Get Your Motor Running...

One of my favorite things to do is to get into a car and spend an hour or so speeding down some rural highway, all alone except for the wind and maybe the radio. I roll down the window, enjoy the clean air and spend a stress-free hour just driving.

I admit, most of that driving takes place above the federal speed limit of 55 mph for highways. Knowing this, it should not surprise you to learn that little made me happier than the news that the federal speed limit had been abolished.

Of course, now that the states can set their own limits, coalitions have been springing up right and left to try to keep the speeds down. The safety groups have portrayed themselves as the only people wise enough to see that we are buying our fun with lives. Ironically, raising speed limits enjoys such general popularity that no one has bothered to respond to the arguments of these groups. The truth is, doing away with the federal speed limit is far more than popular--it's sensible.

One of the more ridiculous terms the safety groups came up with and throw around quite often is the "Montanabahn." While Montana did abolish the speed limit (used signs, anyone?), it hardly merits comparisons to the Autobahn.

In the fast place, many cars use the Autobahn at the same time. This is a very rare state of affairs in Montana and many other Western states. Except during hunting season, it's unusual to see more than two cars at anytime, and that's assuming an 18 mile visibility. Collisions with other cars aren't quite the threat they are on the Autobahn.

I've discovered that many people, particularly on the East Coast, think upper New York state represents the nation's rural highways. This is laughable. When I was in first grade, I commuted 45 miles each way to school. To give you some idea of how long, straight and boring the road was, I figured out how many miles were left by the kind of barbed wire fence we were passing. There was only one other car on the road, the same one every day. I remember because the man driving it read the newspaper while he drove to work (at about 70 mph). He never had an accident, nor was there any reason to think he would. The road was straight and there was nothing to hit except some sagebrush and barbed wire fences.

I am also under the impression that the Autobahn curves every 50 miles or so. Again, this is not true for many Western roads. This makes high speeds a lot safer than they sound at first. Yes, people are driving 80 mph. But they are driving 80 mph on roads that are straight and empty. A speed limit of 65 is outrageously slow under these conditions.

Lastly, despite what the 'safety' groups say, the no-limit policy is a lot better than what existed when the limit was in place. The reason has to do with the quirks of Western legislatures. Montana lawmakers, a good portion of whom drove hundreds of miles to the capitol for the legislative sessions, were hardly big advocates of the federal government telling them how fast they could go. Congress anticipated this reaction and tied federal money for highways to federal speed limits. There was no way a state as small in population and as large in size as Montana could maintain its own highways.

However, Congress underestimated both the intelligence and general orneriness of the Montana state legislature. Like the good lawyers many of them were, they found a loophole. The penalty for speeding in Montana was set at $5--payable to the officer at the time of ticketing. I'm sure the legislators passed that bill, got in their cars and sped all the way home.

As one of my friends put it, $5 is not a speeding ticket. It's a speeding toll.

You can imagine the results. Most people (including, I'd bet, the state legislators) ignored the limit completely. If they were pulled over, they got out their wallets, counted out some change, and left. The going joke: Give the first officer a $20 bill and tell the next three you already paid.

According to everyone I've spoken to who has driven under both policies, things are a lot different and a lot better now. Montana has done away with the speed limit in favor of a hefty fine for reckless driving, a charge which carries much stiffer insurance penalties than mere speeding. In the past, being pulled over for speeding was a minor inconvenience at its worst. Now, if you are pulled over because of the speed you're doing, its no joking matter.

The cavalier attitude that society held about law-breaking has diminished, and this is ultimately very good for the country. Our laws should not be joking matters, and neither should breaking them. The past law was not only unenforceable, it was unreasonable. This new policy has helped to return respect for the law of the land.

I will concede one point to the safety groups: our highways are dangerous places, and something should be done about it. However, if these groups are really concerned with safety, I suggest that they turn their attention to combating drunk driving, not higher speed limits. If we could get the drunks off the road and keep them off, our highway fatality statistics would be a lot less worrisome. Accidents are inevitable, but as Mothers Against Driving Drunk (MADD) reminds us, substance-related crashes are no accidents.

Groups truly concerned with our highways' safety should lobby legislatures to stop tolerating a few "mistakes" by drunk drivers. Take away their licences, seize their vehicles, throw them in jail-whatever it takes to keep them off the streets.

Stop regulating the responsible drivers and letting the irresponsible ones back behind the wheel. Let our government's laws gain some clout again. And leave me to cruise down the empty highways at my own speed.

Valerie J. MacMillan has never had a speeding ticket in her four years of driving.