Most of our interstate freeways were designed for cars traveling at 70 miles per hour or faster. When the national energy conservation speed limit was eliminated, Washington raised the speed limit to 70 for the stretch of Interstate 5 from north Vancouver to Tumwater, except for a stretch near Kelso and Longview. Washington raised that stretch to 70 a few years later.
The rural sections of Oregon’s Interstate 84 are designed to equivalent standards, but the state has kept the limit at 65. (I understand the state is considering raising those limits to 70.) Perhaps Washington drivers are better able to handle higher speeds; if so, let’s improve our driver’s education programs.
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If one can judge WA drivers by the ones that pass through on the 101 down this way, one might conclude that they were high on very good drugs (perhaps brought from Canada?) that made creeping along a state highway/major artery at 40 mph seem like a zoom. The only people more frustrating to be stuck behind, and there is usually a long line of us stuck behind them, are people with plates from British Columbia. Even fully loaded log trucks manage to swish by them.