Should America go back to 55 MPH?

Driving steadily at a slower freeway speed (until about 45 mph) is the best way to conserve fuel. But setting a speed limit that may not be followed by others is not the same as having everyone else drive at 55. Driving slower is an effective way to reduce greenhouse gas. Setting the speed limit lower is ineffective.

It would be great if people could be made to follow a 55 mph speed limit. Or a 45 mph one would be even better. Then cars could be built with smaller engines, less material for the crash zones, and so on, making the cars lighter. This in turn allows for engines to be even smaller (and even more fuel efficient). If this cycle continues enough, significant cost reductions to electric vehicles could result, as the need for expensive batteries would be diminished. And our cities would probably also be built closer together with a lower speed limit, allowing rail transit to be a more feasible option for many.

Great idea. Good luck getting it to work....

we should all be riding motorcycles - you can rock 75 mph and still get 60+ miles to the gallon. Also, a great percentage of CTs highways are 55 mph still...but dont think that slows anyone down. I think making more efficient vehicles, and giving consumers incentive to buy, would be more effective then downgrading to 55 mph again.

Driving 55 would make driving less viable so people wouldn't drive as much. Perfect!

It's simple, if you want to save gas by driving 55 you are free to do so. Just stay out of the left lane. If the gov't makes it law...I would just fly more.

Karl and George I don't know where you live but Chicago is like CT (and every other place I have ever lived) only a small percentage of people follow the posted speed limits.

Around Chicago there are no speed limits that are more than 55 but that does not stop the majority of traffic from doing 65 to 70 with a small, but notable. portion doing 80 or more (even the Prius drivers).

To me what seems most wasteful is when two (or worse yet three) people going near the speed limit try to pass one another or are just not driving in the right lane. This causes cars to start piling up behind them. Once this "rolling road block" breaks up the traffic behind them invariably slams on the accelerator to make it back up to the speed they wanted to be at and then some to "catch up" to where they should be.

All I have to say is "Slower Traffic Keep Right", "Drive it like you stole it" or take public transportation. I will find another way to offset my consumption.

It's simple, if you want to save gas by driving 55 you are free to do so. Just stay out of the left lane. If the gov't makes it law...I would just fly more.

Really? You have a personal helicopter for trips to the convenience store?

Guess we shouldn't have speed limits, huh. Everyone just go as fast as they want.

I agree that most Americans will not be thrilled with this idea. I was in that camp a couple of years ago, too. But now that I have made it my goal to get at least the EPA rated highway mileage during my commutes to and from work, I have realized that it would be very good to be back down at 55. I prefer 55mph, but it's near impossible to drive at that speed around here. The highway that I travel on daily has a speed limit of 55 halfway and 60 for the other half. I find that I anger most fellow drivers if I'm driving less than 5 miles over the limit. That really makes it tough to go as slow as I want.

If your goal is to destroy any hope of a green movement among the general populace in great numbers, by all means, do this.

It's political suicide to screw around with the laws where the penalty for breaking the law encourages over-enforcement by over zealous police officers forced by their municipality to increase revenues.

Speed traps will become overly popular, and good solid global warming initiatives will be nuked out the back door by people running on platforms of 'rabble rabble FREEDOM rabble rabble SPEED LIMIIT INCREASE' etc.

Not a good idea.

"A great percentage of CTs highways are 55 mph still...but dont think that slows anyone down. I think making more efficient vehicles, and giving consumers incentive to buy, would be more effective then downgrading to 55 mph again."

Thank you. Rolling back to 55 across the board is a hugely naive, ridiculous and stupid idea.

Here in Denver, where city highways already suffer daily from horrid congestion and crappy drivers, has 55 mph speed limits.

Guess what? THEY DON'T WORK.

It doesn't matter how many people are given tickets each day; it doesn't deter everyone else from going fast. And it shouldn't. 55 mph speed limits are unrealistic and only cause problems.

