I’ve heard of such tickets but I’ve never actually known anyone who has received one. In the Tampa Bay area, every police department in three counties could write such tickets all day long; I’ve been stuck behind people driving three abreast at 30MPH (and even less) in 55 AND 65MPH speed limits areas. My experience is not atypical, I can assure you.
As to saving fuel, I BELIEVE but have no cite for, that properly inflated tires play as important a role as speed.
So let’s go through everything that could improve gas milage:
55mph (according to the OP)
Properly inflated tires
Well-maintained cars
Elimination of gridlock (not moving is 0mpg)
Drafting off the car in front of you (my personal favorite)
Getting correct octane (my 1997 Neon got better mpg when using 89 over 87. Using 91 made no difference over 89)
Now two questions:
One reason fatalities dropped is because when gas shot up in price in the mid-70’s people drove less, car pooled more, went on less long range road trips, etc… Less people traveling fewer miles over a smaller amount of time will = a reduction in fatalities. The 55 nuts
credited the cause and effect to the wrong cause (reduced speed).
What are you talking about? I was in New Mexico in the summer of 1999. The speed limit on the interstate was 75, and 65 on other highways. They raised it in May of 1996
It would.
I was driving during the early seventies when the double nickel was the law, and I disagree the cause of fewer per capita miles driven was high prices. Then, like today, the people would have paid whatever it took to keep driving the way they had been. What drove passenger miles down was long gas lines and the odd/even rationing. That put a hell of a crimp in the driving habits of a lot of people, but I don’t think it’s a viable long term solution.
I agree greatly that the price increase in gas was a big reason for saving gas. I and the people I know drove less for a few years after the price jumped. The rest of the economy adjusts and everybody charges more and then you can buy more gas. It’s called inflation and the seventies had it bad.
But you say that as if the “slight inconvenience” would yield huge gas savings. The reality is that for the typical commuter, both sides of the trade off are trivial.
I drive 20 miles to work each day (20 miles each way)… let’s say I get 20mpg if I drive at 70 mph and 25 mpg if I drive at 55 mph. At the end of the week I’ll have spent an extra 45 minutes of commute time to save 2 gallons of gas.
Because I can afford not to. Gas would have to break $10+ a gallon before I would change driving habits. It would have to get to $15+ before I would give up my Mustang. It’s just such a small amount of money to me.
I didn’t say it was the sole cause, I said it was one of the reasons. And it most certainly was one of the reasons.
Hey, I found a mention of Nevada changing it’s limit to 70 for one day. It was on June 1st, 1986 But the link doesn’t talk about Nevadas plan to fight the feds in court. I’, still searching for that.
As pkbites has already said, the speed limit is 75 in most of New Mexico. As a general rule, it’s 75 everywhere north of Bernalillo, south of Albuquerque (I think it’s 75 between Albuquerque and Isleta and not 75 south of Isleta), east of the Sandia Mountains (the speed limit is 65 through Tijeras Canyon for obvious reasons), and west of Albuquerque. It used to be that the speed limit inside Albuquerque was 55, but since the rebuild of the I-25/I-40 interchange the speed limit has been increased to 65 throughout Albuquerque, except for a section of I-25 in southern Albuquerque (south of I-40) where the interstate is old and not really built for today’s traffic loads (so it’s set at 55.) I believe all of I-10 in New Mexico is 75.
As a general rule, you can easily get away with 80 or even 85 without the cops pulling you over. Heck, I even pushed 90 for a while without realizing it a while back (lack of cruise control can do funny things to your speed when you’re the only one visible on the road.) I normally drive at about 80 and routinely find myself getting passed. Personally, I wish the state would up the limit to at least 80.
Let’s take my drive from Las Cruces to Albuquerque. It is about 225 miles. If I can do it non-stop, which I often do (so let’s assume I’m heading south, as that border patrol checkpoint heading north on I-25 is rantworthy in itself) at 75, that’s 3 hours. If I had to do it at 55, that’s 4 hours, 6 minutes. As I said before, I don’t have cruise control AND I have a manual car. So I have to hold down the gas all the time and letting up at all starts to slow the car down, meaning I use more gas getting it back up to speed. I’d probably have to stop if I had to drive 55 at least once to give my leg a break. And entering a rest stop, coming to a stop, and then having to accelerate all the way back up will use even more gas.
I always figured the 55 limit was enacted by morons from the east coast and California.
It is frustrating having to drive at a speed which feels unnaturally slow. I’m no speed demon, not by a long shot. But 55 is just… so… slow! :eek: 
The time difference never entered my mind. This is because I wasn’t trying to get anywhere by any particular deadline. If I had been, it still would not have bothered me. I’d just time it right, and enjoy the extra hour and a half (or whatever) of music.
-FrL-
For the record, my trip started in West Texas (I forget where) and took me through Roswell, Carlsbad, Albuequerque, Santa Fe, and Taos, in whatever is the most efficient order. (I forget.) This was spread out over at least three days, possibly four, I don’t remember. And again: Getting somewhere on time was never the problem–it just felt wrong to drive so slowly across such long, straight, flat stretches of road.
