02-29-2016, 12:29 PM
"saddle road is about 50 or 60 miles long. a 5 mph increase would save about 5 minutes."
It saves a great deal more time than that if you don't get pulled over and ticketed for driving a safe but poorly determined legal driving speed.
The thing I like best about this scenario is that the police were ticketing people like crazy so people are using the legislative process to increase the speed limit.
The thing I like least is that the police are submitting fantasy testimony (lies) saying that if the speed limit is increased 5 or 10 MPH then everybody will be driving 100 MPH. First of all, the police are not supposed to have any say in the legislative process. They are supposed to cite factual information, and only if they are asked, not give baseless opinions. I've seen people on Saddle driving 100 MPH. So now when it happens the police are going to say "we told you so" ?
The correct course of action is to have the DOT map which sections of roads are safe at which specific highest speeds based on known factors of road construction, type of surface, degree of banking, etc and let the lawmakers base their decisions on facts. The higher the speeds on the downhill stretches, the less people will be applying the brakes or gearing down, and the more fuel efficient the trip becomes.
If, like the police are saying, people are already driving 60 or 65 and it hasn't earned any sinister nicknames like "Suicide Saddle" or "Deadly Danny Inouye Drive" then increasing the speed limit is the right thing to do. Especially since that is what the majority of drivers want. 65 seems like a safe speed limit on most of the road- the remainder can be marked for 60, 55, or 45 or whatever SCIENCE has determined is the safe speed.
ETA: Made the last use of the word SCIENCE in all caps for effect.
It saves a great deal more time than that if you don't get pulled over and ticketed for driving a safe but poorly determined legal driving speed.
The thing I like best about this scenario is that the police were ticketing people like crazy so people are using the legislative process to increase the speed limit.
The thing I like least is that the police are submitting fantasy testimony (lies) saying that if the speed limit is increased 5 or 10 MPH then everybody will be driving 100 MPH. First of all, the police are not supposed to have any say in the legislative process. They are supposed to cite factual information, and only if they are asked, not give baseless opinions. I've seen people on Saddle driving 100 MPH. So now when it happens the police are going to say "we told you so" ?
The correct course of action is to have the DOT map which sections of roads are safe at which specific highest speeds based on known factors of road construction, type of surface, degree of banking, etc and let the lawmakers base their decisions on facts. The higher the speeds on the downhill stretches, the less people will be applying the brakes or gearing down, and the more fuel efficient the trip becomes.
If, like the police are saying, people are already driving 60 or 65 and it hasn't earned any sinister nicknames like "Suicide Saddle" or "Deadly Danny Inouye Drive" then increasing the speed limit is the right thing to do. Especially since that is what the majority of drivers want. 65 seems like a safe speed limit on most of the road- the remainder can be marked for 60, 55, or 45 or whatever SCIENCE has determined is the safe speed.
ETA: Made the last use of the word SCIENCE in all caps for effect.
