Salina ? Paul Bristow doesn’t much care if Kansas raises the speed limit to 75 mph on parts of Interstate 70. He wouldn’t drive his rig that fast anyway.

“I drive 68 or 69 all the time. It doesn’t matter what the speed limit is,” said Bristow, a truck driver from Denver who stopped on a recent day at Salina’s Flying J Travel Plaza for fuel and a shower. “The thing I see in Kansas is that everybody drives 75 anyway — especially in cars. Trucks seem to stay about 70 or less.”

Bristow owns his truck and drives the Denver-Kansas City route a couple of times a week. Whatever the speed limit is, he said, the state should enforce it strictly so that some vehicles don’t go 20 mph faster than others.

A bill that has cleared both chambers of the Kansas Legislature authorizes a 75 mph maximum on rural highways with grass or concrete dividers — in other words, on parts of I-70 and I-35.

Legislation’s chances

But the two chambers disagreed on how much of a “buffer” to allow before a speeding ticket went onto a driver’s record. The House bill has a 10-mph buffer, so that getting stopped for driving 84 mph in a 75 mph zone wouldn’t count on a driving record. The Senate version sets the buffer at 5 mph.

Legislative negotiations on the bill have stalled, and lawmakers are on a recess that ends when they return April 28 to wrap up their business for the year.

“Anything is possible on anything at this point,” said Senate Transportation Committee Chairman Les Donovan, R-Wichita. “We have ways of resurrecting the dead.”

Donovan said that if the bill did not pass this year, it was likely to come back next year, but tied to a proposal to strengthen the state’s seat-belt law.

A truck is a blur as it passes a speed limit sign along Interstate 70 near Bonner Springs. Truck drivers interviewed last week said the bill to raise speed limits on rural divided highways to 75 mph wouldn't make Kansas roads any more appealing to truckers, most of whom drive at less than 70 mph regardless of the limit.

Kansas Highway Patrol Lt. John Eichkorn said his agency believed a higher speed limit opened the door for more fatal accidents. But the agency will enforce whatever limit the state sets, Eichkorn said.

Contrary to popular belief, he said, there is no set speed, such as 7 or 8 mph over the limit, at which state troopers will pull someone over.

“I wouldn’t say there is a magic number, though there is probably some degree of tolerance,” Eich-korn said.

Sen. Robert Tyson has been the principal proponent of the higher speed limit, arguing that many drivers detour to Nebraska or Oklahoma to take advantage of the 75 mph limits there. Tyson said raising the maximum speed wouldn’t necessarily cause more fatalities, but would save drivers time and money and capture business for Kansas.

“There are more than 50 percent more trucks along Nebraska roads than Kansas roads,” said Tyson, R-Parker. “I think truckers are very adamant that they want to see the speed limit raised. Not only do travelers in cars do it, but all modes of transportation avoid Kansas because of the lower speed limit.”

Speed restrictions

But several truck drivers said last week the state’s current speed limit is just fine.

“I think 70 is a good speed,” said Terry Tracy, who drives for Poling Transportation out of Omaha, Neb. “If they raise it any higher, that’s probably a little too excessive.”

Tracy, who stopped for gas at Bosselman Travel Center in Salina, said he sets his cruise control at 68 mph and leaves it there, regardless of where he’s driving.

His company-owned truck can’t go much faster than that anyway because of restrictions programmed into the engine.

“In the motor there’s a computer chip that we can set for a top speed,” said Drummond Crews, traffic manager for Poling Transportation. “We do that for safety first, and it saves fuel. We don’t want guys running 85 because the company is liable. The ticket goes on the driver’s record, but we get the fine.”

Besides, Crews said, “Trucking insurance rates are already outrageous … and we don’t want them to go any higher.”

Possible benefits

Drivers said owner-operators, who drive their own trucks and haul for other people, are most likely to benefit from a higher speed limit because they have more to gain by driving faster.

“I think raising it to 75 would be a great idea,” said Toby Hoyt, an owner-operator based in Gentry, Ark. “Seventy clogs up traffic, but if you do 75, it won’t be a problem for responsible drivers.”

He said the biggest problem for truck drivers isn’t other trucks, but cars that are going far above the speed limit.

“You’re always going to have some idiot going 100,” Hoyt said while fueling up at a BP Amoco station near Paxico. “But for responsible drivers, 75 is a very controllable speed.”

Don Lohmann, who works at Cliff’s Service near the Ellsworth exit, scoffed at the notion that raising the speed limit to 75 would increase traffic on Kansas interstate highways.

“It don’t make no difference what they put it at,” Lohmann said. “Most of them can’t afford to drive the speed limit anyway with the price of fuel as high as it is.”

Crews agreed that the state’s speed limit probably has very little to do with the amount of truck traffic on its highways.

“You’ve got to look at where the trucks are coming from and where they’re going to,” Crews said. “They’re looking at what’s the shortest route, not any of that other stuff.”