Putting The Pedal to the Metal

By Amy Wilentz

Sure, it's fun to go fast. But several lawmakers complained last week that matters were whizzing by out of control when Congress agreed to allow states to raise the speed limit to 65 m.p.h. on local highways. In a feat of legislative legerdemain, proponents of the higher speed limit attached an amendment to the $600 billion 1988 spending bill, bypassing the safety-minded House Public Works and Transportation Committee.

Once the long-delayed spending bill reached the full Congress on Dec. 21, few legislators noticed the amendment, which permits as many as 20 states to lift the 55-m.p.h. limit on divided highways in rural areas that meet interstate safety standards. Those who knew of the provision feared that further debate might threaten other, more delicate compromises contained in the spending bill. That infuriated Transportation Committee Chairman James Howard of New Jersey, who wrote the 1974 legislation that slowed down the national speed limit to 55 m.p.h. "What outrages me," he says, "is that this major policy change happened in an appropriations bill. It sort of got buried."

For more than a year, lower fines and selective enforcement of speeding laws had been gaining favor in many states. In April, when Congress permitted all states to raise the speed limit on rural interstate highways to 65 m.p.h., 38 states chose to do so.

The results thus far have been ominous. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration reports that in 22 of those states, highway deaths jumped 46% between May and July over the same three months in 1986. "Because of a few macho Westerners," says Howard, "more people are going to be killed." Neither the Reagan Administration nor Senator Don Nickles, the Oklahoma Republican who sponsored the latest bill, attaches much significance to these early fatality figures. Observes Nickles: "I don't think it is the speed limit that kills people so much as the behavior of the people driving." He argues that it is illogical for state roads to be bound by lower speed limits if they are comparable with interstates.

"People are voting with their gas pedals," says Gene Berthelsen of the California department of transportation. He points out that the average speed on rural interstates before the limit was raised was 62 m.p.h.; the average speed on 65-m.p.h. interstates in California is now 64.5 m.p.h. Says Berthelsen: "We feel it's wiser to post speeds that people are already going."

The insurance industry is reserving judgment. Traffic accidents cost the U.S. an estimated $80 billion a year, and if collisions, injuries and claims increase, so will premiums. "The fatality count will be a good barometer," says Harvey Seymour of the Insurance Information Institute, an industry public relations organization. "If it continues to increase, someone is going to pay. Sixty-five miles per hour has a price."

Although the new measure is supposed to last for only a four-year "experimental" period, traffic experts are afraid that once the 65-m.p.h. limit is in place, it will be difficult to put on the brakes, no matter what the death rates show. Already, permission to lift the 55-m.p.h. limit has been requested by 14 states: Arkansas, California, Florida, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Minnesota, Oklahoma, Michigan, Nevada, Idaho, Texas and West Virginia.

Once the maximum of 20 states is reached, some of those who were left out will undoubtedly start clamoring for 65-m.p.h. eligibility. That may teach speedy lawmakers another lesson of the open road: no one likes to be passed.

With reporting by Ted Gup/Washington