The Journal Sentinel has the data: fatal highway crashes are spiking with the higher speed limit pushed by the road-builder lobby's newest best friend, noted transit foe and Governor-in-training Robin Vos.
So file this from 12/9/13 under "told you so," or just plain "duh":
Encouraging Wisconsin drivers to go faster is going to cost lives.Along with this highway safety double-standard from earlier in 2013:
But Vos has yet to get behind modest efforts in the Legislature to tweak state OWI statutes and treat some first offenses as misdemeanors if offenders' blood alcohol content measured 0.15 or higher, or about twice the current legal BAC limit of 0.08. Offenders blowing 0.14 and below - - still just a ticket...
So we could end up with higher speeds on state highways to match what's posted in other states - - the uniformity or consistency argument - - but continue to be the exception on drunk driving and merely ticket (enable) first-time (caught) drunk drivers up to 0.14 who would be charged with a misdemeanor if they were caught over the border blowing 'only' 0.08.
Make sense?
