Illinois becomes 37th state to raise interstate speed limit to 70; big urban counties can opt out

Three months after the Illinois Legislature passed a bill that would raise the state's interstate speed limit from 65 mph to 70 mph, Gov. Pat Quinn signed it into law Monday, Tom Kacich reports for the News-Gazette in the east-central part of the state. The bill, which also lowers the legal threshold excessive speeding from 31 mph to 26 mph over the limit, will go into effect Jan. 1. (Associated Press photo by Jeff Roberson: I-64 in O'Fallon, Ill.)

The law allows eight highly urban counties to set a lower limit. Rep. Naomi Jakobsson (D-Urbana) told Kacich, "One of the reasons I felt comfortable voting for this bill was that it eliminates the counties that have really heavy traffic. That's one of the big safety issues, that if there is really heavy traffic they can opt out."

There are now 37 states with speed limits of 70 mph or higher: Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Iowa, Missouri, Michigan, Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Kansas, Louisiana, Maine, Minnesota, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia and Wyoming. (Read more)