ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1995, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, December 2, 1995 TAG: 9512050013
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-9 EDITION: METRO
ONE CONCEIT of Virginia lawmakers is that they're very much saner and more responsible than their federal counterparts.
Among opportunties to prove this notion is the choice, newly available, to leave in place a reasonable speed limit on interstate highways and motorcycle-helmet requirements that have saved untold numbers of lives.
Doubtless, Virginia legislators will find themselves under the same pressure as did members of Congress and the president to wave the starter flag for speed demons. They must say no to a U-turn on road safety, and to those who equate transportation improvement with a demolition derby.
Pedal to the metal? In Virginia, make that mettle - the courage to take a principled stand against speed for fun and profits when the trade-off will likely be unnecessary carnage and destruction (not to mention higher insurance rates).
That Congress passed legislation ending the federal 55 mph speed limit, which has been in place since 1974, is a disappointment. (A limit of 65 mph was OK'd in 1987 for more rural stretches of interstates. That's now off the books, too.) The fact that Sen. John Warner of Virginia was a key player in producing the legislation is a disappointment, too.
So was President Clinton's decision to sign the bill - while acknowledging that it almost surely will lead to more wrecks, deaths and injuries. ``I am deeply disturbed by the repeal of both the national maximum speed limit law and the law encouraging states to enact motorcycle helmet-use laws'' he said. ``Without question these laws have saved lives.''
While feeling our pain, he signed the bill anyway, saying he didn't want to stop the flow of $6 billion for highway improvements that is part of the legislation. Oh, yes. He also mumbled something about it strengthening the nation's transportation system, providing jobs and economic opportunities.
Survivors will be appreciative.
Put aside some of the bill's other gross features: letting states build new billboards on "scenic" highways, for example; and excluding, from federal safety testing and inspections, thousands of trucks weighing up to 13 tons. A reasonable person might suspect Clinton was mindful of how a veto of speed limitlessness would play politically in Western states which long have argued that higher speeds are justified in their wide, open spaces.
Oh well. Never mind that now. With the federal government relinquishing authority to control speed on federally financed highways, and to set safety standards for motorcyclists and many trucks, it will be up to each state to make its own rules. Some states are going to 75 mph; Montana will lift all daytime speed limits to become the first Germany-style ``autobahn'' state.
And Virginia? Where Interstate 81 is already a truckbahn, with tractor-trailers roaring up it and down it at speeds exceeding the posted limits?
Given estimates that interstate crashes could double in states that raise the speed limit, resulting in a national increase of 5,000 to 7,000 fatalities each year, Virginia legislators need to put their foot down, and not on the accelerator.
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