It is really funny that we are just now getting the speed limits on highways to what they should be. In Washington our major freeways are now 70 MPH and the freeways through the city is 60 MPH. It is about time. The government needs to raise the speed on many other roads however.
In the 1970's we had a fuel shortage. This caused gas prices to go up. The speed limits were lowered to 55 MPH. After a while the government noticed that deaths on the highways also went down. So for the last 20 years we have been stuck driving at 55 MPH. Finally we were able to move the speed limits to 65 MPH on rural highways. Now the wonderful Republicans have allowed the states to decied their own speed limits. Montana had the right idea. No daytime speed limit. Washington when to 70 MPH and Idaho has their limit at many different speeds. Many people, when the feds allowed the states to make up the speed limits, said that the death rate would skyrocket on our highways. There is a problem with their argument. They are forgetting the fact that in those 20 years our cars have gotten safer. Now anti-lock brakes, air-bags and seatbelt laws have helped reduce traffic death rates not the lower speed.