Staying Alive at 65: Life in the New-Speed Lane : Along Rural Highways, Accidents Are Up Only Slightly but Truckers Feel the Pinch

The truck driver was making a run up and back along Interstate 5 in the San Joaquin Valley.

While heading north, he was pulled to the side and given a ticket for speeding. Hours later, heading back south, he was again stopped for the same reason, and given a second ticket.

According to a spokesman for the California Highway Patrol, the trucker’s only lament was: “I didn’t think you’d be here by the time I got back!”

It has been five months since Gov. Deukmejian signed legislation raising the maximum speed limit from 55 m.p.h. to 65 m.p.h. on 1,157 miles of the rural interstate highways in California. And the question is, was it a good motion notion?

Although it may be a bit early to draw firm conclusions, certain findings on California roads have already emerged:

- The number of tickets issued to truckers is increasing, while citations to drivers of other vehicles are decreasing.

- The average speed on the affected highways, in effect, has not changed noticeably.

- Accidents attributable to speed have gone up only slightly.

- Motorists, when their travels allow a choice, seem to prefer the higher-speed roads.

- The increased-speed rate hasn’t noticeably increased gas consumption.

The new speed law went into effect May 28. According to Susan Cowan-Scott, California Highway Patrol public affairs officer in Sacramento, this is what happened in the four months since, compared with the same four months last year:

- For truckers, who are still required to observe the 55 m.p.h. limit, citations for excessive speed on the new-limit routes increased from 3,188 last year to 5,957.

- For all other vehicles (mostly cars and motorcycles) on the new-limit routes, citations for excessive speed decreased to 32,184 from 51,438 last year.

“Prior to the new law, an officer was probably more likely to go after a car, because that vehicle was probably more in violation of the law,” Cowan-Scott said. “Now, in the designated areas, if both a car and a truck are going 65 m.p.h., the car is in compliance, but the truck isn’t.”

While the truckers may be restrained in their applause, however, they aren’t doing that much booing either.

“You hear some moaning and groaning at the truck stops,” Dennis Marcusson Jr., a driver with Keeney Trucking in Maywood, said. “But now with the two-speed maximums, we usually don’t have cars getting in our way.

“Used to be, we were all dancing together,” he added. “And that’s when accidents can happen. Oh, it bugs me once in a while when I’m being passed and I realize I have to stay in the slow lane, and I’m not allowed to keep up with the cars. But then the time comes when I’m the one in the car.

“We fudge a little on the speed in the trucks,” he went on. “I think a lot of the guys cruise at 60. And that might be a good compromise, to let the trucks go 60.”

Fred Rylee, however, doesn’t see it that way. Rylee, a CHP officer for 20 years, is currently assigned to the Central Division, which stretches roughly from Bakersfield to Modesto--and includes 245 miles on Interstate 5 where 65 m.p.h. is allowed for cars.

“In those areas, when I stop a truck for speeding, and the driver complains about cars being allowed to go faster, I remind him that 55 has always been the top,” the 47-year-old CHP officer said.

“In fact, when I was a kid, my father was a truck driver,” Rylee said. “I remember that right after World War II, when I used to ride in the front seat with him, he had to keep the speedometer at no more than 40. The limit was that low for trucks then.”

Sometimes when he is writing a trucker a ticket, the officer said, he is asked why the cars are allowed to go faster. “I tell them we are talking about a 3,000-pound vehicle as opposed to one that may weigh 80,000 pounds.”

A Mile or Two Leeway

However, Rylee doesn’t view the higher limit for cars as a license to speed.

He said he may allow a mile or two leeway, depending on the weather and traffic, but that is all. “Our main concern is people getting greedy,” he said. “At one time the speed limit was 70 in rural areas, and some people think they can do that again. They’ve been given something as it is, they shouldn’t abuse it.”

On the other hand, he does feel that one benefit of allowing 65 in certain areas is that motorists are more relaxed. “When they were on, say, a 300-mile journey and they had to keep it at 55 all the way, I think there was a degree of frustration,” he said.

Some of the new statistics seem to bear that out.

To find out just how fast all the vehicles are going, Caltrans has had an ongoing program on the approximately 15,000 miles of state highways (of which 2,386 are interstate) ever since 1974, when the speed limit was reduced to 55 m.p.h. nationwide to save fuel during the Arab oil embargo.

Gene Berthelsen, chief public information officer with Caltrans, said 118 locations are monitored around the clock--by means of octagonal wire loops in the pavement which can plug into data collectors.

But since only five of these sensors are on the interstates with the new speed limit, Caltrans used radar to compare the speed of drivers both before and after the new law went into effect, Berthelsen said.

