Return of the 55-Miles-Per-Hour Speed Limit?
Monday , July 07, 2008



Now some fresh pickings from the Political Grapevine:

Hold Your Horses

The high price of gasoline may mean that Congress will now tell you to slow down. Republican Senator John Warner of Virgina has asked Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman to calculate what speed would provide optimum gasoline efficiency under current technology.

In a letter to Bodman, Warner cited studies that show the 55-mile per hour national speed limit saved 167-thousand barrels of oil a day — after it was imposed by Congress in 1974 because of the Arab oil embargo. That speed limit was repealed in 1995.

The letter read "one could assume that the amount of fuel that could be conserved today is far greater."

An Energy Department spokeswoman says Warner's letter will be reviewed but that "if Congress is serious about addressing gasoline prices, they must take action on expanding domestic oil and natural gas production."

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,377221,00.html

National speed limit pushed as gas saver


WASHINGTON (AP) -- An influential Republican senator suggested Thursday that Congress might want to consider reimposing a national speed limit to save gasoline and possibly ease fuel prices.

Sen. John Warner, R-Virginia, asked Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman to look into what speed limit would provide optimum gasoline efficiency given current technology. He said he wants to know if the administration might support efforts in Congress to require a lower speed limit.

Congress in 1974 set a national 55 mph speed limit because of energy shortages caused by the Arab oil embargo. The speed limit was repealed in 1995 when crude oil dipped to $17 a barrel and gasoline cost $1.10 a gallon.

As motorists headed on trips for this Fourth of July weekend, gasoline averaged $4.10 a gallon nationwide, with oil hovering around $145 a barrel.

Warner cited studies that showed the 55 mph speed limit saved 167,000 barrels of oil a day, or 2 percent of the country's highway fuel consumption, while avoiding up to 4,000 traffic deaths a year.

"Given the significant increase in the number of vehicles on America's highway system from 1974 to 2008, one could assume that the amount of fuel that could be conserved today is far greater," Warner wrote Bodman.

Warner asked the department to determine at what speeds vehicles would be most fuel efficient, how much fuel savings would be achieved, and whether it would be reasonable to assume there would be a reduction in prices at the pump if the speed limit were lowered.

Energy Department spokeswoman Angela Hill said the department will review Warner's letter but added, "If Congress is serious about addressing gasoline prices, they must take action on expanding domestic oil and natural gas production."

The department's Web site says that fuel efficiency decreases rapidly when traveling faster than 60 mph. Every additional 5 mph over that threshold is estimated to cost motorists "essentially an additional 30 cents per gallon in fuel costs," Warner said in his letter, citing the DOE data.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/07/03/warner.speed.limit.ap/

old news. It died two weeks ago.

It was a good idea then when EVERY car on the road was a pig, but these days, it's just a bad idea.

I know my C4 gets the same MPG in 6th at 75 as it does at 60 in 5th. Go figure.

If you are not already a member, I suggest you join the National Motorists Association. This is the organization that helped drive a stake in the heart of the 55 MPH NMSL in 1995.

http://www.motorists.org/

I'm a member of the NRA to help prevent stupid firearm laws from being enacted. I'm a member of the National Motorists Association to help prevent stupid traffic laws from being enacted.

Better to fight this now. If it gets enacted we could live under it for another 21 years!

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This was reported again this evening on ABC News:

http://abcnews.go.com/WN/story?id=5405133&page=1

I agree that cars are so different that it would be stupid to re-enact the law. However, remember who we are dealing with:

Congress
Environmentalists
Safety Nazis

I'm not sure that bunch is capable of reasonable thought!

We needed change and got change way back when to change the gearing to improve the gas mileage and get more change in the pocket. Changing change for the sake of change doesn't change my mind.

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Short answer? Definitely none of the above are capable of cognizant reasoning on a regular basis. The best mileage my C4 ever has recorded was at 68 mph, cruise set. Better than at 65, 55, etc. and verified by repeated data compared by speeds up to 75 mph. It's gotten 28+ mpg at 68 mph, not bad for a modified and stroked LT1 with a 3.07 gear behind a 4L60E. Hell, my stock 4 cylinder Nissan only gets 30 mpg on the road.

Nice scientific research they cite - "one could assume...".

A slower moving vehicle reflects more heat thus adding to global warming.

I can't do 55 mph in 6th gear on my bike or my vette, so I can't see that being optimal.

I get my best mileage in the vette at about 82 mph.

Maybe they should first design all the cars to max out at 55 mph.

Speed kills. We could eliminate traffic deaths almost entirely by making a law against driving. If it saves one life, it's worth it.


Actually I'm in favor of traffic deaths, since it makes the roads safer. Because 50% of all persons killed in traffic accidents are bad drivers.


In CA, the interstate speed limit was raised to 70 mph for safety reasons. There is less speed differential between cars with a 70mph limit than with a 55mph limit. With a 55mph limit, some people do 55, some do 80. With a 70mph limit, very few drivers do 55.

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Anyone who thinks a measure like this will reduce fuel prices is an idiot.

I won't lower prices. It didn't 30 years ago... it does theoretically lower your "effect" gas bill by theoretically using less gas.

