The Insanity of Drive-55 Laws
http://online.wsj.com/article_print/SB121685880778279315.html
Stephen Moore explains the economic cost of a 55mph speed limit.
Whether it's the effect on "just in time" inventory, or the extra hours wasted, the cost is extreme.
Unfortunately, pious politicians love to preach that we need to save every precious drop of gasoline. What they don't mention is how their motorcades routinely ignore speed limits (see Governor Corzine and his accident). They also don't mention how much more wasteful a motorcade is than a single, unarmored vehicle.
Lives are more precious than gasoline. Driving more slowly saves little gasoline, but wastes many hours of people's lives.
One last comment: As we've seen before, many will choose to drive faster. That will foster both a disrespect for laws and because of the wider variance in speeds, more accidents.
Comments
Dave Q
Here, here... well, kind of...
With my MINI, I get my best gas mileage with the cruise control set at 71mph, about 2950-3050 RPM usually. I can go between 400-450 miles on 12 gallons of gas. With 'Hypermileing' practices, I'm getting almost 27 mpg in City, and averaging 33.1 mpg between city and highway.
One guy I work with normally drives 84mph, yells constantly about 'slow a$$ granny drivers', hates the word 'Hypermileing', and routinely spends $200/week to fill his '07 Toyota Tacoma.
We don't need 55 MPH Laws. I get horrible gas mileage at those speeds, although it gets better if I shift down to 5th gear and set cruise control to 60mph. These Senators routinely drive HUGE gas guzzling Behemoths, three to four people in a seven passenger vehicle, doing 90+ MPH, getting graft, kick-backs and lobby money from Big Oil.
Want to save gas? Change American thinking. Get people to realize that the Toyota Prius they bought probably isn't getting the 'promised' gas mileage because Prius is not meant to Jackrabbit start from red lights, burn rubber, fly at 90MPH down the interstate...
Get people to realize that the nine passenger minivan they bought would probably be more 'gas economical' if they car-pooled with just ONE other person and split the cost of gas.
Get people to LEARN how to drive manuals again, get them to pay attention to what there cars are telling them, whip some tail if they forget to change the oil when it's due (which isn't always 3k anymore).
Make people read their owner's manual before they are given the keys, especially the 'maintenance' sections. Have people drive their cars with their radios OFF, Cell Phones OFF, and listen to the road, the engine, the whole car talk to them.
Their car will tell them "hey, dufus, this hanging out in the slow lane doing 90, not so good, especially since you didn't pay attention to the break-in period"
Cars haven't gotten more complex, people have gotten dumber...
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