Drivers will not be legally cruising any faster along Pennsylvania highways anytime soon, since legislation that would raise the speed limit has stalled in a Senate committee.

"We haven't considered it and we probably won't," said Liz Vorez, executive director of the Senate transportation committee.

The legislation would allow the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission to raise the speed limit for passenger cars to 65 mph in rural areas. The House passed the bill Dec. 6.

Sen. J. Doyle Corman, R-Bellefonte, chairman of the transportation committee, said last week he has no intentions of letting the bill pass.

"From the studies made of it, we certainly would have more deaths in Pennsylvania," Corman said.

Corman said his greatest objection to raising the limit is the state's five or six mph tolerance when clocking speeders with radar.

"The law states that when you're running radar, you must give the motorist 5 or 6 miles, you cannot give citations until after 61 mph," said Corp. Steve Byron of the Milesburg State Police.

If the limit were raised, the tolerance would, in effect, push the limit into the 70 mph range, Byron said.

"You can drive 65 successfully -- if you're going 75 you're asking for a serious accident," Corman said.

Although former President Jimmy Carter mandated a 55 mph limit in 1974 to conserve fuel, that speed limit has proven to be a safety factor, said Tom Lyon, press secretary for the Pennsylvania State Police.

"We do not want to see it go to 65. We are the ones out there investigating the accidents, we see what speed does," Lyon said. "It injures, and it does kill."

Under the bill, the limit would be 65 mph for two years and then re-considered after a study on the effects was complete. Gov. Robert P. Casey has said he opposes boosting the limit.

At the current speed limit, speeders are a regular occurrence in the Centre Region, Byron said.

"You can go out there with a radar set and arrest people going 70 or over all day long," Byron said. "We don't have a real super high accident rate but there are a lot of people exceeding the speed limit."

Doug Mace, president of Last Resource, Inc., a Bellefonte company researching the effects of different speed limits for the federal highway administration, said most states which have the 65 mph limit have decreased the number of cars that are speeding. Many people do not feel comfortable driving faster than three or four miles above the speed limit, he said.

But raising the limit could lead to some high speed drivers -- people who normally drive, for example, 10 to 15 miles above the limit.

"It may have increased the percentage of drivers traveling above 80," Mace said. "It only takes a few of those to cause the serious accidents."

Seven other states -- Maryland, Hawaii, New Jersey, New York, Alaska, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts -- still have the 55 mph limit, Lyon said, noting that most of the west and south have a 65 mph limit on rural interstates and highways.