THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, December 9, 1995 TAG: 9512090350
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A2 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: BILLINGS, MONT. LENGTH: Medium: 70 lines
Mike Spear is ecstatic about Montana's new highway speed limit, which by day is virtually no limit at all.
``It's a blast going fast,'' said the 16-year-old. He snowboards fast, skis even faster, and pushes his mom's car to 90 mph - making a lot of other drivers nervous.
Montanans, who groused for years about speed limits that paid no heed to the West's wide open spaces and empty highways, on Friday got what they demanded with a nationwide lifting of federal controls.
Now, however, in interviews and a statewide poll, many are expressing second thoughts about their new ``Montanabahn.''
``I have a feeling there are going to be horrendous accidents,'' Dennis Balian said Friday. ``This is the land of the free and the brave, with an emphasis on the brave.''
Not that he wasn't enjoying Montana's replacement of 65 mph interstate limits with the more ambiguous requirement that drivers be ``careful and prudent'' and speeds be ``reasonable and proper.''
Traffic Friday stayed mostly within the 70 mph to 80 mph range, highway officers reported. One motorist was stopped doing 92 mph on Interstate 15 near Helena, but he was let off with a written warning.
Most Montanans favor the change. A state highway study this year showed that half of all drivers exceeded the 65 mph limit on Montana's interstates. Two-thirds ignored the 55 mph signs on two-lane highways.
Yet many residents also worry that abolishing specific limits altogether is not the answer. Sixty percent favor some limit on interstates, according to a poll of 408 Montanans conducted this week by Montana State University-Billings.
Montana's quirky status as the only state without daytime speed limits follows a long-running feud with the federal government. It began in December 1973, at the height of energy shortages caused by the Arab oil embargo.
Congress required states to set freeway speed limits at 55 mph or lose federal highway funds. Most states obliged, initially seeing it as their contribution to energy conservation and then, as highway deaths decreased, as an effective safety measure.
Not so Montana. State legislators set a 55 mph limit, but defiantly pegged the speeding fine at just $5 - a pittance payable directly to the highway patrol officer.
Violations didn't count against driving records, and some Montanans simply kept a stash of $5 bills over the visor, ready to pay and go.
``The joke goes that if you got pulled over, you'd just give the officer a $20 bill, then tell the next three guys you already paid,'' Balian said.
When Congress and President Clinton told the states to decide their own speed limits, Montana stood ready, having passed legislation decreeing a return to 1973's ``proper and reasonable'' standard.
Blame it on the West's vast and lonesome spaces. The 55 mph limit - raised in 1987 to 65 mph on rural highways - has never been popular in the West. From North Dakota to New Mexico, Colorado to Nevada, drivers hurtle from one remote outpost to the next like spaceships through a universe of grass and sage, sand and rock.
It takes more than 10 hours to cross Montana in a car going 65 mph. Go 80 mph, and you shave off two hours.
Still, some question whether it's wise for Montana to take a leap back to 1973, when the nation's highway mortality rate was twice what it is today. Montana's highway death rate remains high - 2.3 fatalities per 100 million vehicle miles, well above the national rate of 1.8, according to the National Safety Council. by CNB