Gearing a vehicle too high will actually lower its top speed. The best ratios for maximum fuel efficiency at 55~60 mph cruising are actually too high for maximum top speed. That’s why a lot of cars need to be left in 4th gear if you are trying to set a speed record.
We’ve had this post before, I beliveve. The US Interstate system is designed for 75-85 mph driving in good cars. Any psychologist will tell you that the majority (85% or so) of drivers will drive at a speed they are comfortable with, and with today’s better cars, that is about 70-75 mph. To force people to drove slower goes against the grain, and can actually cause more accidents. Better car design has resulted in continually dropping highway fatality rates, and this has happened without any reference to speed limits. The accident rate (fender benders, etc.) has remained the same over that period.
Speed limits in other countries are much higher; most German Autobahns have no speed limits. The Dutch government is against “no speed limit” on expessways, but it “recommends” a “sensible” speed of 140 km/hr (87.5 mph!)in good weather conditions. The police have the power to arrest irresponsible drivers, however.
The overriding reason against absurdly low speed limits is it reduces the capacity of the road system! Enforcing 55 mph on busy expressways will cause huge traffic jams, as was experienced during the 55 mph period in the US. European and other coutries have encacted complex taxes to reduce fuel consumption, but not a single country has reduced highway speed limits to achieve this!!
The final argument against the double nickel, as Craig points out, is economimic. Time is money, and time spent in your car is time wasted!
This reduction coincided with the introduction of safety features in cars, reducing the worst fatalities.
Several European countries with much higher or no speed limits have exactly ONE HALF the fatality rate of the US!!
Reduction in fatalities is shown from 1945 on . No real safety devices were introduced for decades after that .
Uh , hate to tell you but it’s already been done ! Six speed transmissions are available on lots of makes and seven and eight speed trans are also available !
I’d be more impressed if you were touting for states and municipalities being banned from fining drivers and instead defining unsafe driving and removing drivers licenses for unsafe actions !
“Never wrestle with a troll, you just get sweaty and dirty and the troll has all the fun”
Who says sweaty and dirty isn’t fun? 
Oh you Liberals never stop do you! I refuse to feel guilty about breathing air that the earth provides…and do I dare mention God? I refuse to feel guilty about takeing air from an environment God made. The speed limits are fine the way they are. Lowering speed limits is just another way the politicians suck up the people’s hard earned income with King George like greed. Ethanol, peddle cars, etc aren’t the answer either because there will always be a politician exploiting what fuels our cars. Proof? Remeber back in the early 80s when everyone was buying up all the diesel fuel running cars they could find? What happened to the price of diesel fuel? Right, it skyrocketed. Not through demand but through taxation. The answer is not getting into an expensive panic and voting for politicians who promise to solve the world’s problems on the backs of the people through taxation. More money needs to be spent on self-reliance while preseving our environment with modern science, not depending on foreign sources because of the guilt the sierra club, green peace, etc inflict on us. Like my dad always said (During the Carter years)“If the environmentalists can find a way to honestly conserv the environment without somehow punishing the people, then I’ll believe that the environment is in trouble.” The speed limit is not the problem. The problem is the state of mind of the driver - the person driving 50 in 75 with a cell phone stuck to their ear.
Just to be clear, not everyone who is opposed to reduced speed limits believes that air is provided by some invisible guy with superpowers.
We were supposed to change to the metric system some 30 years ago. How are we ever going to do that when we won’t give up the english system. How about a national speed limit of 105 to 115 kph on the inter-city legs of the divided highway system and 90 kph in the intra-city systems.
I don’t see how changing the units makes much difference, the whole SI system thing didn’t really work out in the 70s.
Been there, done that!
You don’t like highway travel, do you? How old are you? I’ll bet you’re not very old.
This has been tried before and it was a DISMAL failure. Driving on a modern highway at 55 mph is about as much fun as watching paint dry. You’ll fall asleep from the boredom. YES, it saves fuel, but so does not driving at all.
I regularly make a 500 mile round trip on the PA turnpike, and I set my cruise control at 75 mph, which is 10 mph above the legal speed limit, but that’s the normal traffic flow. I’ve driven through numerous speed traps and been ignored. The people driving 85-90 mph are the targets of the speed police.
Driving 55 mph on a modern American highway would make you a safety hazard. You might get a few more mpg, but you would be putting yourself and everyone else at risk by making them brake and swerve into the passing lane to avoid you.
I witnessed just such a thing today. Traffic on the PA turnpike was moving between 75 and 85 mph, but there was someone driving at 65 mph or less, probably trying to save some gas. Whoever he or she was damn near killed several people just in the brief time I witnessed.
There was a flurry of brake lights, and several swerving vehicles trying to avoid this “slow poke.” Luckily, no one was hurt.
