THE AUTOEXTREMIST

April 13, 2011

Texas wide open? It makes perfect sense.

By Peter M. De Lorenzo

(Posted 4/12, 5:30 p.m.) Detroit. I read with a smile that the Texas state legislature is freely embracing the concept of raising the speed limit in certain parts of that great state to 85 mph. If any of you have actually had the pleasure of driving in west Texas and other wide-open parts of that state, you know damn well that it makes all the sense in the world to do so. As a matter of fact there are already 500 miles of highway with the speed limit of 80 in Texas, so I can’t believe it has taken this long for this to get back on the front burner down in Austin.

But predictably, when we hear about states in the western half of the U.S – excluding the Free Republic of Northern California, of course – getting on the bandwagon of higher speed limits and it bubbles-up in the national news media, there’s always a great hue and cry over it, complete with wholesale hand-wringing and general whining about the imminent degradation of American society.

And it’s laughable.

First of all, anytime the anti-speed zealots are on the same page as the so-called Green “intelligentsia” you know it is going be a train wreck of monumental proportions. I mean, really, when you have one group that knows what's best for you and that would gladly make a law to make sure you adhere to their point of view, and another group that will gladly tell you what's best for you like it or not, could you imagine how much hot air and sanctimonious bullshit could be exchanged in one session?

On the one hand you have the safety worriers who think there should be a law or regulation to protect us from any possible contingency that could possibly happen as we go about our day. This is the group that wants us to swaddle our kids in enough protective gear so that nobody scrapes a knee, nobody gets their teeth knocked out for being stupid, nobody falls off of a bike, nobody loses a little league game and nobody, heaven forbid, nobody goes over 55 mph because after all, something really bad will happen if we happen to go just one tick higher on our speedometers. (There’s never any personal accountability for one’s actions either because it’s always somebody else’s fault, but that’s another column.) To these people it would be much better if we all just stayed home and experienced everything on a computer screen from the safe confines of our hermetically sealed homes, which have been accident-proofed, of course.

And on the other you have the green-no-matter-what-the-cost types, who think we should all be riding around on bikes, or driving micro cars with exhaust pipes no bigger than the size of soda straws, or even better yet, driving Shiny Happy electric smiley cars that emit nothing but wistful intentions while eliciting smiles and group hugs wherever they go.

So when a state like Texas steps up to the plate and says, “Yes, there are plenty of places around here where an 85 mph speed limit is no big deal” it’s no wonder an outcry ensues.

The safety zealots insist that if the speed limit is raised to 85 mph, then people are going to go 10 or even 15 mph over the limit. And that would be bad because, why? People are going to die in large numbers? I don’t think so. We’re hovering around the lowest auto fatality rate in history right now and again, have you ever driven out there in west Texas? You could fall asleep at the wheel and wander off in the brush for days without hitting anything of consequence.

As for the Green contingent their argument is that higher speed limits are wasteful and contribute to our dependence on foreign oil - that’s one way of looking at it, to be sure. On the other hand you could say that the time saved by accelerated travel schedules could lead to more productivity for this country as a whole. As a matter of fact I’d push for better roads with higher speed limits all over the nation, because it would speed things up in general. And lord knows that we as a nation need to speed things up if we’re going to compete in this brutal global economy we live in today.

The thing I like most about Texas raising their speed limits in parts of the state? It’s kind of a throwback to a simpler and arguably better time when this country wasn’t so homogenous, where the physical and cultural diversity of this great nation was something to be celebrated instead of squashed into submission by chain restaurants, chain hotels and other mass purveyors of sameness that have swallowed this country whole.

It was good that you could only get Coors beer in Colorado, Krispy Kreme donuts in the southeast, Vernor’s Ginger Ale and Stroh’s beer in Michigan, Pabst Blue Ribbon in Wisconsin, Shiner Bock in Texas, In-N-Out Burgers in California, (fill in your regional favorite here), etc., etc., etc.

So 85 mph might sound crazy to New Yorkers on parts of the New York Thruway, and it may sound crazy to a bureaucrat in Washington, D.C., who takes the Metro every day back and forth to work, and it will sound positively suicidal to legislators in northern California who would prefer that all of us drive pedal-powered clown cars to work, but in the wide-open spaces of west Texas?

It makes perfect sense.

And that’s the High-Octane Truth for this week.

See another live episode of "Autoline After Hours" with hosts John McElroy, from Autoline Detroit, and Peter De Lorenzo, The Autoextremist, and guests this Thursday evening, at 7:00PM EDT at www.autolinedetroit.tv.

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