Comments about ‘Bill to hike speed limit in some areas of Utah freeways moving forward’

At what point do you just say forget it, drive as fast as you want, we don't care.

Let's do a quick calculation. From Santaquin to St George is about 200 miles. At 80 mph, that would take 2 hours and 30 minutes. At 75 mph that would take 2 hours and 40 minutes. Certainly the reason for increasing the speed limit has nothing to do with time saved. Why should these limits be increased?

Last year Utah had the fewest traffic fatalities in something like 50 years, so all the predictions of highway carnage from the higher speed limits in the test sections were unfounded.

Let's continue to add more sections where it can be safely raised to 80 mph.

Then let's a few sections where we raise it to 85 mph. (The new Texas toll road allows 85 mph).

In fact, many areas should just repeal speed limits entirely- like the German Autobahn- and like Montana used to have.

Having limits just for the sake of having limits, or or because we have always had speed limits, or because some environmentalist thinks you should use less gas (that YOU pay for, not him!) is silly.

Bravo, Legislators, keep working on this!

@DN Subscriber2-

FYI-Only 30% of Germany's Autobahn has no speed limit. While I haven't driven all of that 30%, I can say that where I've driven without speed limits, those areas don't cover long stretches. In fact, I've found Germany's roads to be quite unreliable. There aren't enough roads and those present aren't wide enough. In addition, speed limits change erratically on the Autobahn. You could be driving in a no speed limit zone, then within 1 km have the speed limit change 3 times. It's really unsafe to have that many changes. Germany doesn't really care to keep its roads clear in the winter, so if there's snow out and an accident happens, you're 2 hour drive turns into 4 hours (as did mine driving home from Strasbourg, France into Germany in Dec). German roads are unreliable and are no good example of what the USA should offer. I will say being able to drive 80 is similar to Germany's standard speed limit of 130km, so Utah's change will help me not to get tickets when I visit Utah again.