[kgardnez]

This is a crazy topic, the biggest hurdle in my mind is that people have set up their lives and businesses based off a certain speed and slowing this down will have impacts that need to be understood.

 

[bluefront]

This thread is filled with quite a bit of crap...... In the summer gas was >$4. Now it is <$2. The reason.....gas consumption in the USA dropped off a bunch.

The lesson learned (again).....using less gas by driving slower and less often means the price of gas will go down. The suppliers do that partly to make us buy more big cars, and start using more gas again.

Smart people won't fall far that trick.......again.

 

[tb1999]

Are you insane?

This thread is filled with quite a bit of crap...... In the summer gas was >$4. Now it is <$2. The reason.....gas consumption in the USA dropped off a bunch.

The lesson learned (again).....using less gas by driving slower and less often means the price of gas will go down. The suppliers do that partly to make us buy more big cars, and start using more gas again.

Smart people won't fall far that trick.......again.

First of all the price of crude oil does not fluctuate soley on consumption rates in the USA. We are a fraction of the global petroleum consumers. (yes we consume much more energy per person than anyone else in the world, but we are not the only purchasers of crude oil).

In contrast, PLASTICS are made from crude oil/petroluem but did the price of your average Hefty bags fluctuate by 200% over the summer, and if they did, did anyone care!

The fella that pointed out that the fluctuations of crude oil prices has more to do with speculation than demand is 100% correct. Do you really think the WORLD is now consuming 1/2 the oil it was this past summer? If so then "mission accomplished" all those Priuses Toyota sold for > MSRP 3 months ago did the trick!

Back to the speed limit issue, that will not reduce consumption, that is not the driving factor, cost of fuel is. ( as you pointed out with the $4 - $2 analysis)

However in Europe, the high cost of fuel gets that way not because they pay 2-3X more for a barrel of crude, or more $ to refine it, the gov't is involved. (Fuel typically costs 2-3X higher in Europe than here in the states! Yes, they were paying $11 a gallon in Stuttgart this summer.) Here's a news flash to those that don't have a clue what's going on outside of the Western Hemisphere, (or the county they lived in their entire life), over 50% of what is paid at the pump in Europe is TAXES. They are socialist countries, and that's how they "mysteriously" do things like pay for socialized medicine!

So in order to afford "free healthcare" they pay $11/gal & choose to drive very small displacement fuel efficient cars VERY FAST down the Autobahn or 90MPH on the UK Motorways etc. BTW, in the UK they install 55MPH GOVORNERS on commercial trucks because they are HEAVY and NOT AERODYNAMIC so this helps keep them fuel efficient. (this concept was covered by someone else in this thread)

I don't think the answer to this is to become a socialist state and tax the crap out of fuel in the USA either, but choking our highways with 55 MPH parades for no justifiable reason is not the answer either.

How about we just live with the fact that people whom like to drive large vehicles that can afford 13MPG regardless of the fuel costs will continue to do so? As a matter of fact they should be SUPPORTED in that decision by all freedom loving Americans, as we should equally support everyone that is willing to run an '82 Rabbit diesel on French Fry Oil.

When things like this are allowed to run thier course, eventually an equillibruim will be established. Screwing with the speed limit is as dangerous as introducing an non-indigenous animal or plant species into an eco-system, the extent of the impact is always underestimated![:0]

 

[tb1999]

good point..

This is a crazy topic, the biggest hurdle in my mind is that people have set up their lives and businesses based off a certain speed and slowing this down will have impacts that need to be understood.

You are absolutely correct!

Here are some things that must be considered.....

At slower speeds any transportation related operations, trucking, airport shuttle/limo services, AAA services etc will have the service capacity of each vehicle/driver reduced perportionally to the speed limit reduction.(unless they all remain scoff-laws, but when they are eventually levied $500.00 fines and loose thier licenses, the scoff-laws will be eliminated and the remaining pool of drivers will eventually be operating at the ultimately reduced service capacity.) This would not impact inner cities that much, but most of our highways are not running through the downtowns of most cities, the speed limit reduction would mainly impact over the road, city to city transportation and vehicular related road services like AAA in rural areas.

To offset the demands of this capacity reduction, and still meet the expectations of consumers to have shelves restocked, or catch a ride to the local airport etc, then we will need an INCREASED NUMBER OF VEHICLES MOVING GOODS AND PEOPLE AROUND THE COUNTRY. The USDOT probably has a simple formula to calculate this metric and has already figured out why this is not a functional solution to our energy issues. If you are only thinking about how much fuel you personally use to commute back and forth to work, then you have not thought this through far enough, and neither has that republican sentor, and he is banking not many of his constituents will either.

