| OCR Text |
Show UDOT ADOPTS 55 MPH SPEED . PERMANENTLY The Utah Transportation Commission has adopted a permanent 55 miles per hour speed limit for the state. The action came Wednesday evening in Nephi at the conclusion con-clusion of the final public h earing pn the proposed per -manent rule. The other two hearings were this month in St. George and Salt Lake City. The Commission made permanent an emergency rule which had been adopted in August after the Utah Supreme Su-preme Court had struck down an earlier resolution resolu-tion setting the 55 mile per hour limit. The Commissioners said safety was the primary reason rea-son for making the speed limit permanent. Commissioner Commis-sioner Clem H. Church, Pan-guitch, Pan-guitch, who earlier had opposed op-posed the speed limit, said he changed his mind because of the number of lives that had been saved by the 55 miles per hour limit. He said that in 1974, over 9,000 lives had been saved across the nation and that number represented rep-resented more than the combined com-bined populations of Kane, Garfield, and Piute Counties. Commissioner Church made the motion to adopt the pre-manent pre-manent limit. . The 55 miles per hour limit lim-it was mandated by Congress in late 1973. States that do not aggressively enforce - the 55 miles per hour lim it have been threatened with the loss of federal highway construction dollars. If the state limit were more than 55 miles per hour, Utah could lose $77 million a year, which represents the bulk of Utah's highway construction budget. All of the public hearings brought many citizen protests pro-tests against the 55 mph limit. lim-it. But even though the protests pro-tests were about 9-1 opposed, op-posed, the commission ruled in favor of making the limit permanent. |