Think about it - would you rather have fuel-efficient vehicles traveling at reasonable rates (70 mph, for instance), or hundreds of cars idling, traveling 3-5 mph because of congestion on highways? Which scenario do YOU think actually increases emissions and is more damaging to the environment?

Also, if you think there's going to be a revolution in the way cities are built and that cars should become slower...you're out of your mind. I love traveling to England (I plan on emigrating within the next 2-3 years), where cities are closer, cars are smaller and there's less petrol use. However, the U.S. is VASTLY bigger and cities are just more disconnected. Fast travel is essential.

Anyway, I'm done. Unbelievable the things some people think up. Geez

ABSOLUTELY NOT

Look, I've said it before and I'll say it again, your wind resistance exponential growth argument doesn't work! It all depends on the engine's power curve more than anything else... My car gets it's best mileage at 75.

Also, its the start and stop, sitting in traffic which hurts non-hybrid cars efficiency more than high speeds.

If you really want to lessen car pollution, then its about traffic circles, so cars don't have to sit there and stop.

I say bring on the 55MPH. The difference over a 100 mile trip is a whopping 15 minutes. Plus, it was my pops who came up with "55 Saves LIves" as a writer for the California Dept of Highways way back when so I've a vested interest in returning to his glory days. Heh.

Anyway, I'm done. Unbelievable the things some people think up. Geez

How is it "unbelievable"? We had a 55 mph limit for a very long time, and as far as I can tell, the world didn't come to an end.

While it is true that the peak efficiency of an automobile depends on which gear you are in, there is simply the unavoidable truth that wind resistance scales as the square of the speed you are traveling. I don't think that many cars see their peak efficiencies at 75, most are probably nearer to 55-60 mph when you are in a comfortable mid-range RPM in the highest gear. If highway speeds were maximized at 55, this would give the auto industry a firmer set-point to optimize engine performance across the board.

I have just recently started driving between 65-70 rather than 75-80 (speed limits in MI are usually 70 mph). I've noticed that my perspective on the road has changed significantly, including viewing trucks more as fellow vehicles than obstructions as I did before. On many midwestern highways, the primary backup-generators are groups of fast-moving vehicles getting hung up by trucks passing one another. But, if cars and trucks traveled at roughly the same speeds, these situations would occur much less frequently, helping to alleviate slowdowns that plague the roads most Friday evenings.

Bad idea.

Raise gas prices to $5/gallon and the idiots who fly by me at 70 mph will slow the hell down just to save money.

When I have to drive my car because the weather makes my scooter impractical, I take the highway and set my cruise control for 55 mph. Yeah, it pisses some people off, but I'm not doing it for them. I'm doing it for my as-yet-unborn child.

Besides, it's a lot less stress having everyone else pass me than trying to pass everyone else.

Lowering speed limits will only spread bad will amongst non-treehuggers.

"How is it "unbelievable"? We had a 55 mph limit for a very long time, and as far as I can tell, the world didn't come to an end."

You're right. People just kept driving faster. Especially me.

Good idea.

Gas prices are $9 a gallon here in the UK, yet everyone still canes it around at 80-90, and in increasingly bigger cars.

You guys in the states have already had it at 55, so maybe you can get used to it again :)

It's all about 'Global Leadership' now isn't it? What an amazing example this could set...

HIghways within the city of Cincinnati are signed at 55 MPH (and I-75 actually has a minimum speed of 35 or 45 if I recall correctly), but no one obeys. I try not to speed, becase I don't like breaking the law and some of the segments within the city are really curvy and dangerous, but it is impossible to drive the speed limit when even the semi-trucks in the slow lane are speeding. First worry about enforcing the currently law, at all times. If people don't learn to slow down after they get a ticket and see cops constantly monitoring the roads, then nothing will teach them.

Enforce the rules we have now. 55 to 65 is common around Illinois and I have no problem with that. I usually stay within 5 of the limit. If you decide to drive 55 all the time on the highway keep right except to pass and if you are at the limit remember it's not your job to enforce the speed limit.Blocking the left lane leads to road rage and wreckless driving on the part of other drivers.

