Motorcycles that only get 35 mpg kind of miss the whole point of a motorcycle.
The whole point of a motorcycle is to go fast and have fun.
How fast do they have to go before they are finally fun to ride? One of my most fondly remembered motorcycles was a BSA 250 Starfire.
I think he meant per capita consumption.
Right…I didn’t read that part…no more tequila for me.
True, but faster is usually better. Now I ride an old guy bike, an '83 R80ST, it’s hard to scare yourself on one of those.
I like old BSAs, except a friend of mine almost lost a leg when the primary chain broke and he slid it into oncoming traffic.
A few things you’re ovelooking, mconn…what my Econ professor would call “unintended consequences.”
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With interstate limits at 55 (assuming they were actually enforced) there’d be less “spread” between rural road speed limits and interstate limits, and less incnetive to get on the interstate. As non-limited access roads are more dangerous to travel, there’d be additional fatalities you aren’t accounting for, both amongst those eschewing the freeways and those unfortunate enough to live in towns along roads paralleling them.
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By lenghtening the time required for auto travel, you encourage air travel. From the Boeing website, a 737-800 can get a theoretical maximum of 95 passenger-miles/gal; a Hond Civic can manage 144. Also, efficiency for turbines drops off dramatically outside of cruise, meaning that the shorter legs that are now marginally better to drive, you’d probably burn twice the fuel by air.
Speaking of unintended consequences, in 1974, I took the secondary roads a lot just so I could go 70 without getting a ticket. The cops were always on the major highways but you almost never saw them on the back roads.
Craig’s figures posted ate PER CAPITA consumption. Sorry, I thought we were always comparing things on a per capita basis.
Australia has a huge inhospitable area; it’s most of the country (Canada, too). That reduces the area that people are likely to live and therefore drive.
The issue here is population density; The US North East, California, the Midwest are all areas with much denser population than Canada or Australia. All three countries have vast areas with few people. Intercity travel in Canada and Australia involves long distances.
To clarify the point further, the best selling car in Canada is the Honda Civic, in the US it is the Camry V6. The US is the only major market where V6s outsells 4 cyinder Camrys. The avergae Australian car has a stick shift, 4 cylinders, and many still not have Air Conditioning.
Both Canada and Australia have far fewer pickup truck and SUVs.
For other per capita gasoline consumption figures, see Craig’s site and you will find that Canadians and Autralians are relative energy gluttons compared to the French, Germans and Italians. Those 3 countries have heavy fuel taxes, but high speed linits.
“For other per capita gasoline consumption figures, see Craig’s site and you will find that Canadians and Autralians are relative energy gluttons compared to the French, Germans and Italians. Those 3 countries have heavy fuel taxes, but high speed limits.”
I think that tells us something about which “formula” works to reduce consumption; you cannot mandate conservation, it’s all about cost.
Well summarized!
It didn’t work out because the government didn’t really commit to it. If they did, the speed limit signs would have been changed then, and the government, the largest purchaser of goods, would have bought only metric on all new contracts.
“It didn’t work out because the government didn’t really commit to it. If they did, the speed limit signs would have been changed then, and the government, the largest purchaser of goods, would have bought only metric on all new contracts.”
You are probably correct, but it’s really not very important which set of units we use. At this point, everyone in the world can provide products to either set of units anyway. When the government did require products and services in SI units (during the 80/90s), it was a bit of a joke. I worked on contracts where all the actual design work was done in english units then the final product was converted to SI unit before it was delivered. We would supply engineering drawings with dimensions like: 304.8 cm (10 ft). Of course, the construction contractors would just ignore the SI units and build everything to the english units anyway. Eventually, the government decided to give up.
Most people use the the interstate instead of the scenic route to go from point a to point b as quickly as possible. That has more to do with average speed than…let’s see if we can go 70 mph just to wait at a stop light on a sidde road…BLT err.B.L.E…
Unintended consequences are are just conjectures. It’s amazing that no one has mentioned using their own trip computer to measure average speed and mpg in their own cars. It shows a significant improvement down to a non advacated 45 mpg in my SUV. Just to see if 55 does save gas…check it out instead of arguing that a Lincoln (as stATED before gets 2-3 mpg better at higher speeds.)
I agree with you that most vehicles will get better mileage at lower speeds (as long as they are in top gear at a reasonably efficient engine speed). It simply requires more energy to overcome wind resistance and friction at higher speeds. Therefore, this really comes down to a time v. cost trade-off. Personally, I’m not going to drive more slowly to reduce my fuel cost from about $0.17/mile to $0.15/mile. Obviously mandates to lower speed limits don’t work (even the current, somewhat reasonable, speed limits are widely ignored).
If you double or triple my fuel cost, I’ll probably slow down a little. That is the only realistic solution.
mconn man - I don’t think anyone here cares about average speed and MPG, nor is anyone arguing about slower speeds being more fuel efficient - are you actually reading the posts?
I drive fast for two reasons - I like it. I want to feel like I’m getting from point a to point b as quickly as possible (and I don’t really care if I’m not as long as it feels like I am).
If you want me to worry about fuel economy, make it too expensive for me to drive - then maybe I’ll care.
(the above is a slight exaggeration to illustrate a point… well some of it anyway…ok… maybe not)
I feel the same way…as long as I’m moving, even going the long way.
Driving fast for me is not on an interstate at 70 mph, but on a back ctry road at 55-60… You want to feel like you’re going fast, ride a cycle.
Motorcycles are one vehicle I can see NO speed limit for. They are decent milage vehicles at high speed, limited “IMPACT” and footprint, and near impossible to catch. That’s the experience I had with my Norton 750 when very young an more foolish than today, if possible. 60 mph in city streets was FAST and stupid, that was my point.
mconn, good point, I actually have been making long trips every day this past week and have been testing different theories out…you know what I noticed? My “instant MPG” stayed at 25 whether I had the cruise control set to 75 or 60…MAYBE a 1 MPG difference but not constantly. As soon as I got up to speed, the difference in the amount of fuel required to maintain that speed was miniscule.
Cruising at 75 was a LOT nicer than 60, by the way.