California Towing Speed Limit

jmtandem wrote:

To me, a 15+mph speed differential is dangerous with one lane doing 55 and the other lane doing 70+. Traffic should flow together, it should blend.

Agreed! A tangential issue is what lane you are towing in. On any California multilane highway you must be in the right most (slow) lane towing except when passing or when there is a left exit. This also adds some issues when there is merging onto the road traffic. And that traffic wants to get up to 65 or 70 and you are slower. The speed differential really does not work well.

When the trucking industry wanted to go up to 80,000 gross on California highways their concession to the state was to be limited to 55 mph. Of course, they knew that that would be really more like 60-63 mph so they were OK with the concession. Supposedly 'slower' damages the road less when at eighteen wheeler fully loaded weights.

Drivers that are towing are not restricted to the right lane except when passing. On three lane highways, drivers towing may use the #2 lane and on four lane highways, drivers with tows may use the #3 and #4 lanes. Many times trucks on four lanes will ride the #3 lane and may be more closely observing the speed limit than some folks like. I do the same thing. We do it because it is safer to run a little slower in the #3 lane than run in the #4 with the on and off ramps and fools that come on the highway at 40 and slowly accelerate to 55 in two or three miles. It is hard to be braking and accelerating all the time so many of us run in a "faster" lane. It is also not possible to pull over a lane when approaching an on/off ramp situation safely.

I will say that I think the 55 limit can safely be raised to 60 but then everyone will go 65 or 70. If it enforced then everyone complains about California without knowing if their complaints are backed up by accident statistics.