Raising The Limit Increases Speeding Behind the Wheel

In most of Texas, the most common posted speed limit is currently 70 mph. However, in some areas such as around Houston and Dallas, it drops to 65 mph, and just west of San Antonio to the western border of Texas, there are areas where it gets as high as 80 mph. In areas where the speed limit is not posted, such as downtown Houston, the speed limit is 30 mph.

Defensive driving students often argue the point that speed limits should be raised. Raising the Texas speed limit only encourages people to speed. The difference is now instead of doing 50 mph in a 35 mph zone they are doing 60 mph in a 45 mph zone.

For example, when Texas increased its speed limit from 55 mph to 70 mph, the average speed on a sampling of Texas's urban freeways and interstate highways increased substantially. Prior to the increase, 15 percent of cars on these roads were exceeding 70 mph and 4 percent were exceeding 75 mph. After the speed limit increase, 50 percent were exceeding 70 mph and 17 percent were traveling faster than 75 mph.

As you can see increasing the speeding limit actually increased the number of speeders by over 3 times that of the previous speed limit. Increasing the speed limit may not be the answer to stopping people from speeding but the only other option is to lower the limit and that idea has very little support across Texas.