I think everyone’s getting a few things mixed up here. I’m a pretty lousy debater, but I am a car nut, so I’ll give it a try.
Mechanical Considerations: A car doesn’t have to be low-powered to limit its top speed. Besides that, even the cheapest economy car can easily exceed any U.S. highway speed limit.
It’s possible to limit the top speed of a car regardless of how powerful it is. The now-discontinued Camaro, which, with the right options, offered near-Corvette levels of power and acceleration, came with a 115MPH top-speed limiter on many models.
I point to the Camaro as an example of a vehicle that does have a top speed limit, but beneath that limit, is very capable of accelerating to and maintaining normal highway speeds, even on hills.
Cite:
So, from a mechanical point of view, it’s totally possible to accomplish this task.
Grandfathers driving too slowly in left lane, people who tailgate: I certainly have my opinions on both of these things, but I don’t see how they relate to the debate at hand, which is whether or not cars capable of exceeding the speed limit should be legal.
Allowing people to possess items that would be illegal to use: Doesn’t the government already control drugs by prescription, and only allow certain people to buy things like explosives and poisons?
I know we can’t prohibit or regulate each and every dangerous item in existence (as someone mentioned, you could still kill someone with a kitchen knife), but it does seem that, in general, government tries its best to do so.
(P.S. I’ll try to leave my opinion about whether or not the government should be in that business for another debate. I was just pointing out that it already seems to be commonplace.)
Assuming that our highway speed limits are fair and just, why would anyone need a car that can go faster? I can’t see any reason, other than the others here who have mentioned that they occasionally take their cars to private racetracks.
By the way, the government could choose to set the car’s speed limiter at something slightly higher than the highway speed limit by, say, 5 or 10 MPH, just to avoid any small discrepancies or disagreements.
My opinion overall:
I don’t believe the government truly wants to keep us from speeding. During the entire history of the automobile, at least in the U.S., speed limits are only spottily enforced, and the fines are set at levels that generally make them just a nuisance for the average motorist, especially the wealthy.
If there were a true desire to reduce or eliminate speeding, we would see realistic speed limits, better signage, painfully expensive fines, and short-term (say, 3 days) license suspension for even the first offense. That would drastically reduce revenue, and the public would quickly vote whoever did this out of office, but it would guarantee compliance virtually overnight.
The fact that virtually every passenger car on the road (not just sports cars) is capable of travelling at nearly 50% over any highway speed limit is, in my opinion, a sure sign that there is little true interest in stopping us from doing so.
In summary, to answer the OP’s question: I don’t agree with our current speed limits, and therefore would never vote for any government measure that I believe might make the situation worse.