Those findings were:

- In April, the average speed on certain rural stretches of interstates was 62.4 m.p.h.

- In July, the average speed had increased only to 64.6.

“Although opponents of the higher limit had predicted big increases in injuries and fatal accidents,” CHP spokeswoman Cowan-Scott said, “the early statistics indicate that this hasn’t been the case.”

After four months of data compilation for the 65 m.p.h. roadways, the figures show that accidents of all types (fatal, injury and property damage) were up 6% over the same period last year--but that those where the primary collision factor was speed were up only 3%.

Further breaking it down to only injury accidents, according to Kent Milton, commander of CHP public affairs, the result is a standoff: 111 for the four months this year, 110 for the four months last year.

As for fatal accidents, he said, the numbers are seven for the four months this year, three last year.

“The CHP position has been for years that the change in speed has already occurred on those rural roads,” Milton said. “We felt that posting 65 wouldn’t materially change the speed, and therefore wouldn’t materially change the number of accidents.”

Said Cowan-Scott: “We consider that one of the most important factors in accidents is traffic volume.”

Monitoring sites have shown that volume on the pertinent portions of the interstates increased 13% in the four months, she added, while volume on all roads in the state increased between 6% and 7%.

“This apparently means that motorists who had a choice between highways with the lower and the higher speed limit, at least for vacation travel, elected to use the ones which permit 65,” she concluded.

All of which so far apparently hasn’t meant any significant increase in gas consumption. According to Jeff Reynolds of the Research Dept. with the State Board of Equalization, which keeps track of such things, these are the figures statewide (it doesn’t break them down by counties):

- For June-August of 1986: 3,206,000,000 gallons of gasoline were sold.

- For June-August of 1987: 3,260,000,000 gallons of gasoline were sold.

“And the increased number of vehicles on the roads might account for that, not just the higher speed limit,” he pointed out.

OK, but what about the effect of the allowable 10 additional miles per hour on a car itself?

“Minimal, if anything,” replied Mitch Schneider, of Schneider’s Automotive Repair in Simi Valley. “Not significant with today’s high-tech engines and transmissions. When a car is running at 65 with an overdrive transmission, the engine speed is actually less than it would have been in a vehicle going 55 without that technology.”

Energy-Efficient Oil

The higher allowable speed in some areas shouldn’t translate into more front-end alignments, Schneider said, but as for the engine, using an energy-efficient oil--to reduce wear and conserve fuel--probably would be a good idea.

Just as the CHP was among those supporting the speed increase for cars to 65 m.p.h. in appropriate areas, once Congress had passed legislation permitting states to do that, the trucking industry was equally adamant about keeping the limit at 55 m.p h. for trucks.

“We feel it is a safer and more economical speed,” said Karen Rasmussen, director of industry affairs for the California Trucking Assn., which represents about 2,500 companies. “Our board voted unanimously to keep it at 55.”

It is no secret at truck stops, however, that some independent truckers--perhaps with one or two rigs--would like the higher limit to apply to them also. They thrive on volume delivery, and thus the faster they can go, the more income they will presumably generate.

However, although California now has 600 signs which say “65” (half were new and cost $75 apiece, the other half were old ones on which “6” was painted over the first “5”), truckers still were dealt a pair of fives.

Eichman, the Central Division spokesman, said that because of a dramatic increase in truck-at-fault accidents, a program called Operation Skywatch was begun late last year, mostly in the San Joaquin Valley, and wound up overlapping the advent of the new speed limit for cars.

Sponsored by the CHP and the California Trucking Assn., not only did the program involve two CHP aircraft and a team of a sergeant and six officers concentrating on given areas on given days, but it sought to enlist the help of truckers themselves.

Reacting to CB Conversations

“We asked them to use their CB radios to report truck violations,” Eichman said. “Rather than appear to be ratting on their fellow drivers by calling the aircraft directly, they would sometimes call another truck regarding what they had seen, and the people in the planes would listen in. Sometimes the violating trucker would catch the conversation, and slow down.”

From January through July of this year, Eichman said, truck-at-fault accidents have decreased 42% from the same period last year.

The majority of the citations during the program were for speeding, the CHP spokesman said. “Going 75 m.p.h. had become common. Now, that is down to a 65 to 62 range--still illegal, but an improvement.”

As for cars and their new freedom, as it were, Eichman said he personally found that, as a driver complying with the 55-m.p.h. limit, other drivers used to cut in and out, creating sometimes-dangerous conditions.

Now, in the stretches where it is permitted, he said he finds he is in a smooth traffic flow at 65.