Unmentioned Energy Fix: A 55 M.P.H. Speed Limit

The New York Times ^ | May 1, 2005 | Jad Mouawad and Simon Romero

[Eaker]

It is funny. These people don't have a clue. My Jeep Wrangler gets about 12mpg in town and the best it ever got was a sane drive to Deer Camp at 19mpg.

They mention the "SUV's" but never mention the Wrangler. In fact it is an acceptable vehicle to them because it is relatively small. However my friends with Suburbans get better mileage.

My cop friends discussed this with me when they temporarely lowered the speed limit in Houston to 55. They said the speed limit is the fastest safe speed for the road. How can they give you a ticket for going 70 when that is a safe speed for the road?

Of course my cop friends aren't JBT's or they wouldn't be my friends.

Fuel prices for the most part are "bean-counter" driven not real market driven. Computers are proof of this. in the early '90s I couldn't afford one. Now I have five. Discretionary income up? Oh, hell no! Prices down and availability up? Yes!

Gasoline should have followed this course too. Oh wait, the guv hasn't been able to "help" us with computer prices like they have with gas prices.

[JimRed]

Try driving 55 (where it is posted) around here and you'll get run over or deafened by honking horns!

[Sam Cree]

"But if history is any guide, there is one thing he could do immediately: bring back the 55 miles-per-hour speed limit."

Or, he could actually let the market find a solution! OTOH, I doubt if a market solution is palatable to either Democrats or Republicans.

[seemoAR]

Maybe we need to increase the speed limit. Doesn't less driving time cut down on gas usage? Several years ago I heard a joke about a couple of women that were stopped for speeding. They were driving fast so they could get to the station before they ran out of gas. :)

[SauronOfMordor]

I wouldn't be surprised that if we start building nuclear plants in the USA again it will be of a standardized design based on highly safe nuclear technologies such as pebble-bed reactors, which are just about meltdown-proof.

Either that, or standardize on the design that the nuke navy uses. I agree that it is vitally important that there be a standard, and that it be a good and proven standard

[Eaker]

Yer car pooped in front of my home!

Clean it up please!

; < )

[Jackknife]

"HA-HAAaaaaaah!!"

[SouthernFreebird]

My car has an overdrive, could you tell me what it's for.
I know one is for city driving and one is for highway but I don't know which is which.

[shellshocked]

"bring back the 55 miles-per-hour speed limit. "


It doesn't save a nickle. Today's cars are designed for fuel effeciency at greater than 55MPH and so were yesterday's cars. Liberals are just cowards who are scared to drive any faster.

[Chode]

driving 55 in a car DESIGNED to cruise at 75 never saved a drop of gas...

[Ditto]

The problem is people started buying gas hog SUVs.

Do you realize that today's 'gas hog' SUVs get better milage than most of the small cars of the 1970s. We're more efficient in using fuel which only encourages more use through larger vehicles and more miles driven.

As to France or the rest of "Old Europe", look at population and number of people driving now vs in the 1970s. Their populations have not grown much nor has their vehicle use. Our population has increased by nearly a 1/3 in the last 30 years and the number of miles driven have risen in proportion to that growth.

[cripplecreek]

Your engine turns lower RPMs in overdrive. The lower RPM saves gas.

[G Larry]

I hope Hillary picks up this idea!

[shellshocked]

Hit liberals where they live: Cities.

• Forbid any more construction in cities. They are too congested as they are and contribute to 90+% of the traffic.
• Require companies within cities to allow for flexible hours to spread out the rush hour traffic.
• Require cities to reduce the office space congestion from 100,000 people per square mile to 25,000, even if that means destroying or closing entire office buildings.
• Require cities to pay for widening secondary streets within their cities so they stop hogging the freeways into the cities.
• Require cities to get 40% of their electrical energy from nuclear sources or face having the excess amount cut from their electrical feeds.
• Give cities 10 years to remove all coal power plants from their electrical grids.
• Forbid cities from annexing anymore land, forever.
• Impose a federal tax to the city of $250/month for each office worker within a city to pay for such programs.

[Mr Ramsbotham]

In France and Germany, a gallon of gasoline sells for as much as $6, with taxes accounting for about 80 percent of that.

Yes, and in France and Germany people spend their discretionary income buying gasoline, when they could be spending it on education, internet connections, books, entertainment, or whatever else it takes for an individual to live his life as an individual, the way he wants to live it, and not the way some corrupt socialist government wants him to live it.

[muir_redwoods]

Why not 45 or even 25 mph. If it works, why not lower it to 5 mph? It'll save gas and lives. Except for those folks I have to shoot to get them out of my way.

[Libloather]

[Ditto]

That chart only works in a perfect world where all of our wages increased the same as inflation.

You are right. For me, gas is a hell of a lot cheeper now than it was back then. A quick calculation shows that I am making 7 times more than I did in the late 70s and gas is only about twice what I paid then in constant dollars. And I don't have any of those Jimmy Carter "odd-even" days to keep track off either.

[AZHua87]

It seems that the esteemed paper and author is still stuck on Jim-ME - Car-tah's ideas of turn the heat down put on a sweater, drive at 55 mph, which by the way almost ruined the trucking industry. We might have been able to use trains for some things but that's ruined too from Union/RailRoad Managers/Government Greed and incompetence.

No I don't think we're going back to the Jim-ME - Car-TAH days.

[Travis McGee]

Bring back Jimmy Carter as Energy Czar! He knew how to solve this conundrum! Happy days are here again! Oh joy!