New Speed Limit Threatens Animals.

The Texas House of Representatives just passed a bill that would turn Texas’ speed limit from 80mph to 85mph. Beyond the enormous risk to human life, an 85mph speed limit puts even more animals at risk of becoming roadkill.

Online resource group Culture Change put the issue in prespective:

“[Every year] experimenters kill 100 million lab animals, hunters kill 200 million ‘game’ animals, and motorists kill 400 million road animals.  Only America’s meat-eaters take a larger toll than its motorists.”

Common sense tells us that driving faster reduces both the animal and the motorist’s ability to get out the way of each other and research done on the correlation between speed limits and roadkill rates reveals a huge increase in animal deaths every time the speed limit is increased.  

It’s hard to tell if increasing Texas’ speed limit to 85mph is an effort please impatient drivers or boost fuel consumption and drive more business to the state’s oil tycoons. What we know for sure is that an increased speed limit on Texas’ roads will unfortunately increase the number of animals becoming roadkill.