A bipartisan measure filed Tuesday could shorten the more than 800-mile drive from Pensacola to Key West to less than half a day of travel.
Sens. Jeff Brandes, R-St. Petersburg, and Jeff Clemens, D-Lake Worth, proposed a bill (SB 392) that would allow a 75-mph speed limit on some highways and also boost speeds on other roads. Brandes said the idea is to adjust speed limits on interstates and certain rural highway to accurately reflect what most motorists are already driving.
“If people are driving within rates they’re comfortable with, we need to adjust the minimum and maximums speeds to what 85 percent of people are already driving,” Brandes said. “That’s what this bill would allow.”
The proposal would direct the state Department of Transportation to determine the safe minimum and maximum speed limits on all divided highways that have least four lanes.
The DOT would then be able to increase travel on the state’s “limited access highways” to 75 mph and raise the maximum posted limit on divided four-lane highways in sparsely populated rural areas from 65 mph to 70 mph.
The DOT could also hike speeds by 5 mph, to 65 mph, on other roads they deem safe.
Florida’s highways have had a 70-mph maximum since 1996, the last time the speed limit was reviewed.
The senators pointed to National Highway Traffic Safety Administration numbers that indicate the fatality rate per 100 million vehicle miles traveled has consistently declined since 1996.
However, the proposal will face safety questions.
Raising speed limits above 70 mph, as 16 states have done for select roads since the national speed limit was lifted in 1995, has led to more deaths from speeding accidents..
“Higher speeds make crashes more likely because it takes longer to stop or slow down, and the crashes that happen are more likely to be deadly. It’s physics 101,” said Russ Rader, a spokesman for the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety in Arlington, Va.