Texas raises speed limit to 85 MPH
 

And the only thing that does it make the current drivers there legal. :1orglaugh

I drove through Texas highways several times and man you feel like a chump
doing 75mph.

I saw only one guy get pulled over for speeding in Texas.
I was doing 85 and he blew past me so fast that he had to be doing
at least 110. I guess the cops only get you when you drive double the posted limit. :1orglaugh

http://news.yahoo.com/video/us-15749...Fzc3BlZWRsaQ--

You don't even have to sit in a car to get a driver's license in Texas. Written exam, then a computer simulation exam which is nothing at all like sitting in a car. After that, get your license, and shot off screaming down the freeway at 90mph.

I lived in San Antonio for a few years and would drive to Houston/Galveston once or twice a month, 80 mph was slow even thru Houston.

.

Its not raised to 85 yet - it was passed that tdot COULD raise it up to 85 if they want

if they do this it prob will be only one long stretch of toll roads or some crap

They will lose Federal highway money. The Feds have set the cap for what is allowed for the state highways if you want to received Fed funds. So it will be interesting to see if they give up the money.
:2 cents:

Meh im sure they kinda had an idea of why they wanted to pass this bill and it wasnt done without a reason

They plan to use it on toll ways and the defunct but not really gone trans texas corridor plan where the Federal speed caps are waived for federal funding.

No one drives under 80mph in TX in any lane except the slow lane and the occasional retard doing 40 in the fast lane. They may as well raise it given Texans have shown they don't care what's painted on the signs. We don't have points on our licenses here so you can rack up all the speeding tickets you want and pay a ticket attorney to get rid of them if you have the money.

I know several well off people who do this and do it on purpose. They claim the time saved in transit is worth more to them than the 150.00 to pay a ticket attorney.

Wow. Must be nice...

Then you're off to enjoy one of their numerous drive-through margarita stands.

http://www.daiquiristogo.com

What an awesome state!

I drove through there years ago all the way through highway 10 on my honda rebel 250 full throttle, guess that can't happen again with those changes.

One of the few times in my life that I was scared, riding my bike, was going thru Houston, in the rain, during rush hour. They definitely put the rush in rush hour.

Right on!

There are points in texas... but using deferred adjudication or defensive driving fixes that.

Nothing to do with this thread, but I just remembered a funny Texas thing.

I was flying an airplane over Texas and I needed to stop for gas. I was looking at the chart and found what I thought was a suitable airport and looked up the landing procedures. There was a solid line box with x's on the line around the airport. Never saw something like that on a chart and it wasn't in the symbol glossary so I proceeded.

I landed inside a fucking prison somewhere in the west part of Texas.

Will never forget Texas

I thought some of you might enjoy this, kinda reveals my true identity but I don't care. I drove through Texas on this trip. What makes the trip interesting is the bike I did it on.

http://www.pashnit.com/forum/showthread.php?t=18512

It would appear to me that those glass-smooth roads in Texas are funded by people they issue tickets to. When I was there about a year ago, both myself and my girlfriend were issued tickets. I was going at a pretty leisurely 83 mph, slowly passing people who were traveling around 75. When I had put some good distance between myself and them... I saw some crazy mother fucker coming up behind me at around 150+. Scared the living shit out of me.

Then he turned on his strobe lights... and pulled me over. He issued me a citation for the inspection certificate on a company car (wasn't my car), speeding, AND registration. Total came to around $380.

I had to be back in California about 2 days later so I couldn't hash it out in court with them. Left a pretty bad taste in my mouth about their system... certainly isn't the way it works here in California. Here, the only times I've been pulled over have been while going well into the triple digits.

When I was a teenager I drove my 1970 Dodge Dart from NJ to San Diego. Couldn't imagine doing that trip on a miniature motorcycle!

Fun stuff!

I live in Texas and it is very easy to get a drivers license here. If your 15 you take drivers ed in school. You pass that when you turn 16 you simply go to the DMV take a text and you get your license.

