THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, November 26, 1995 TAG: 9511220313
SECTION: CAROLINA COAST PAGE: 06 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
SOURCE: Ronald L. Speer
LENGTH: Medium: 73 lines
As a general rule, I believe in obeying the law.
I don't walk on a red light, tear tags off pillows or shop shirtless.
Critics might say that my law-abiding nature is not because of any great morality that I adopted growing up amongst honest folks. More likely, they may contend, my color-inside-the-lines attitude developed out of fear of getting caught.
Not conscience, but cowardice.
Whatever the reason, I'm left with mixed emotions about the proposals to boost the speed limit on highways in the nation, including North Carolina.
I oppose an increase because I believe it will also increase the carnage on our roads.
But I also oppose the flagrant disregard of current speed limits. I think violating one law without a crackdown by the fuzz tends to encourage us to break other laws.
A recent trip by car through nine states showed that almost nobody, nowhere at no time pays much attention to the 55 mph limit.
Motorists in our own state and in Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island and Massachusetts passed me like they were hares and I was a turtle.
North Carolina and Maryland drivers seemed the most likely to stick near the 55 mph mark, traveling generally around 60 miles an hour, it seemed to me.
But the farther north we got, the faster folks went.
In New Jersey, 65 mph wouldn't keep you up with the traffic on highways clearly marked 55 mph. And by the time I reached Massachusetts, I was going about 70 and still getting passed on Interstate 95.
Frankly, I was afraid to stay at 55 and obey the law because trucks using the slow lane thundered past in the 70s. I get nervous when a growling grill is snarling only inches from the rear of my car, belching fire and smoke from its nostrils until the glowering driver can zip around me.
A couple of times I was overtaken - at 15 miles over the speed limit - by Massachusetts state troopers who sped quickly out of sight, traveling nearly 80 mph and still getting passed by other motorists.
I never saw anybody pulled over for speeding in our four days on the road.
So perhaps it IS time to boost the speed limits - if they're enforced.
If they are not enforced, highway travel will be pure terror for many of us, because heavy-footed motorists will drive 85 or 90 - and that, my friends, is a scary thought for all but the very best of drivers.
Things happen terribly fast at those speeds, even for sharp-eyed, quick-moving motorists without a worry in the world.
A lot of experts disagree with me, contending that better cars and better roads take the danger out of higher speeds.
We'll probably find out soon, because the repeal of the national limit is part of a bill passed by Congress a week ago and sent to Clinton. The bill allows states to set any speed they want or no limit at all. Congress first set the 55 mph national limit in 1974 to save gasoline during the Arab oil embargo and also to save lives. Congress agreed in 1987 to allow 65 mph on rural portions of interstate.
North Carolina traffic fatalities dropped from nearly 2,000 in 1973 to fewer than 1,400 in 1974 when the national 55 mph speed limit started. The state death toll has hovered somewhere around that mark since, totaling 1,429 last year.
Nearly 50,000 people die in crashes across the country each year, and millions are injured.
Those are statistics that don't mean much. The memory of a crash at high speed of cars now filled with dead and dying people will never leave your mind.
To me, getting there a few minutes sooner isn't worth it. by CNB