homepage Forums SimHQ Community Community Hall Bring back the double nickel.

People do not need yet another excuse for government to take their money.

Bringing "55" back will only accomplish one thing - increasing government revenue.

You sound like an Ohio trucker.

There was a huge debate in Texas when the feds let the states raise the speed limits in the '90s. One of the big arguments was made by the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS)and how many more people would die with a higher speed limit. Well, a couple of years after the 70 mph speed limit was introduced the DPS release their study results: traffic deaths went DOWN.

If you live back east then you can have no concept of what living in most of the country west of the Mississippi is like. It isn't five or ten miles to the next town, it is twenty, thirty, or more. We have COUNTIES in Texas larger than some of the eastern STATES. The county I live in is about the size of Rhode Island, and it is by no means a large Texas county.

An example would be if I were to want to go to a computer store. The nearest Comp USA or Office Depot is ONE HUNDRED MILES FROM MY HOUSE. At 70 mph it is 1 hour and 20 minutes ONE WAY. At 55 it is almost TWO HOURS. Besides that, pretty much any highway built since the mid-1950s was actually designed to be traveled on at 80 mph. So, at 70 you are still well beneath the design limit of most roads.

If people want to slow down, then that is their choice; just don't mandate it.

There was quite a bit of back-and-forth arguing for/against a speed limit here in Montana in the mid 1990s. The law at that time only required that drivers maintain a 'reasonable and prudent' speed on the highways during the daytime. Guys who had European sports cars argued that since their cars were made for the autobahn, 110 miles an hour was safe and reasonable because it the car was designed for that speed. In reality you'd have cars doing 100 mph leapfrogging cars doing 90 mph who were passing cars doing 85 mph...all on winding roads with blind curves, farm machinery, tractor trailers and other slow traffic.

Population centers had posted speed limits of course, so Montana was never completely unregulated. There were also posted speed limits at night and for trucks. Military vehicles were subjected to internal rules to govern their travel speeds. Still, the speed limit for most vehicles was left to the discretion of the driver. For most of Montana I suppose this made sense, especially for the back roads and the highways in the eastern part of the state where it is flat and relatively unpopulated. However, the western part of the state has more dynamic terrain (especially in the mountains) and it has most of the large population centers. I think the law changed because there was a belief that too many accidents were caused by people abusing the lack of speed limits.

I remember arguing in defense of posted speed limits on the highways; oddly, while I wanted the speed limit removed on the interstate where driving is generally safer, the people I talked to who were against a speed limit on the highways actually wanted it for the interstate.

it could be the majority of the idiots too afraid to drive at 70mph (oh no it's too fasssst!) stay off the highways reducing the number of accidents. give me a good group of people comfortable at 100mph and up and enjoy smooth driving from a to b.
http://ca.geocities.com/jdmusedcarsale/img/1992NissanSkylineGTR_BNR32_SV6_01_01.jpg

as an 'experiment' I drove my car for about 2 weeks at the posted speed limits, tried to avoid rapid acceleration and deceleration and my gas mileage improved by about 3-4mpg! I will have to repeat this a few times and check my mileage logs to see if it is true.

1) There are places to find much greater efficiency that in a reduction of the national speed limit. Besides, reducing oil consumption will lower prices, which will.. you guessed it.. increase oil consumption!

2) The biggest red-herring. Speed doesn't impact safety nearly so much as *speed differential* does. A group of cars all flowing along at 75 (or even 100) is a much safer place to be than on a highway with one person puttering along at 55, one passing him at 65 and another passing HIM at 75 while they all change lanes and weave in and out.

3) see #1 regarding oil consumption. Further, all that braking and speeding up caused by speed differential is horribly inefficient.

This is why I'm against increasing the UK speed limit from 70 to 80mph. The speed differential between me (at 70), a lot of other people (at 80), and the lorries trucks (at 60) is bad enough. The trucks can't go faster than 60mph because they'd do a LOT more damage to the road surface if they did, and then we'd all be stuck at 50mph in two lanes going past endless roadworks. I mean, more than we already are.

All arguments for another 55 mph national speed limit are old wives tales, already debunked "oldthink", and "feelgood authoritarianism".

One has to be completely clueless, blind to the already proven facts, or just an all around wet blanket to support such a thing.

The four day workweek is a much more effective strategy for conserving gas/energy, and the concept is gaining momentum.

http://www.news10.net/news/local/story.aspx?storyid=44520

I can't WAIT to see this adopted on a massive scale. I want three day weekends!