You're right. People just kept driving faster. Especially me.

I have a strong inkling you were in your nappies and sucking on a binky back when the 55 limit got lifted.

Negatory on the 55, dudes. Very lame.

Why not address the disease instead of the symptom? The problem is we have 12mpg SUV's churning down the highway at 80mph.

Why make everyone suffer for that excess?

Why not make the rule that you've got to be doing 40mpg, or 100mpg?

Speed's not the issue, consumption & emission are!

For those who complain about suv and there owners.I live in a very rural setting.Suv and trucks are quite common.Most cars in the area are older.With good reason.Newer models are not able to withstand abuse/use.Think about that.Many of us require transport that can tow/haul great loads.Go ahead raise the price of gas.We only pass the cost down the chain.

As to the speed limit.Knock it back i will do the 55.

My secondary mode of transport is a 600cc honda

You can not change other,just yourself.Badgering other is not the way.

It's quite simple to enforce speed limits. Just use speed cameras, which are common in the UK but rare in the US. Use mobile speed camera vans rather than fixed cameras so that people don't know where the speed cameras are located. Using speed cameras would make 55 mph easy to enforce, and if properly run everyone would drive at 55 mph.

And how much gas will lowering the speed limit save? Go 55 if you want, that's the minimum speed on most highways...But why must you make everyone else? Why not push for better public transit than speed limits? Start championing high speed rail between cities, down the highway median.

Public transport is not a real option in my area.Rural settings are not good for that.It may work in cites.But in the bfe we will use quads/bikes and motercycles.

Rock the 55, put 10% of speeding fines toward the environment... carbon offsets, planting trees along desolate highways, etc. We'll have a beautiful America in no time.

Speeders act like it's their right. What about the rights of everyone else? If you speed, you are breaking the law becuase you are endangering the public. I know you think you are a good driver, but I know some of you are not.

The lack of consideration speeders exhibit is dumbfounding. If people acted the same way outside of their cars as they do while driving them, their would be a lot more ass kicking going on.

Personally, I love torturing speeders with slow driving. Their immature restless impatience cracks me up. Time to grow up, people. You're not 16 any more.

Check out this one-minute video about Eco-Driving, "Light on the Pedal, Light on the Planet":
http://truths.treehugger.com/video/contest_entry_light_on_the_ped.php or
http://next.video.msn.com/video.aspx?vid=f2556652-9ce7-44d6-8664-8ff2fca8d551

HOW we drive is as important as the choice of WHAT to drive (which has been getting all the attention) -- but car-purchasing decisions occur once a half-decade at best, while the choice of how to drive is made in every moment we are behind the wheel. Driving at, say, 55 mph instead of 65 mph on urban freeways will reduce fuel consumption, with all of its emissions and other externalities, by some 10 percent. Slowing to 50 while driving up sustained long hills will save even more. Accelerating gradually instead of forcefully on freeways, highways and surface streets also will reduce fuel consumption and emissions, as will gradually slowing in advance of red and yellow traffic lights ahead.

This is because fuel economy declines rapidly after 45 or 50 mph in the cars that continue to comprise the vast majority of the fleet. The average car uses some 17 percent more gas when you drive it at 65 mph than at 55 mph, and about 25 percent more gas at 70 mph. Another way to put it is, you can improve your gas mileage 15 to 20 percent by driving 55 mph rather than 65 mph. Some estimates suggest that fuel economy decreases by 2 percent for each 1 mph increase in speed over 55 mph; above 65 mph, the rate of decrease is even greater. The benefits of fuel-efficient driving will be the greatest in guzzlers.

I call it ECO-DRIVING: consciously-fuel-efficient driving that reduces gasoline consumption and its emissions. Eco-Driving also will help move the driving environment back toward the more moderate, more polite, and less-road rageful conditions of the past.

Driving this way will also spare some two- and four-legged pedestrians grievous injuries and death.

