Interstate speed change dangerous to drivers

It was April 2. I was driving home for my Easter break to Sioux Falls. What was usually a quick, painless drive quickly turned to a dangerous route full of confused drivers.

But why all the confusion? Not 24 hours earlier South Dakota had officially changed the speed limits from 75 miles per hour to 80 mph, and this brand new change had drivers in chaos.

Let’s first take in a couple of factors for my hour of driving. I was en route home at around 3:30 p.m., not exactly a busy time as people were still at work. As usual, it was windy in Vermillion, and in an open area it was only worse — blowing my car all over the lane. Eventually, the road was filled with drivers from different states, which I can only deduce they weren’t informed of the speed change.

This change will increase accidents and lead to more money being spent on gasoline — money most college students don’t have.

A five mph increase is not a huge difference — in fact, I usually go about 80 mph to and from school. However, I did find myself speeding up to 82-85 mph because I would still be within five miles per hour of the speed limit, and in South Dakota this usually isn’t an issue.

It seemed to me only a few drivers were aware of the change and others were going what they thought was a normal speed. This in turn made for a stressful drive.

The right lane was for the clueless, and the left lane was for the pissed off drivers — aka me. I found myself ranging from 55 mph — yes, I went that slow — to 86 mph just to get past the slow drivers and avoid an accident.

After this experience, I can firmly stand by my opinion that I do not think this increase is a good idea. I am aware we are barely into a week of this change, but I think it has already caused chaos, and cars driving at this speed, and much faster, will cause more accidents.

It also will take more gas as increasing one’s speed requires more fuel. In case students are not aware, South Dakota also increased the tax on fuel by six cents the same day as the speed change. No, it wasn’t an April fools’ joke, and the excitement of lower gas prices was short-lived.

The logical reason behind the price increase is to have more funding to fix interstates and highways. Any resident of South Dakota knows we don’t have a summer season — we have construction season filled with endless construction projects. Then we are back to winter, and with cars going at a higher speed on ice, we are in even more danger.

Finally we must address what those for the change are thinking — it’s only a five mile per hour increase. I get it, and I understand it isn’t a huge difference. But people speed, they drive slow or they aren’t aware of the change, which makes for a bad mix of drivers on the interstate.

Maybe it will get better as the months go on, but until then students need to be aware and drive safely.