Life in the Slow Fast Lane

By Eric Peters, Automotive Columnist In the '80s, when most cars were slow, you could drive fast and mostly get away with it. Or at least you could do it and (usually) not risk a beating -- or a shooting. True, you'd ...

Don’t Drive Faster Than Your Speedometer Will Go

By John Carr, NMA Massachusetts Activist Wayne Crews recently posted an editorial on cost-benefit analysis and regulations. It's worth a read. In the 1970s the Carter administration prohibited speedometers from indicating speeds over 85 miles per hour. The idea was ...

Traffic Best Practices: A NMA Member Editorial

We wanted to share this excellent editorial (also published in the Grand Forks Herald) by a long-time NMA member. Let North Dakota Lead Way On Traffic "Best Practices" From the beginning of time, people have been building and improving roads; and ...

Texas May Go To 85… Oh, The Humanity!

By Eric Peters, Automotive Columnist Maybe we're over the hump. Texas appears to be on the verge of raising its highway speed limits to 85. That's good news for Texas motorists, who may soon get to drive legally at speeds they travel ...

Speed Limit Legislative News

By John Carr, NMA Activist It's the time of the year when many state legislatures convene. In Iowa, a bill would raise speed limits on two lane roads from 55 to 60. According to the DOT, the 85th percentile speed is slightly ...

Life in the Far Left Lane

By Eric Peters, Automotive Columnist I think the Fluoride in the water has done its thing... Almost every time I go out, I come up on a car that's doing either just barely the limit and often several MPH below it. The ...

Is Speeding Ever Appropriate?

By Eric Peters, Automotive Columnist On any given road, at any given time, the posted speed limit might be too fast for current conditions -- or unrealistically low. An interstate highway built in the 1950s for safe travel at speeds of 70-75 ...

Making Functional Laws Dysfunctional

By Jim Baxter, NMA President There are many traffic laws that function reasonably well---as long as they are not strictly enforced. Enforcing “the letter of the law” can make a reasonable regulation unreasonable. Prior to the passage of the National Maximum Speed ...

Michigan Cities Break The Law To Generate More Speeding Tickets

The Detroit News recently studied ten randomly selected intersections and found that the speed limit was set incorrectly on all ten. In response, State Representative Rick Jones, R-Grand Ledge, will be proposing a bill to require cities to follow the ...

Speed Limits: It’s 1974 All Over Again!

By Eric Peters, Automotive Columnist In the Department of Good News: VA is in the process of legalizing the de facto average/typical speed on highways such as I-81 and I-95. Governor McDonnell is expected to sign a new law raising the max ...