A Missouri State Senator wants to put the pedal down on the state’s highways. Sen. Jamie Burger, R-Benton, is sponsoring a bill that would raise the speed limit.
Senate Bill 1408 would raise the speed limit on Missouri’s rural interstates and freeways from 70 to 75 miles per hour.
Burger told Missourinet that other states have already increased their limits without seeing more crashes, adding that higher speeds can actually improve traffic flow.
“I travel a lot to Memphis to watch some of the Grizzlies basketball games,” said Burger. “When I drive Missouri, which is 80 miles from the Arkansas line, the speed limit is 70 miles an hour. When I get into Arkansas, those 67 or so miles I drive there, the speed limit is 75. I don’t think people driving 75 is a problem.”
Burger, of southeast Missouri, said he believes it is the right time to raise the speed limit with improvements to vehicle safety in newer vehicles.
“We drove 70 miles an hour back in the 70s and 80s without seatbelts, without airbags, with five people in the front cab of a pickup, and we lived through that,” said Burger. “I think we’ll live through this.”
Burger told Missourinet that he thought about raising the speed limit on rural interstates to 79 miles per hour.
“I really did,” said Burger. “But I thought, well, it’s one bite of the apple at a time. I want the speed limit wherever it’s listed as 70 miles an hour on the rural parts of the interstate, not the metro part, just the rural parts. Where it says 70, we would go to 75. That’s it. That’s it.”
Lawmakers heard testimony Monday, but the Senate Transportation Committee has yet to advance the bill.
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