Soon, we may be able to drive ? Not really drive, but drive more than we can now.
With the exit of Prince John Kitzhaber from the governor’s office, the Oregon Legislature was finally able to get a bill through to increase speed limits. At least Gov. Ted Taxandgougeme didn’t follow his tax-and-spend colleague on this one.
No longer will Oregon be one of the only, if not the only state, west of the Mississippi River to still have the archaic 65 mph speed limit. No longer will driving back into the state feel like going into slow motion.
The Oregon Department of Transportation is in the process of developing criteria for changing speed limits. It doubtless will not go far enough. The law sure didn’t. We’ll be stuck with a 70 mph limit, like Washington while states around us travel at 75 mph with little traffic enforcement in general by comparison and little apparent concern over speed.
ODOT’s criteria when complete will probably hold down speed limits anyway, but we should see some rise. Think of Highway 20 between Sweet Home and Lebanon at 65 mph or 70 mph. What a wonderful notion. Let’s hope that road gets a proper speed limit instead of the current snail speed.
Some folks have opposed increasing speed limits in fear that accidents will become more common. As always, accidents will happen because of stupid driving ? inattentiveness or just plain unsafe practices, such as passing on the right or tailgating.
We all fall victim to them, moments of stupidity, at one time or another. I blew through the Richardson Gap-Highway 226 intersection at 55 mph recently. I was zoned out and only came back to reality after I was in the intersection. I’m pretty sure that an accident there would have been the end of the world, and had I been driving 65 mph, it would have made no difference. Still, it is possible that some accidents might be messier with much higher speeds. That’s a risk we can live with.
As we get higher limits, drivers need to remember the important safety rules ? Slow down in poor weather, no passing on the right, don’t follow too closely and don’t hang in the left lane when not passing, forcing people to go around on the right in frustration. Drivers need to remember to use their signals. It helps fill other drivers in about what’s going on around them.
Drivers should stay alert as well. There’s nothing like blowing a major stop sign at a somewhat busy highway to serve as a wake-up call, but it’s better when that doesn’t happen at all and we can stay on our game without ending up a smear on the highway.
These ideas aren’t complicated. A trained iguana should be able to handle them, then again, maybe not considering the number of drivers who do not follow these rules and the number who violate them because they are not alert.
The 55 mph speed limit that plagued us for so many years on freeways and continues to plague us on state and county highways was merely a poor political decision. It had nothing to do with safety. Rather it was tied to the so-called energy shortage in the 1970s. Only afterward did proponents of lower limits start spouting safety as a reason for the limit.
As ODOT considers speed limits, it should forget 55 mph as the baseline and consider what speeds a road may truly be safely traveled.
Around the area, Richardson Gap comes to mind. It should be at least 65 mph. Bellinger Scale Road should hit at least 65 mph. Berlin Road could easily take 65 mph between Sweet Home and Lebanon from McDowell Creek to Bellinger Scale. Highway 20 and Highway 34 from Sweet Home to Lebanon could easily handle a 70-mph speed limit or higher. Highway 228 should be raised to 65 mph.
Each of these roads obviously has curves that force traffic to slow down. Those who don’t slow to a safe speed in the curves could still be cited for violation of the basic rule, which says that drivers must travel at a “reasonable and prudent speed” given road, traffic and vehicle conditions.
Indeed, under the basic rule, speed limit signs could be removed completely from many county and state roads. Richardson Gap, between Fish Hatchery Road and Highway 226, deserves to be driven at 85 mph or more during daylight hours (yes, I’ve had a ticket on that stretch, and I’ll be driving Interstate Five instead for awhile after this column appears).