Utah is home to some of the most beautiful and diverse scenery on the planet. It’s also one of nine states in the nation where you can legally drive 80 mph on the interstate. During a recent 1,700-mile road trip to the Salt Lake City area earlier this month, I was reminded of this while heading northbound on Interstate 15.
In case you were wondering, Texas holds the record for the highest speed limit in the United States for a 41-mile, 85-mph stretch of road called the Pickle Parkway (otherwise known as State Highway 130) near Austin. It’s a toll road, and the rates vary — without a pass, the state currently charges about $28 to drive the entire stretch.
Texas is also one of the nine states with non-toll 80-mph speed limits. The others include: Idaho, Montana, Nevada, North Dakota (just added last August), South Dakota, Oklahoma, Utah, and Wyoming. The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) has posted a complete grid with state-by-state limits. I also tracked down a map that has the distribution by state (and in some cases, by county).
Image courtesy of Wikipedia
Worth noting: the distribution clearly shows that most states with higher speed limits are found in the wide-open West. That’s because the 80-mph stretches are usually reserved for rural areas. Sometimes, limits are lower for trucks or for nighttime driving. It was along one of those rural stretches in Utah where I pulled off the interstate for a photo of my car as it rolled 150,000 miles.
Some of you might remember that back in the mid-to-late 1990s, Montana had what was called a “reasonable and prudent” speed limit on some stretches of road. That was abolished by the Montana Supreme Court in 1999, but the idea of “no speed limits” still comes up from time to time.
For example, in Arizona, news circulated back in December about a proposed bill called the Reasonable and Prudent Interstate Driving (RAPID) Act. It would effectively eliminate speed limits on rural roads, starting with a pilot stretch of Interstate 8. As of this writing, the bill is still under consideration at the Arizona state house. As always, speed limits are a hot topic because of public safety concerns.
For those who are real speed demons, if you’ve ever wanted to legally drive your own car at speeds of up to 170 mph on a (closed) public highway, there are opportunities in “open road racing” that can help you scratch that itch. In a future story, I’ll tell you all about my experience in participating at one such event in northern Nevada a number of years ago. Until then, happy (and speedy) motoring!