Also, the safety nazis don't have a leg to stand on, the annual death rate of 40k people a year has stayed constant - it's the rate of deaths per 100 million miles driven that really shows how safe the roads are, that number keeps dropping.

Air bags should be banned and all cars should be retrofitted with steel dashboards and lap belts.

I can't drive 55. Just ask Sammy.

The peoples choice ......

Drive 55 campaign gaining speed

By William M. Welch, USA TODAY



Rocker Sammy Hagar, who wrote the song I Can't Drive 55, helps change a sign in 1995 after the maximum speed limit was raised to 65 mph on Highway 101 in Northern California.

File photo by Robert Buhl, AP

LOS ANGELES — Though it lasted longer than disco and leisure suits, the national 55-miles-per-hour speed limit was another remnant of the 1970s that did not endure.

Yet with high fuel costs reviving memories of the energy crisis of that decade, proposals to bring back the "double nickel" or something like it are emerging, with backers saying federal speed limits could save fuel, money and perhaps lives.

"The faster you go, the more you waste," says Tim Castleman, a Sacramento man who is promoting a Drive 55 campaign.

Until gasoline approached $4 a gallon, Castleman didn't find a lot of support for reinstating the 55-mph limit that Congress abolished in 1995 after more than 20 years.

"It was a terribly unpopular law," acknowledges Castleman, who maintains a website, www.drive55.org.

Indeed, reinstating the national 55-miles-per-hour limit, or 60 mph as some suggest, would seem a tough sell after the first experiment proved about as successful as Prohibition.

Opponents such as Jim Baxter, head of the National Motorists Association, a Wisconsin group, argue any fuel savings would be tiny and that higher limits haven't made highways less safe.

"People have to be willing to comply with it," he says. "And they weren't."

New action in Congress

Proposed by President Nixon and enacted in January 1974, the nationwide speed limit was described as a temporary emergency response to oil shortages and was to expire in mid-1975. But Congress soon made it permanent, and the 55-mph limit immediately became part of the national culture.

Auto speedometers highlighted the 55-mph limit, police radar detection devices became popular, and rocker Sammy Hagar had a 1984 hit record that complained, I Can't Drive 55.

States that had allowed speeds 75 mph or higher were compelled to go along because of the threat of losing federal money for highway construction. But in the face of resistance, Congress in 1987 relaxed the law to permit 65 mph on rural interstate highways. In 1995, Congress lifted the federal limit entirely. Baxter says most states have maximum limits of 65 or 70 mph. Some Western states have higher limits.

Sen. John Warner, R-Va., introduced a bill last month that orders a study to determine the effects of a national 60-mph speed limit.

Warner says the 55 limit reduced fuel use by 167,000 barrels a day, or 2% of highway consumption, citing a Congressional Research Service report. With far more vehicles, fuel savings is likely to be far greater now, he says.

Rep. Jackie Speier, D-Calif., has proposed a 60-mph limit in urban areas and 65-mph elsewhere.

"There is no need for OPEC or the oil companies to help us out," Speier says. "Every driver can affect change simply by easing up on their right foot."

Both point to findings by the Environmental Protection Agency that fuel efficiency decreases above 60 mph.

Speier says 11 other House Democrats, most of them from California, are co-sponsoring her bill. And she claims support from environmental groups and the American Trucking Associations.

Few other politicians have been eager to climb aboard, Baxter says. He notes that Warner is leaving office at the end of this year and that Speier represents a San Francisco and San Mateo district where voters may be less tied to their autos than elsewhere in the country.

"The public isn't real excited about going back to a 55-mph national speed limit," Baxter says.

Traffic fatalities on decline

Baxter says the savings potential is overstated because most driving is done on streets and roads where lower limits are in effect. Only 2% of the nation's roughly 4 million miles of roadways have limits above 55 mph now, he says.

While up to one-third of daily traffic volume is on interstate highways, Baxter says, congestion often limits speeds anyway.

"All we would do by establishing another national speed limit is we would generate a lot of tickets, a lot of insurance surcharges, and give a little boost to the radar-detector industry," Baxter says. "There would be no change in fuel pricing."

Warner says safety is a reason to lower speeds too. He points to a National Academy of Sciences finding that the law "saved up to 4,000 lives per year from highway accidents." Disputing that, opponents point to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's figures that show the rates of traffic fatalities and injuries have been declining for more than a decade. The fatality rate in 2007 was 1.37 per 100 million vehicle miles traveled, compared with 1.69 in 1996.

Castleman, 50, a retired heating and air conditioning contractor, acknowledges his cause is a long shot.

"We've been calling on people to do it for themselves, do it voluntarily, do it for the country, do it to stop climate change, do it to save money, do it to make our roads safer," he says.


http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2008-08-17-Drive-55_N.htm

One more reason I love Colorado!

75 is the speed limit on most of I-25. The only major North/South route through the state.I set the cruise for 80, and the State Popo never bother me.

Just like McDonald's... I'm lovin' it!

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BWaaahahaHAHAHAH!!

Follows my philosophy of removing all the guard rails.

55???? OMG NOooooooooo!!!