Highways are for getting places. If you don’t care how long it takes to get where you’re going, stay off the highway and stick to the secondary roads. Enjoy the scenery, which I admit is much better.
I remember making a 1,000 mile car trip during the 55 mph era. I hope I NEVER have to do it again. It was HORRIBLE.
There are many ways to save fuel. My car gets more than 30 mpg, even at 75 mph. I’ll bet all the SUVs and “Cross-overs” that pass me on the Turnpike are getting substantially less.
Forget the national 55 mph speed limit. It will NEVER come back.
Ego has litle to do with the speed we drive, at least for most of us.
You’d have to examine this “ego” thing yourself.
Good luck with that.
55 mph national speed limit…it?s time has come. And gone…
Why is this a good idea? Is it because we want to FORCE people through the threat of the law to behave in a particular way? It didn’t work before and it won’t work now (isn’t doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results the definition of insanity?)
I’ve said it before on different topics - if you put the REAL cost of driving into the fuel cost - people will decide on their own to conserve - and I bet some really clever folks come up with never before thought of solutions that revolutionize transportation.
Let’s not force people - let’s provide incentive.
The population overall has been getting better at driving in spite of occasional idiots !
I take it you’ve NEVER drive in Massachusetts have you.
Make sure you don’t vote for Hillary; that’s an idea she supports, at least til someone finds out.
So now the Democrats are getting into this. This was a republican idea when Nixon proposed it. And Regan even made a speech in his early career about how the 55mph is good for the country.
The Interstate highway system was started by the Eisenhower administration in the fifties. The combination of newer cars on the road after 1945, better highways starting in the fifties, and safer cars starting with seat belts in the mid sixties all contributed to a lower fatality rate. Driving 55 mph made a very small if any contribution.
Today’s fatality number, about 40,000+ per year, is about the same as the in mid the mid fifties, but highway miles travelled are bout 16 times! Routine accidents, howver, such as fender benders,and light injury cases, have kept climbing, proving that driving skills have not improved that much over the last 50 years. The inherent safety of today’s cars together with seat belts, and air bags have made accidents more suvivable.
A 55 mph limit would be OK in an actual national emergency, but it is a stupid long term solution to a porblem better solved by smaller, lighter cars with smaller, more efficient engines, and expanded public transportation.
"It?s be tried, it?s failed is absolutly wrong. It along with other measures made a significant difference in overall gas consumption.
Gas prices responded quickly and the reason it stayed on the books as long as it did…the dramatic decrease in deaths.
Others have pointed out that reduction in death rates has been ongoing and not really attributable to the 55 limit in the 70s. Let me also refute the notion that the 55 limit had any great effect on gas prices and supply. What did have an effect was a lot of Americans getting rid of large boats and buying smaller, more fuel efficient, cars. A lot of people just drove less. The price of gasoline drove people to change their driving habits and their cars. In the late 70s you could buy a big American luxury barge for cheap because everyone wanted a smaller car and better mileage. The argument for 55 changed to “saving lives” very early on because it was obvious that it wasn’t saving fuel.
“We were supposed to change to the metric system some 30 years ago. How are we ever going to do that when we won’t give up the english system. How about a national speed limit of 105 to 115 kph on the inter-city legs of the divided highway system and 90 kph in the intra-city systems”
Interesting…while on one of the many at that time research committees that look at the obstacles in the way of converting to metrics; we found the the fierce independence of the American people was a huge factor. No amount of explanation of the $$$$$$ lost in trade and commerce had an affect. The millions that have been lost overseas is a willing trade off that we were glad to make…you have to respect that. Industries were not willing to make the short term investments as well until forced to do so by their competition. I think the same applies here…It has to come from the ground up. The popular concensus which is to be respected as the ultimate authority; is NAY to 55 mph. Unfortunately, it is coperate interest that makes the final decision. If YOUR portfolio is enhanced by those decisions, you can find “facts” to back up any choice you make.
Why do some of you people insist on trying to force your preferences on everybody else? And come up with all kinds of nutty make-believe justifications to do so?
We tried 55. It was a flop. If you like doing 55, then drive the secondary highways and do 55. Leave the rest of us alone. Or perhaps you’d like me to force some lifestyle change on YOU that doesn;t work for YOUR life?
Or perhaps you should save these posts for a political forum where they belong, rather than clogging a car repair forum up with them.
The only thing that matters to me about this whole argument is that on a public road, where there are laws (which no one wants to follow), the laws should be obeyed because there are INNOCENT PEOPLE, in every car around you that deserve to arrive alive to their destination. I don’t care if everyone speeds. Then everyone is wrong. We have not had a reduction in traffic fatalities in a long time, about 40K every year. And about half of those are innocent people that were just trying to get to their destination. If you don’t want to slow down to save gas, then slow down to keep from killing innocent people. Everyone says, I’m a good driver, then follow the laws. I hope you get to where your going safely.