Speed freaks have the wheel in Texas these days. Depending on your state of mind or driving ability, you might want to either head for an Interstate highway in Texas or avoid the Lone Star State altogether.
Texas now has the highest speed limit in the country. Interstate limits are up from 75 mph to 80 mph after transportation officials found that 85 percent of drivers were already going between 76 and 79 mph.
And while most Texans are just becoming accustomed to their new speed limit, many of them are already routinely hitting 90 on the Iinterstates.
The new speed limit has a cost. The Department of Energy estimates that every 5 mph over 60 mph costs drivers an extra 20 cents per gallon.
But Texas Gov. Rick Perry is a big fan of the new speed limit as is Texas House Speaker Tom Craddick.
When he was lieutenant governor, Perry was caught on videotape telling a state trooper, who flagged his motorcade for speeding, to let him "get on down the road."
When Craddick was just a state representative in the Republican minority in 1991, he proposed that the state reduce the fine for speeding to $5.
He then proposed that Texas sell speeding-coupon books that citizens with a heavy foot could buy. That way they could break the speed limit at will and at minimal cost before they could get on down the road.
Craddick said the speeding plan would raise $100 million for the Texas coffers.
Both Public Citizen and Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety had urged Texas not to raise the speed limit to 80 mph.
"Nearly 40 percent of the 3,600 people killed on Texas roads in 2004 were speed-related crashes," said Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety President Judie Stone. "With these types of crashes costing Texas nearly $3.5 billion annually, raising speed limits to 80 mph is a deadly, dangerous and irresponsible act."
Joan Claybrook, president of Public Citizen charged that Texas changed the speed limit just to accommodate lawbreakers.
"Are they making the same changes for drunk or hit-and-run drivers," she asked?