BTW - Unless Highway Patrolman on the job are hipocritically exempt from the lowered "fuel efficiency" speed limits, ( see my previous comment regarding law enforcement and gold shields) then this capacity reduction ALSO applies to the range and territory any single patrol car can cover in an 8 hr shift. Do we sacrafice these services too, or pony up more taxes for additional vehicles and officer's pay, and thier pensions?

As I said in the previous post, changing the speed limit before thinking everything through is a dangerous idea.

We could probably save more energy mandating cruise control as standard equipment and using an annoying buzzer or warning light when an on-board computer figures out you are throwing money out the window fiddleing with your rate of speed for no good reason. This would only work if we forced all the real "green drivers" that insist on driving 55MPH to squeeze the last 2 MPG out of thier vehicle to remain in the SLOW LANE, so I can get my 33mpg @ 70MPH.

Finally here's a trick question, when it's real cold outside, internal combustion gasoline powered engines are not very fuel efficient until fully warmed up, so should the fed also pass a law that requires......

A) gasoline vehicles are not driven until fully warmed up by allowing the engine to idle for 5 minutes minimum when < 40F?

B) gasoline vehicles must be "preheated" using an electrical block heater plugged into your home electrcial system, or stored in a heated garage. (which by the way, may have it's electrical energy generated by an antique sulfur belching coal fired electric & acid rain generating station in WV)

C) only the Toyota Pirus' is allowed to be driven in temperatures below 40F

If you think this is rediculous [giggle] , some laws that sound good on paper can really have strange consequences.

In Feb09, federally mandated digital TV kicks in. OK. no problem with that, who would not want improved TV broadcasting quality?

But that's not the whole story.

The Fed also offers a program to provide individuals with a coupon to offset the cost of purchasing the required digital converter that millions of people will probably take advantage of. I was looking into this and it's like a $45 coupon to purchase a converter that retails for $55 in my area. Here's where it gets STRANGE. There are not too many companies that make these converters, and guess where they are made? CHINA. (if anyone knows of a US Mfg for these kits, please PM me!) So this nice little program to "help americans switch over to Federally mandated digital TV", is indirectly subsidising the Chinese mfg's and economy. But DC is more than happy to put Detroit through the grinder before the gov't will consider any form of subsidy for american jobs, and 2/3 of america screams "yeah, they don't deserve a bailout".

Ever notice that most of the politicians that "oppose" the detroit bailouts are from the southern states that Porsche, BMW, MBZ, Subaru, Toyota, Honda, Hyundai and others have set up offices and MFG facilities in?

I just don't get it anymore[dunno]

What do I know, maybe a 55MPH limit is just what we need right now to help "stimulate the economy" [vommit]

 

[APMRDAL]

now i commute in las angles traffic and i don't ever notice a difference form 55 to 75 but there is a huge difference in the 75 to 85 mph rang

so i don't think that a 55 mph will help anything except for cops and giving out a lot of stupid @$$ TICKETS

 

[zlaja]

instead of making us drive slower...make the american car companies build cars with better gas milage sort of like the europeans do.... I mean a beemer 330ci will get just as good gas milage as my slow poke SPI focus, and make twice the power. I know that american engineers can do this, but the capitalist [][][][][][][]s wont let them (not flaming capitalism, but sometimes its not so good for guys like me and you guys on the forum).

 

[MisterJohnson]

instead of making us drive slower...make the american car companies build cars with better gas milage sort of like the europeans do.... I mean a beemer 330ci will get just as good gas milage as my slow poke SPI focus, and make twice the power. I know that american engineers can do this, but the capitalist [][][][][][][]s wont let them (not flaming capitalism, but sometimes its not so good for guys like me and you guys on the forum).

You don't know much about economics, do ya?

Capitalists won't let them? They ARE capitalists.
The only thing federal government is good for is national defense.
When government gets involved in regulating the free market system all they do is screw it up.
Like forcing banks to loan to people who can't pay.
And forcing ridiculous taxes and CAFE standards on auto manufacturers.
Those policies worked out well, didn't they?
You can directly thank the United Auto Workers Union and the U.S. government for the crisis that the big 3 are currently facing.

 

[zlaja]

You don't know much about economics, do ya?

Capitalists won't let them? They ARE capitalists.
The only thing federal government is good for is national defense.
When government gets involved in regulating the free market system all they do is screw it up.
Like forcing banks to loan to people who can't pay.
And forcing ridiculous taxes and CAFE standards on auto manufacturers.
Those policies worked out well, didn't they?
You can directly thank the United Auto Workers Union and the U.S. government for the crisis that the big 3 are currently facing.

why did you quote my post? yours has nothing to do with mine other than the fact that we both use the word capitalism.

what im basically saying is

govt. wont demand fuel efficiency in cars > more gas consumption > higher gas prices > oil companies make more > more tax revenue for the government and more money for legislators from oil companies

 

[MisterJohnson]

why did you quote my post? yours has nothing to do with mine other than the fact that we both use the word capitalism.

