Posted on 07/04/2008 6:07:31 AM PDT by wendy1946
" WASHINGTON - An influential Republican senator suggested Thursday that Congress might want to consider reimposing a national speed limit to save gasoline and, in turn possibly ease fuel prices. ADVERTISEMENT
Sen. John Warner, R-Va., 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 The speed limit was repealed in 1995 when crude oil dipped to $17 a barrel and gasoline cost $1.10 a gallon.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...."
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Anybody who lived through the 55 mph insanity prior to 1996 will have vivid memories of large numbers of vehicles bunching together in inpenetrable clusters and people doing increasingly crazy things to try to get past them. Studies around that time clearly demonstrated that roads with 65 mph limits were SAFER than those with 55.
Aside from that and assuming aerodynamic drag is not a major factor, modern cars will get their best mileage at the point at which valve timing becomes efficient in top gear which for many if not most cars is going to be somewhere in the 65 - 75 range, and not 55. A car with a five speed gearbox will actually often get better mileage in fourth gear if forced to run at 55.
DRILL our own oil NOW!
westerners will never accept that.
warner should be retired.
there were a couple of states that told the feds to pound sand.
Here’s an alternative.
Send Congress into permanent recess.
Let the people make the laws by internet “town meetings”.
Maybe the politicians will start taking a bus instead of a plane and save some fuel.
Looks like another GOP statist wants to impose their will on the states.
Oh yeah. They really want a reprise of the 1970’s. “Breaker, breaker, westbound cornflake. How’s it look over your shoulder?”
“Who we got here?”
“ay, you got one eastbound Mr. McNasty here. We down.”
“ay, you got a picture taker, your side, 15 mile marker. Don’t forget to smile and brush your teeth. Then you can put the hammer down, peddle to the metal, and boogie. We down.”
Aside from that and assuming aerodynamic drag is not a major factor, modern cars will get their best mileage at the point at which valve timing becomes efficient in top gear which for many if not most cars is going to be somewhere in the 65 - 75 range, and not 55. A car with a five speed gearbox will actually often get better mileage in fourth gear if forced to run at 55.
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55 is an atrocious idea ,, I recognize that aerodynamics make up the majority of the load at 75mph but even in a 1970 Cougar I would get better mileage at 70 than 55 as I had the cleveland engine with huge intake ports and cylinder filling and fuel atomization absolutely stank at lower rpm. The last long distance road trip I made was in a VVTI equipped Camry and I got 34mpg at 80-85 mph ,, the car had mo special mods ... engine rpm was just below the point where VVTi would kick in..
What a schmuck!
ML/NJ
My Mercury Mountaineer gets better mileage at 60mph than 65mph.
It was a dumb idea then and an even dumber idea now.
Typical in the bad old days (mid seventies or thereabouts) was the EPA rating the Alfa Romeo at around 22 mpg and that was in the age when nobody made small cars over 2000 lbs; the whole world knew that Alfas got over 30 mpg when running at 75.
Also a remake of Smokey and the Bandit..
Hey Warner, I got a better idea. How bout building American nuclear power facilities and drilling for American oil on American soils and building American oil refineries in America.
You sound like the typical rino lib leftist bs man.
Everybody including Al Gore and Congress and the UN wonks and the Pentagon fat cats, Secretary of State right on down the line can fly commercial and we'll save the airlines.
Drill now and start building refineries, build nuclear plants and stop subsidizing ethanol producers and remove the import restrictions on foreign ethanol. Finally, get rid of the twenty million illegal aliens using gasoline and screwing up the labor market.
Warner needs to go away.
Send Congress into permanent recess.
Let the people make the laws by internet “town meetings”
I nominate this as the best Damn Fourth of July post!
Truly..when congress was first created, it was to represent collective interests of people that had no other way of meeting and organizing. It is the greates national liability today.
A couple of years ago, congress mandated the change in the daylight savings start and end dates to allegedly save energy. How much was saved? According to a study in Indiana.... less than none. (i.e. more power was used earlier in the day to make up for the darkness)
Congress mandated the use of food for energy (turning corn into ethanol) result: higher food prices.
There might be some savings from a reduction in the speed limit, but at what productivity expense? Truckers will have to be on the road additional thousands of hours. Truckers are limited to the number of hours they can drive in a day/shift. Which means more stops. Which means more delays.
There is a rather large ID Ten T problem in W-DC on both sides of the aisle.
Vote all the %$#$@#@ out.
ID Ten T = ID10T
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