Utah is set to raise the speed limit on most urban freeways to 70 mph, and for the vast majority of us it will mean a little less time fighting traffic.
Every state has slowly increased its speed limits since the "double nickel" days of a national speed limit, which ended in 1995. That limit, first set in the 1970s at 55 mph, was not motivated by safety. Rather, it was about saving fuel in the era of soaring gas prices.
Since then, cars are cleaner, more efficient and most of all safer at higher speeds. Roads are also are safer, and road fatalities have declined dramatically in Utah and elsewhere.
Utah Department of Transportation engineers are recommending the Utah Transportation Commission raise the speed limit 5 mph on most Wasatch Front freeways. They believe it can be raised safely in part because they don't even think people will drive much faster. UDOT data showed that when speed limits on rural freeways were increased from 75 mph to 80 mph, drivers on average only increased their speeds by 1 mph to 2 mph.
"We're not changing the speed of the driver. We're changing the posted speed limit," UDOT's chief of operations said. "We're just bringing the speed limit into compliance with what they are already doing."
Indeed, speeds on urban freeways tend to be set by group dynamics. Drivers often find themselves in a clump of traffic, and it's the clump that decides the speed. That can sometimes be as fast as 80 mph or more.
But we're fooling ourselves if we think we're not really raising speeds when we raise limits. The clumps will go incrementally faster, and that is good news not just for commuters. Time is money. Goods that move faster can be sold for less.
Still, the undeniable truth is that increasing speeds increases accidents, some of them fatal. A University of Illinois at Chicago study in 2009 showed that more than 12,000 highway deaths could be attributed to ending the national speed limit in 1995. Non-fatal accidents went up, too.
The tiny savings of an extra 1 to 2 mph will add up for daily commuters, even if it's only another minute at home with the family. But for a small number of Utahns, the percentages will go the other way and they will pay dearly for our convenience. The decision makers should not ignore that.