Saturday, December 19, 2015
Were you hoping to drive a little faster on the highway?
Or do you wish Ohio would follow Michigan, West Virginia, Indiana, Pennsylvania and more than a dozen other states and eliminate the requirement that vehicles carry front and back license plates?
You’re probably out of luck, for the time being.
A lawmaker panel has recommended against increasing Ohio’s interstate speed limits or eliminating the state’s two-license-plate requirement.
The Joint Legislative Task force on Department of Transportation Issues offered the conclusions in a new report distributed to lawmakers this month.
A provision in the state’s biennial budget, enacted earlier this year, required the group to study the speed limit and license-plate issues.
Members hosted three public hearings. Their conclusions won’t satisfy many.
On speed limits, the group determined that more than 40 states have raised speed limits to 70 mph or higher, including a handful that set the top speed at 80 and a few areas in Texas where you can legally drive 85.
The task force found that Ohio’s 70 mph highway limit was in line with more than 20 other states, including all surrounding states.
Ohio increased speed limits on rural freeways in mid-2013 to 70 mph from 65. A short-lived provision in the transportation budget would have increased the speed limit to 75.
Groups that testified said roads would need to be modified to handle faster traffic. Additionally, statistics from the State Highway Patrol and ODOT showed a 4 percent increase in fatal crashes, a 26 percent increase in injury accidents and a 20 percent increase in overall crashes since Ohio’s speed limit was increased to 70 mph.
Members noted, “Vehicle speed is the single greatest contributor to highway crashes, as well as the largest contributor to fatal crashes. It is significant to note that vehicles traveling at a faster speed have higher injury and fatal crash records.”
“The task force recommends that any legislative proposal to increase the speed limit in Ohio must present options to address both the possible infrastructural cost and public safety concerns,” members concluded. “Until an appropriate solution is provided to ameliorate these concerns, the task force recommends maintaining the 70 mph speed limit on Ohio’s freeway and interstate system.”
$1.4M in savings
On the license plate issue, the task force pinpointed more than $1.4 million in cost savings that could be realized by eliminating the front-place requirement.
However, those savings did not outweigh concerns raised by law-enforcement groups about the potential change.
The task force determined that “license plates provide one of the least expensive and most valuable tools for law enforcement officers. License plates are an important tool to public safety officers attempting to solve automotive theft, DUI offenses, hit/skip crashes, instances of aggressive behavior on roadways, robberies, homicides, kidnappings and a wide variety of other offenses.”
“License plate information is one of the most valuable tools law-enforcement officers utilize to effectively enforce state law,” the task force concluded.
“The loss of that tool would diminish the ability of Ohio’s law enforcement agencies to identify violations of law and bring perpetrators of crime to appropriate justice.”
Marc Kovac is the The Vindicator’s Statehouse correspondent. Email him at mkovac@dixcom.com or on Twitter at OhioCapitalBlog.