Unsolicited story + a question about my drive through Central Wyoming
So, April 2025 I was driving from the UP of Michigan to Las Vegas, and as the 3rd leg was Spearfish SD to Salt Lake City UT, I had the pleasure of a morning in Spearfish Canyon + a detour at Devils Tower before heading through the center of Wyoming. Clear day the whole way through, was 50% beautiful, 50% jarring emptiness. Even made it to that overly expensive gas station in Muddy Gap!
Anyway, I'm not sure if it was on 387 or 220 (probably 220, pretty sure it was after Casper) but eventually there was a stoplight for construction with "expect a 2-5 minute stop" posted. Sure, whatever, I'm on a 10+ hour drive anyway. There's a big work truck and a diesel Volkswagen Passat in front of me. I feel safe in assuming that the Passat was an oil/ranch worker who would drive this route every day, because once the light went green, the car zoomed off kept continually pulling away from me. I was definitely in a high plains area because all I could see was flatness + road curves ahead. It was so empty, and the Passat was still noticeably pulling away from me, I never looked down to see how fast I myself was going...
*I had lead footed to 113 mph, without noticing*
That Passat had to have been going 135, maybe more. I had an out of state plate so of course I slowed down to 90-95 ish just in case. But I've never had something like this happen before or since.
So the question(s) I have: do locals who drive through those Wyoming Death Storms just loosen up once conditions are clear, particularly if they have a long drive back home? I'm well aware that the roads in the winter are among the most dangerous in the country, and I also get that there's notably long commutes here, so was what I encountered anything close to normal? I can see why Montana had "reasonable and prudent" as a speed limit for a few years