My wife and I distinctly recall driving around New Mexico fo several days throughout our honeymoon and having to drive 55 everywhere we went. The helicopters were watching, you know…
Maybe we just happened to hit the wrong highways (or roads or freeways or whatever it was we were driving on).
-FrL-
So if you make more than about $8/ hour your lost time is worth more than the fuel saved.
Probably. Obviously a states maximum speed limit isn’t going to be posted everywhere.
One thing that bugs me is that prior to 1974 (begining of 55 limit) non-freeway highways in Wisconsin were posted as high as 60 and 65 (I’m talking rural country roads). While the limit on freeways is now 65 (and should be 70 as it used to be pre-1974) they never raised the rural limits back. They’re stuck at 55 and it sucks.
I always hear people say “but you cops give at least 10 over”. But that’s still a violation of law, even if not enforced. My point is, the limits should be set at a reasonable speed in the first place!
Or, to put it another way, if you add less than 5 minutes to your commute, you can save $300 per year in gas consumption.
Yes, Rick, you can compare it to the rate you earn while you work. You can also compare it to the rate you earn while watching American Idol or brushing your teeth, $0/hr.
Ultimately, though, it’s not just about reducing consumption on one trip, that’s a myopic view of the problem. It’s about trying as a society to reduce demand for gasoline. Prices are sky high because demand is high and refining capacity is limited.
Reduce demand by 5% and you’ll save not only that 5%, but the price will go down too. Price has gone up over 50% this year, but demand hasn’t gone up anything remotely like 50%. I guarantee, you drop demand by 5%, the price drops 10% without batting an eye. So, your $6/wk savings becomes $18, and you save $900/yr on your commute plus 10% of your non-commute consumption.
Nevada wasn’t alone in hating the speed limit and several states (including Ohio) banded together to sue the Feds, and the case went all the way to SCOTUS. The ruling went as follows: It’s the Feds money, if they want to attach strings to it, they are perfectly within their rights to do so, if the states chose not to accept that money, they are also within their rights. (This was some time in 1986, IIRC.)
Mind you, if SCOTUS had gone the other way, then we might not have gotten things like seatbelt laws passed in many states (which IIRC, Federal funding was tied to the passage of such laws), Congress couldn’t threaten to cut off Federal funds for places that do stem-cell research, and there’s probably cases in something like education and anti-discrimination laws, where the Feds tied funding to states ensuring that everyone gets a decent edumacation.
[QUOTE=Tuckerfan]
Nevada wasn’t alone in hating the speed limit and several states (including Ohio) banded together to sue the Feds, and the case went all the way to SCOTUS. The ruling went as follows: It’s the Feds money, if they want to attach strings to it, they are perfectly within their rights to do so, if the states chose not to accept that money, they are also within their rights. (This was some time in 1986, IIRC.)
I don’t remember this scotus ruling. I’m not saying it didn’t happen, but I don’t remember it. Could you provide a cite?
Using this 2004 data, the United States uses 44.2% of the word’s gasoline. If we reduced our national consumption by 10%, then we’d be consuming 41.6% of the world’s gasoline, assuming all other countries’ usage stayed the same. This would also mean a world consumption drop of only 4.4%. Assuming the world gasoline market works like the petroleum market (it doesn’t), what affect would a 4.4% drop in consumption have on prices? I don’t know, but there’s surely a fellow Doper that can calculate this?
Consider also whether after said drop occurs, we’d have to have the discipline not to purchase additional gasoline just because it’s cheaper. Also with reduced prices, it’s likely that the rest of the world would make up in our efficiency.
Really, the only way to drop the price appreciably is to reduce demand dramatically or increase supply dramatically. There’s no way that 10% is dramatic enough. Until we have Dr. Brown’s Patented Mr. Fusion on all of our cars, we need another energy source. Too bad we’ve let the electrical infrastructure go to hell and are afraid of what to do with nuclear waste (or are we still afraid of the plants themselves?).
Look, you can try to use a hybrids as a stopgap, but how many years will that take until our consumption is lower? Hydrogen’s cool, but you need electricity and infrastructure to support it. Since you’ve got to have the electricity anyway, just put efficiencies into the existing infrastructure, have electric cars, and be done with it. If we dumped all of our resources into batteries to support this rather than hybrids, hydrogen, corn-gas, and fryer oil, we’d decrease our consumption in no time.
As much as that looks like going off onto a tangent, it’s trying to illustrate the point that we need something that people want and will accept without trying to modify life-long habits.
Would lowering the speed limit to 55 wreak havoc wrt congestion and traffic? If drivers have to take more time to get where they are going, then they also spend more time taking up space on the road.
I got pulled over for speeding and the officer said “don’t you know the speed limit is 55 miles per hour”. I replied “yes, but I wasn’t going to be out that long”.*
-Steven Wright