America's New Fastest Road

I thought I liked driving fast but a speed limit set at 85mph? What are you crazy? This new toll road in Texas links Austin to San Antonio. A private company has shelled out the cash personally for the road, they get to maintain and operate the road for the next 50 years and in return they keep most of the money from the toll. Here is the catch, they are charging $6.17 to use the road.

The video does some interesting number crunching and it turns out, at 41 miles, that $6.17 compares pretty favorably to other toll roads across the country if you go by the dollar per mile. Sounds great but I think you have to remember that the rate only holds its value if you are using the whole 41 miles.

Either way wherever you are going on the toll, you will be getting there fast.

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Not all highways are built like that. Most of them are actually much narrower, with tighter curves. But you may have a point about driver's license. It's not that expensive, takes much less time than a year, but you actually must know how to drive to pass the exam. Maybe that's why I feel much safer driving in a crazy traffic in crowded European cities than anywhere on a road in US.
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From what I've read about the autobahn, the road is built a LOT differently than we build them here in the US. Thicker (1 foot thick vs the US's 6 inches thick), different surface and there are stringent rules about how many degrees a curve can be. In Europe, it takes a year's worth of training and about a $1,000 to get a driver's license.
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I don't understand why the whole fuss about 85mph speed limit. US is among the countries with lowest speed limits. The usual speed limit in Europe is 130km/h (~80mph) on highways, in some countries it is 140km/h, in Germany on some highways you can legally drive as fast as your car can go. People drive, accidents are not much more common than in US. Are American drivers really that bad that they can not be allowed to go faster than 65mph (105km/h)?
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ya know I just thought of something, a lot of cars made in the 80's and 90's had speedometers that only went up to 80mph(it was a law for a while) so if someone has one of those how do they know when they're going 85. I wonder if it would be a good enough excuse to get out of a ticket.
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