Is the Double-Nickel Coming Back?

Gee, another lousy idea in response to a manufactured global warming hoax and speculation-driven oil prices.

We don’t need a 55 miles per hour speed limit. We need 55 more oil wells being drilled where the oil is most likely to be abundant and we need it now.

As for global warming, some 21,000 scientists say IF there is any, man is not much of a contributor, and some research suggests global cooling, not warming. Let’s get a spine and get busy!!

First, fuel saving claims of implementing a 55 mph speed limit are pure bunk. In the 1974-1979 time period, the lower speed limit had an absolutely NIL effect on fleet fuel mileage.

Secondly, even the National Academy of Sciences study in 1984, which was stacked with people heavily biased towards a 55 mph speed limit stated that going to 65 mph would only burn 0.18 percent more fuel annually.

Demand is down 2 percent already because people are driving less. Installing 55 mph speed limit signs, a speed 30 mph below highway design speeds will do NOTHING to save gas on a national level, although some individuals may save marginal amounts of fuel on an infrequent road trip.

This idea needs to die, now.

According to all the experts, acceleration burns fuel and coasting conserves it. (On-board computers make this easy to see.)

The longer you can maintain forward momentum, the less fuel you will consume. So what are some of the causes of unnecessary braking and acceleration?

- ILLEGALLY POSTED STOP SIGNS AND TRAFFIC LIGHTS, ESPECIALLY THE ONES THAT ARE NOT COORDINATED
- UNNECESSARY SPEED BUMPS, HUMPS AND ROUNDABOUTS, ‘NECKDOWNS’ AND CURB EXTENSIONS
- SPEED TRAPS DESIGNED TO GENERATE REVENUE OR TO APPEASE RESIDENTS

Government agencies spend billions of dollars on campaigns to promote speed limits and seatbelt laws, but lane courtesy is ignored, even though most states laws that require slower traffic to keep right.

If we eliminate unnecessary braking and acceleration due to these factors, according to our government the equivalent gasoline savings would equal $0.18-$1.16/gallon. And that’s a substantial chunk of change.

The National Maximum Speed Limit era was a disaster. It increased speed variance on freeways and highways, a major element in the accident rate. After the first few months, the compliance rate was less than 10% in most areas. It also slowed the progression of reducing our fatality rate, by diverting traffic to the surface highways with the same speed limit. (Freeways have fatality rates per mile traveled of less than one-third that of surface highways.) In the early 1980s, I commuted 65 miles one way under 55 rules, from Chelsea to Detroit. The DIFFERENCE in time in a year at 55 mph vs 75 mph was a full week, seven 24 hour days. Under no circumstances whatsoever should we return to a mandatory speed limit that is artificially low.
Jim Walker

This is foolish policy failed before and would fail gain. Those who don’t learn from the mistakes of the past are doomed to repeat them.

Why don’t you consider what is done elsewhere. Europeans are still driving at 130 kmh (80 mph)but they do not drive large SUV’s. They do heavily tax gaz guzzlers. Do you know what a british Ford Fusion, Peugeot 203 or Opel Vectra look like. They might not appeal to Americans and their love affair with large cars but they are the solution to the oil prices.

It seems to me that if people want to drive 55 to save gas they will. We don’t need a law for that.

If we learned anything from the old double nickel days it is that a 55 mph limit does nothing but make more people lawbreakers.

Studies have shown that people will drive the speeds that they feel comfortable with, lowering the speed limit will not do as much to affect people’s fuel consumption as fuel prices do. If the government wants to reduce fuel usage they need to raise taxes on it. Very unpopular I know but they could offset the increases by handing out tax credits on our income taxes.

I tend to agree with the 55mph speed limit, most vehicles do get their optimum fuel efficiency at 45-55mph. I myself drive 55 anyways and many other drivers don’t take a liking to it. Some people seem to think if the speed limit is 70 you have to go at least that, but I don’t think they understand speed LIMIT means the MAXIMUM speed. As far as people driving what they feel comfortable with that would mean local municipalities could see more revenue from speeding tickets if this bill passes.

The OIL is ~~Always~~ <. RUNNING OUT!, when: they have some!!; URGENT, NEEDS to[price] Gouge, The Consumer.
No to the “”Double Nickel”"!. It was the “BEST” of wasted EFFORT for it’s day. No instant replay needed here.
Down size=Boost price’s{ get even less *for a much greater cost!}, Down size tell the consumer this is all you are ever going to get[all you’ll be able to AFFORD]-EXCUSE ME!.
Rule of Thumb[= dumb] For the builders of these current AUTO Empires. Should not expect less for those that have difficulty with these (onesy-twosy )method[digital communications] that we all have to suffer with.
BUY ROLLER SKATES, it is all relative, and to closely intertwined!.
They are all stuck in there own; “”WEB of LIES”", [shakespear] I do believe!.

Car and Driver called the original “Double Nickel” the dumbest law since prohibition. I didn’t obey it then. I won’t obey it now.

The optimum efficiency may be 45 mph to maximize MPG, BUT many people could care less about MPG, but instead lead busy lives where TIME IS MONEY and cannot adfford to crawl at 55 or 45 mph, they make far more $ by going faster and gettign more work accopmplished every day.

When Gwermany has NO speed limit on many of its highways, it is ludicrous that the US is seriously thinking to go back int ime to Neanderthal limits.

$5 gas has already made most people for whom it MAKES SENSE to go slow to |DO so.

There is no point in forcing the others to do the same.

PS my WORSE MPG with my “Magnificent 7″ 1998 BMW 740iL is at those LOW LOW speeds, from 0-45 MPH in CITY driving, where cold starts and short distances lower my MPG to 12-15, WHILE on thwe highway I routinely get no less than 22 MPG and many times 24-25, going on cruise control at 75-95 MPH.

And get reimbursed at $0.505 a mile (and growing) since most of my highway trips are business trips. You can calculate how many hundreds of $s I make each 1,070 mile round trip.