See Where Speed Limit Will Jump To 75 MPH

LANSING, MI — If you just can drive 55 mph, the state of Michigan is making your life a little easier. As soon as next week, the new speed limit will be 75 mph on some 600 miles miles of highway. Another 900 miles will bump up to 65 mph from 55.

The move comes after Gov. Rick Snyder signed bills in January to allow for the higher speed limits. “Ensuring that all Michiganders are safe while operating vehicles on our state’s roadways is critically important, and these bills allow for appropriately increased speed limits on certain roadways after safety studies are conducted,” Snyder said, according to a Detroit Free Press report.

So where are speed limits ramping up? The first freeways to see 75 mph limits by mid-May will be I-75 between Bay City and Sault Ste. Marie, stretches of U.S. 127 between the Lansing and Grayling areas, and U.S. 131 between the Grand Rapids and Cadillac areas, the Free Press reported. The Michigan Department of Transportation also will begin installing new 65 mph limit signs for trucks and buses, the Free Press reported.

The bills signed in January only affect rural limited access freeways. There’s no word from Lansing if and when speed limits might be altered in metropolitan Detroit. Even in the rural areas, the increased speed limits come with limitations, the Free Press reported. They include:

• Allow a county road commission in a county with more than 1 million people to request that gravel road speed limits be reduced from 55 m.p.h. to 45 m.p.h. and local governments could request further reductions down to 35 m.p.h.
• Allow a school superintendent to designate the half hour before and after school times when speed limits can be reduced by up to 20 m.p.h. lower than the posted speed limit. And allow hospitals to request lower speed limits near their facilities.
• Reduces the number of points that can be assessed on a drivers’ license from two points to one for driving 5 m.p.h. over the speed limit. Violations of 15 m.p.h. over the speed limit would come with two points on a drivers’ license.
• Protects local municipalities from having to pick up the cost of changing speed limit

Photo by the Washington State House via Flickr Commons