roads, but can order a full-press
>> on speeders on I-81.  Shee-yit.
>
>Actually, I-81 is so often congested with trucks that it's usually hard
>to build up speed.  I'm not sure extra enforcement will make a lot of
>difference there.

Three points:

More speed for cars eases congestion and actually makes it safer. This
was proven when Maryland raised limit from 55 to 65 and the death rate
actually went down. Less congestion, means less interaction, means
less accidents, and higher speeds ease congestion (to a point, well
above our existing speed limits).

Europeans "show no fear" passing trucks. Americans, long used to a
"pampered" life, lack the guts to pass a truck at all. All they do is
"hover" for their perceived own safety, but cause huge
bumper-to-bumper backups that are twice as dangerous as expeditious
passing. 

Also, on secondary roads one is allow to exceed the limit in order to
pass. Why not interstates that are 9 times safer? (Interstate deaths,
per miles driven, are 9 times less than secondary roads.)

>
>More offensive is the continuing failure of the Legislature to up the
>rural Interstate speed limit to 70 (and allow speed limit increases on
>some urban freeways, too).  The latest proposal, I understand, died in a
>tie vote in a House of Delegates committee.      
>-- 
>Oscar Voss, Arlington, Virginia, ovoss@erols.com