I'll repeat myself then if you think that

instead of making us drive slower...make the american car companies build cars with better gas milage sort of like the

I tried to explain that government ALREADY DOES require ridiculous MPG standards (specifically on trucks and SUVs), and those regulations (which you want more of) are a major factor in the financial crisis that the big 3 are facing.
It's pretty simple.

This shouldn't even be an issue, the federal government has no constitutional authority to tell private businesses how to operate anyway.

govt. wont demand fuel efficiency in cars

We already went over the fact that govt. already is demanding fuel efficiency

more gas consumption

Natural supply and demand - AKA - capitalism

higher gas prices

Gas prices are high because OPEC can decide how much oil to produce to artificially increase the price, and we let them do it because we aren't allowed to drill for our own

oil companies make more

They would also make more if the prices were lower and people bought more.
Again, it's capitalism. Profit ain't evil.

more tax revenue for the government and more money for legislators from oil companies

I agree with you here, government is corrupt.

Oil companies make approximately 7 cents of profit per gallon of gas sold here in the U.S. while the federal government takes 18.5 cents in tax revenue per gallon of gas sold.

 

[fastfocusparts]

People here in Jacksonville don't do the speed limit anyways. They routinely go about 10-15 over. I doubt that most will change their driving habits. Even if they get caught, they will just pay the fine and purchase a radar detector for next time to better their chances of not getting caught. They could post a 55 MPH limit if they want, but I doubt the majority will follow it.

 

[2-D]

I can't drive.... 55

 

[windyridge89]

We should have the choice. I drive slow when I can but when Im on the road working time is money.

 

[Weldman0730]

haha they have the speed limit at 55mph in down town atlanta on the free ways and I was routinely going 90 to stay with traffic, unless there was a traffic jam. They just have no way to enforce it and I dont blame them, a cop is taking a big risk trying to merge onto traffic going 90 mph from a standstill on the side of the road.

 

[MattGold]

The 55MPH Speed Limit was introduced when a cars performance / safety requirements / technology was 1/2 of what it is today.

Im not saying no limit... but 80MPH isn't unreasonable for many expressways now-a-days.

 

[zetecDon]

The idea of a mandated 55mph speed limit I find to be rubbish. Someone had stated earlier that the government should force the automakers to produce vehicles with better gas mileage? I think that has already been done before many times and those cars just did not sell well. Yeah, Toyota has sold over a million Prius's so far but do you realize that they are losing money on every one that the sell? This is a demand market in which people will buy most of what they want and not buy what is best for them. If given the choice of a box that runs on electric or a gas guzzling SUV, the choice will overwhelmingly be for the SUV. Sorry but that is reality. We had $4+ gallon over the summer but that still didn't slow that many people down with speed. A lot of people did cut back on their driving overall but speeding still remained the same statistically by percentage of drivers on the road. The CAFE standards that the government is trying to issue on car makers now is completely bunk and should be thrown aside. Let the automakers deliver a vehicle that the American public want's to choose. Sorry but that is capitalism at it's finest when we can choose to drive what we want. I mean I purchased a Foci back in 2002 for the economy of it but that was my own personal choice. I could have gone for something that was more sportier and got less MPG but that's not what I wanted at the time. Now someone else may have made the decision to go for that sportier car. Again it just all boils down to what the public wants. People demand something and a producer supplies it. Isn't it wonderful how capitalism works?

 

[oblivion2kx]

In new jersey theres is a state wide 55mph speed limit but thats only because thats the only way the cops can make money.

On a side note, if these so-called "senators" ever stop and think about what the yare saying (especially republicans) then they would know that going 10mph faster yields about a 10% drop in fuel economy, but standing in traffic because of congestion = a 65% reduction in fuel economy.

Driving slow only works for long trips (100 to 300+ miles) at 55mph to actually gain anything. [dunno]

 

[zetecDon]

Yeah, I have to agree with you there oblivion2kx. It's all about that revenue enhancement that you see parked along side the highways every day a.k.a state patrol or other law enforcement officials.

 

[Silverjacket]

if anything it should be raised to 80+[neener]

 

[kylesvt720]

In new jersey theres is a state wide 55mph speed limit but thats only because thats the only way the cops can make money.

On a side note, if these so-called "senators" ever stop and think about what the yare saying (especially republicans) then they would know that going 10mph faster yields about a 10% drop in fuel economy, but standing in traffic because of congestion = a 65% reduction in fuel economy.

Driving slow only works for long trips (100 to 300+ miles) at 55mph to actually gain anything. [dunno]

Isn't it Democrats that are pushing for the emissions starndards, not Republicans?

-I think so...

 

[roosterst]

Racing is for the track.