Today is the day most laws passed by the last session of the Texas Legislature will go into effect. Among the many laws passed are several that affect Texas drivers.
Perhaps the new law most obvious to drivers will be the one allowing higher speed limits on highways. The state is going to abolish all specific night-time and big-rig speed limits. Many highway stretches where the current speed limit is 70 mph could soon go up to 75 mph. Areas now below 70 mph could have a higher speed limit too. Legislators also increased the state’s maximum speed limit to 85 mph, the highest in the nation.
Traffic engineers soon will start examining thousands of miles of highway to figure out which sections of roadway can handle the higher speeds. Those changes will happen gradually. Elimination of night and truck speeds will take effect today.
The trend concerns Russ Rader, a spokesman at the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, an industry group based in Arlington, Va.
Numerous traffic studies have shown that higher speed limits come with trade-offs in safety. The Texas changes passed overwhelmingly in the House and Senate, with several lawmakers arguing that the speed increases would improve traffic flow and, therefore, driver safety.
“There’s no research that shows raising speed limits improves safety,” Rader said. “Drivers have less of a margin of error when speeds go up. It’s just a matter of common sense and physics.”
He added, “Political leaders can make a determination that they want to get people to their destination faster. But there always is a safety downside to higher speed limits.”
