Reinstating "55," Are They Crazy?!
By James Baxter, NMA President
The same forces that resisted the use of fire many thousands of years ago are still with us, only now they are advocating the return of the national maximum speed limit of 55 miles per hour.
Anyone who endured the last 22 year long “experiment” with the “folly of 55” knows that this proposal goes beyond being absurd.
The only likely beneficiaries are insurance companies (ticket surcharges), local governments that live off speed traps, P.R. firms (the genius creators of public service ads like “Save Gas Save Lives, Drive 55”) and perhaps the radar detector industry. In return, the driving public is treated to aggravation, maddening traffic flow, tickets, bloated insurance premiums, and billions of hours of lost time.
As in 1973, the justification for a snail’s pace speed limit on major highways is that it will save gasoline (and now reduce global warming).
It didn’t work then and it won’t work now. The reasons are many.
For starters only two percent of the four million miles of streets, roads and highways in the US have speed limits in excess of 55 miles per hour (approximate numbers). Of those there are many that suffer congestion and construction on a regular basis such that traffic is lucky to maintain a 40 MPH pace, let alone 55 miles per hour.
It’s true that our Interstate system carries about one third of our daily traffic volume, but here too congestion, construction, and bad weather frequently limits traffic to sub 55 speeds. In many urban areas the Interstates are already posted at 55. Granted, when conditions allow the actual speeds might be 70 or 75 MPH, but clearly the speed limit is not the controlling factor.
That brings us to point #2, public compliance.
After 22 years of propaganda, millions of tickets, and billions in insurance surcharges, actual motorist compliance on Interstate type highways ranged between five and ten percent. Those in compliance were typically mechanically unable to exceed 55.
Did it save fuel? In 1984, in what started out to be a promotional “study” of the “Benefits of the 55 MPH National Maximum Speed Limit” the Transportation Research Board (Part of the National Academy of Science) determined that keeping the 55 MPH speed limit, versus allowing the states to raise the limit to 65 MPH, would result in a 0.18 percent (less than two tenths of one percent) fuel savings (Source: TRB Report, 55: A Decade of Experience; page 176)
This is not an amount that will devastate the oil economy of the Middle East. The same study did determine that the 55 MPH national speed limit was wasting approximately one billion man hours a year (page 123). This did not include state trooper man hours being burned up enforcing an arbitrary speed limit on the safest highways in the nation.
Along with misallocating enforcement resources, the federal law forced the states to play games with their highway monitoring data, gaming the numbers so it appeared that traffic was moving slower than it really was. The states were supposed to maintain 50 percent compliance with the federal limit, they couldn’t come close, at least not honestly.
Safety? Today the national and the interstate highway fatality rate is far lower than at any time during the “55 era.” In fact, the last time the fatality rate increased from year to year was in the mid 1970’s when compliance and enforcement were at their highest levels (see chart below).
High fuel costs are certainly a burden. As individuals we can drive less, use more fuel efficient vehicles, and even drive slower, if we wish. But no sane person should wish another 55 MPH speed limit on the country. We already have a dysfunctional aviation system, let’s not allow the same thing to happen to our highways.
Source: NHTSA 2006 Traffic Facts (page 16)
You deserve every speeding ticket you get. You can complain all you want after the fact, but it's true. Find out why.
It's one of the "great" American past times: complaining about unfair speeding tickets. There are two types of people when it comes to complaining about this particular type of traffic ticket. Which group are you in?
The only good that would come from going back to 55 speed limit is that the sales of cb radios and radar detectors will go up!!
hey look at the bright side if they lower the speed limit i can start setting higher records for number of mph over the speed limit
Why a law? Anybody who wants to can drive 55 on the interstate. I find it more relaxing and the time “wasted” isn’t that much of a factor, even on a long trip. I drove down I81 to W.Va. and had no problems. It was night so as I drove down I95 I didn’t have any problems. On the return trip however, I drove up I95 to the Washington-Baltimore beltways. After going through Richmond, I experienced people getting annoyed at my slow speed. I got a couple of honks, a few flip-offs, but most important, I felt that my slow 55mph speed might have actually been too dangerous in high-speed, high-density traffic.
I figure that those other drivers who are passing me left and right as I go slow should be allowed to go as fast as they want. They paid their own hard earned money for their gas guzzlers and by god those hard-working citizens should be able to drive as fast as they want. After all it’s their money they’re burning and as far as I’m concerned they are hastening up depletion of the oil supply, and not a minute too soon as far as I’m concerned, by god!
One thing you don’t hear about as much is that driving 55 places less wear on the car, especially small ones. Next time I make that trip I’m going to rent a car and then I can move my speed up closer to the average speed others are driving. I won’t be wearing out my own car that way.
Bob
When driving 55mph on the interstate you better stay in the right lane so I can go by you in the left lane at a higher speed.
If you're going to drive 55mph on I-95 stay in the right lane…Even better take Rt. 1.
Quote from article above((the Transportation Research Board (Part of the National Academy of Science) determined that keeping the 55 MPH speed limit, versus allowing the states to raise the limit to 65 MPH, would result in a 0.18 percent (less than two tenths of one percent) fuel savings (Source: TRB Report, 55: A Decade of Experience; page 176)
This is not an amount that will devastate the oil economy of the Middle East.))
Just in case anyone is curious; Currently, the United States consumes 19.6 million barrels per day a reduction of .18% would equal 35,280 barrels a day. Saying that this amount is not significant is absurd. This amount is equal to more than the amount of oil we import from Saudi Arabia in 1 month. and that is only what .18% saves us in 1 day. in 2 months we would save an amount equal to the amount of oil we import from suadi Arabia in 5 years. People should check the facts contained in every article that appears on this site the authors are biased and will outright lie to gain your support The mission statement of this organization prior to being the NMA was “higher speed limits at any cost” can you really believe thier articles would not be biased?.
According to the chart above the The fatality and injury rates dropped the greatest amount while the 55mph MNSL was in effect. It appears to have dropped 33% more from 1973-1986 than it did from 1987 to 2006. Remind me again what this chart is supposedly showing us again?
It also dropped sharply between 1971 to 1974 the fatality rate was already on the decline.what the chart shows is that even after they repealed the NMSL the fatality rate continued to go down.
So what are you telling us Tony? That the fatality rate continued to drop durring the NMSL era even though the speed limits were not set for optimal safety? Or that the NMSL had such a lasting effect on the decline of the fatality rate that it continued well after the repeal? The number of people dying each year has not gone down sincethe repeal of the NMSL of course if you compare the growing number of deaths to the faster growing number of miles driven it would appear that the roads are much safer. A similar comparison of deaths by fire arms would surely make the media look like idiots when we used the number of firearm owned as the denominator. More people could die and it would look as if the world was safer from firearms.
And yes Randy the value of the dollar did go up some but in addition to that what is also happening is what oil industry experts were predicting for at least 2 years they were saying that the price of a barrel of oil was artificiality inflated higher than it should be because they were over estimateing how much oil China and India were going to be needing they were saying all the way back in 2005 that we could once again see $30 dollar a barrel oil and even $20 dollar a barrel oil is a possibility.
Ya right TONY RICH. What about all those government vehicles that use all of that high priced fuel? Think about many government vehicles there are that use fuel.