Automotive mileage improvements are typically seen as the province of automotive engineers and car manufacturers, policy makers, and auto purchasers. Rarely remarked upon is the ability -- and, I think, the duty -- of individual drivers to play the very considerable role they can to reduce global warming emissions, along with fossil energy dependence and energy insecurity, oil wars, road carnage, local air pollution, and growing trade imbalances.

Increasing the collective automotive mileage of the United States by just one mile per gallon would eliminate the need for drilling into the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge -- and increasing the U.S.'s collective mileage by some seven mpg would wean the U.S. off of Middle-Eastern oil, says Robert Kennedy, Jr. of the Natural Resources Defense Council. Eco-Driving -- if it becomes a trend and a commonly observed best practice -- will accomplish this saving and a lot more!

Anyone who claims to care about the environment -- or the country -- who drives a car can do one very simple thing almost every minute they are behind the wheel: slow down! Slower is greener, whatever car you are driving.

Gregory Wright greg@newciv.org

Of course 55 M.P.H. will save energy, thats why oil Republicans don't want it back. But even more important, 40,000 people are killed by vehicles each year. The real enemy is speed, not terrorists. Personally, I think anyone that sings "I can't drive 55", should be shot.

Siva Krishna

If the limits went back down to 55mph

Less gas used

more lives lived

lower blood pressure for
the roadragers,tailgaiters and aggressors

Less white knuckles
for the timid

fewer=honkers honking

A more civilized freeway.

YES! The citizens of the U.S. have the responsibility to do the most to get better fuel economy. I would like New Hampshire to lower its speed limit on the highways and interstates to 55 mph.
My questions is:Is there any safety data that is published and peer-reviewed that shows evidence that driving at 55 mph is dangerous when driving in the right lane on highways posted 65 mph? Anecdotal remarks in the form of criticism and emotional reaction do not serve as actual data.

You know you can have the 55 mph experience by taking it easy and driving in the right lane. These days I do that most nights on my way home from work. It does take a few minutes longer but it gives me time to relax than race the other drivers. I've never had anyone blow their horm at me for doing the speed limit in the right lane. Just do it and relax, knowing that you're doing your part by driving safely, efficiently and out of the way of more dangerous traffic.

As an automotive mechanic for over twenty years I must say this, cars today will not preform well at 55MPH, they were not designed to do so.
When the 55mph law came into efect in the 1970's, we were still driving cars that were basically designed back in the 1950's with slight modifications over the years.Today's cars are entirely different animals, designed to operate at higher speeds with less fuel (the wonder of electronic fuel injection). Engines last much longer than they did in the 70's due to the new designs as well as service intervals. Gone are the old carburators and standard ignition of the past which had to be constantly maintained.
The problem is the over grown SUVs which are nothing more than facny pickup trucks (and they have caused the price of work vehicles to skyrocket for the people who need them), that guzzle fuel.
Slapping a 55MPH limit on todays cars would not allow then to preform at their fullest potential, and shorten their MPG.

Sirs:

Will you please explain in detail why on Earth you wish reinstate a national speed limit on our highways?
That's not moving forward that's going backwards! Do you people honestly believe that in the year 2008 we should be setting speed limits that are
the same as those in the 1950's and 60's?

Interstates are the arteries of our country. Slow them down and you slow the economy down. And no, it will not effect fuel prices anyway. First because of the traffic created
(it's weaving in dense traffic that causes many accidents by the way), second because oil prices are rising mostly due to dollar inflation and
our government overprinting money (oil prices are relatively stable compared to gold prices, notice they have both gone up in unison, if our
dollar was as stable as gold oil would be $30 a barrel right now), and third because most people won't follow a national 55mph speed
limit! I'm sure you say that "well if we could just get people to slow down it might work". Well it's not reality and never will be so stop lobbying to make laws that depend on something that will never happen.

We should be making laws that optimize traffic flow and restore respect for the left lanes which would thin out traffic, reduce accidents, and
help the economy by speeding up our internal transportation system. Overall, our speed limits are already under posted (never mind being 85th percentile, they aren't even average speed) combined with cruising in left lanes and
not using them as passing only lanes leads to cars weaving and therefore causing very dangerous traffic snarls.

