Lawmakers divided over controversial bill covering interstate speed limits, fines

BISMARCK, N.D. (KFYR) - What started as a simple bill increasing the interstate speed limit has become a controversial effort to increase speeding fines and driver’s license points.

Members of the State House passed a single-page bill that would have increased the maximum speed on interstates from 75 to 80. The Senate amended it to a 12-page piece of legislation that would have made it a five-dollar penalty for each mile per hour over the limit for drivers caught speeding, and added more penalties that would have added points to a driver’s license.

The conference committee reached a compromise that they will present to the chambers, but it’s expected to be heavily discussed.

“We simply had a concept of going 80 miles per hour. They wanted to do that plus everything unrelated to interstates that they could think of,” said Rep. Ben Koppelman, R-West Fargo, who sponsored the original bill.

“We’d like to simplify and increase the fines. They haven’t been looked at for decades,” said Sen. Dean Rummel, R-Dickinson.

The bill can pass and go to the governor, be killed by a chamber, or a chamber can reject the compromise and force the committee to go back to the drawing board.