I am not sure where you people are drivng here in Texas but most people around her drag ass :/ (By dallas). The fastest crazy drivers that I saw where when I lived close to LA in california. It was 100+ or dead still :)

And I didn't know we had points either. I have gotten 10+ tickets in a year and never a letter from the state. *srugs*

I have lived in the suburbs of Dallas for the last 10+ years and travel 20 miles each way into the office each day and I would say the average driver does about 5mph over the speed limit.
I have to use tollways everyday and currently the speed is 75mph & I can't see them raising it higher. Our monthly tolltag bill runs around $200, sucks.

They want to raise the speed limit so the illegals can get through the state quicker:2 cents::thumbsup

german nolimit roads are the best!

the limit's +- 75mph over here (EU) and I do +85mph every day.... I get a ticket maybe once every 2 years.

in some states its a felony to do double the limit. florida is one of them i think Az is another.

good news :thumbsup

In fact, if they could make it higher, it would even be better .... :upsidedow

my first car was a 1969 Dodge Dart lol

I think Most states target out of town people, for that very reason. They know you will just pay, because you can't come back for the court date, and or it is just cheaper.

I was even told for an extra $50, they would keep in local and not send it to insurance!

The Federal mandated speed limit was first raised to 65MPH back in the mid-1990s and then later totally repealed. States can set speed limits to whatever they want - Montana, for a time, had no set maximum speed limit on some highways.

Speed limits of 70 and 75 are common on many interstates, so 80 and 85 isn't much of a stretch.

However, if any state tries widely implementing a 90 MPH limit, there will very likely be much public pushback. Even many lead-foots will likely question the safety of that speed; pushes the engineering envelope, since interstate highways, even the best ones with gradual curves, wide lanes, and excellent sight-lines, won't safely handle 90 MPH traffic.

Texas 85 MPH limit likely marks the end of increases, since 85 MPH is probably the highest posted speed limits will go anywhere in the U.S.

Ron

The glass-smooth roads are typically the tollways, which are privately funded.

My last speeding ticket in TX was almost 8 years ago. I was driving to Phoenix and got caught doing 130 @ 2 in the a.m. by a state trooper in the middle of fucking nowhere.

I was alone on the highway for hours and if I hadn't been going uphill when I passed him (hiding in the ditch running radar) he would have gotten me for 150 and I would have gone to jail for the weekend.

I told him I was trying to get to the next rest stop to take a dump (true) so given the popularity of this particular highway w/ interstate drug runners he proceeded to search my car for the next two hours, taking everything out of it and piling it up on the side of the highway. (I was moving to PHX for 6 months for a contract assignment).

After he didn't find the kilos of yayo he thought I was hauling around (drug mules don't typically speed down the highway but don't tell Trooper Super Squirrel that) and getting more and more pissed off he ended up only getting to write me for the speeding ticket. He even inspected my car for equipment violations, I've never seen a cop work so hard to try and bust someone.

I hardly every get pulled over but when I do it seems like I always get super cop w/ a bad attitude.

The main danger in TX comes from small one-gas station towns who run speed traps on the local highway to fund the local police budgets. They really love to do the sudden speed limit change thing where you practically have to slam on your brakes to go from 70 to 40, usually in a blind curve or over a bridge where you can't see the new limit sign. Those towns don't move much though so it's easy to map them out in the GPS or just add the speed trap add on if you have a good one.

That would be the best $50 anybody could ever spend. Too bad more places don't do that.

I think I got pulled over by that guy's cousin in North Carolina once. Reminded me very much of the interrogation scene in the beginning of Inglourious Basterds. The cop shook my hand real friendly like at both the beginning and the end of the 45 minute ordeal too.

To his credit, he ended up not even issuing the speeding ticket he could have hit me with.

I just drove from Sacramento to LA and then back again on the 5. Eighty-five miles an hour is the standard.

So this means you have to do 125 to get pulled over.

Good luck with that--I got a ticket this past January for 86 in a 70 zone on the I-5, about two hours north of LA.