75 mph? In this neighborhood?

My wife and I made a discovery this afternoon while hauling brush to the relocated City of Amarillo mulching/brush drop-off site at the corner of Hollywood and Helium roads.

It was a speed limit sign at the edge of a residential neighborhood. You know, the type of place with kids running around and moms hauling their children to and from this or that event.

The sign said “75 mph.”

What? Seventy-five miles per bleeping hour — on this stretch of road with no shoulders, so near those homes?

OK, so maybe I need to get out more.

Then again, with speed limits like that on streets so close to the city limits, maybe I ought to just stay home, cover myself up and let others compete for space on race tracks disguised as city streets.

I’ve already noted my growing comfort with 75 mph speed limits on most open highways in Texas. The Legislature boosted them this session, believing apparently that 70 mph just isn’t fast enough. Hey, if you want to really push the pedal to the metal, take Interstate 10 down yonder, just west of San Antonio and you’ll get to drive at 80 mph legally. Then we have that miserable stretch of highway aka Texas 130 between San Antone and Austin where you can dead-head it at 85 mph. No thanks on that one.

Texas transportation officials and the city might want to reconsider the speed limit on that stretch of road just west of Loop 335 … and when I say “just west,” I mean exactly that.

It’s open road west of that location. There you can boost the limit to 75 — just not so close to that residential neighborhood.