Our traffic flow is so inefficient it only
takes a few cars to back things up because some people think they can drive in whatever lane they want at whatever speed and are bolstered in
their belief by under posted limits. Think about it, there are ALWAYS these packs of traffic moving down the highway of cars scrunched
together. There is plenty of room ahead but one guy is blocking the left lane and 5, 10, or even 15 cars are lined up behind him. If something
goes wrong all these cars are packed like sardines which makes the accident that much worse. This also causes lots of road rage and people weaving, not to mention wasting fuel by all of the unnecessary braking to avoid a collision.

The mere suggestion to implement old outdated policies that have been an absolute failure in the past, will cause far more harm than good, just
like Prohibition and Jim Crow.

The 55mph speed limit was also directly
responsible for the immense amount of damage done to the American auto industry resulting in cars that were poor products both in terms of
performance safety and gas usage. After all, they only had to be safe and have decent performance at 55mph. The answer to having safer more
efficient cars isn't to lower the bar so that the car of the day with it's poor performance, safety and gas guzzling is acceptable, it's creating the demand for a better car by raising the bar. We set our auto industry back 20 years and made our cars the laughingstock of the motorized world
and are still paying the price to this day because we are just now starting catch up, and no 55mph speed limit is going save us now.

You say you favor returning to the 55mph speed because it was "safe" and it "saved lives" to try and make people feel guilty if they don't support
it. If driving 55mph is supposedly safe and according to you, saved 4,000 lives a year, then can you please explain to me why traffic fatalities were running between 50-60,000 annually during the years when the 55mph limit was most strictly enforced and started declining to today's record low levels only after the 55mph limit was repealed? Also, even with the steady decline, why then am I still 66% more likely to die on the American Interstates for a given mileage driven than the German Autobahns, over half of which has no speed limit? The answer is our traffic flow system is total and
absolute a mess, thanks in part to the generation that learned to drive during the 55mph era when driving skills plummeted along with the speed limits!

If you really want to make a difference then work with reality and make our roads fast and safe and
optimize traffic flow, moving us forward. Heres a few suggestions:

1) Synchronize all of the urban traffic signals on the surface roads nationwide. Just imagine how many millions of barrels of oil a year that alone would save by eliminating all of the stop and go driving and urban congestion. A side benefit is that smog in the larger urban areas would be greatly diminished.

2) Teach motorists how to DRIVE, teach them to do it WELL under all conditions and circumstances. This will go a long way into cutting our highway fatalities to even lower levels than they are now.

3) Implement realistic but stringent fuel efficiency standards and stricter enforcement of ALL traffic laws, not just revenue generating speeding citations. A mandatory 30 day license suspension for first time offenses such as Texting While Driving would drive the point home in a hurry.

I know that the above will not go over well with you people because first of all it makes common sense and it is readily doable. And secondly, I suspect that you really don't give a whit about saving lives, trees, bears or anything else. What you really want to do is to have a measure of control over other people's lives!

Do you guys really believe that any of what you are trying to force down everybody's throats will conserve a single drop of oil or stop climate change? Climate change is a natural occurrence and nothing we can do will stop it (If you don't believe me, then ask the scientific community why the polar ice caps on Mars are melting...I'm pretty sure that humans didn't have anything to do with that). Secondly, every barrel of oil that we don't buy goes right onto the World Market and into the hands of countries that may not have as effective fuel economy or emission regulations as the United States so in actuality, if you did get your way, you would actually be contributing to the problem, not solving it!

Sorry to break it to you guys but gas prices will likely never be in the sub $1.00 a gallon range again since we have proven to Big Oil that we are more than willing to pay more no matter how ridiculously low you want the speed limits set. And you can also Also, don't forget the wonderful field day of speeding tickets (shored up by new technologies such as speed cameras) and jacked up insurance rates that will take money out of the
hands of the consumer and put it in bureaucracies and large corporations which will only serve to reduce consumer spending and hurt the economy even more.