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Congress Starts to Whisper about 55 MPH Speed Limit

'Double nickel' saves fuel, angers drivers

By Joe Benton
ConsumerAffairs.com

July 15, 2008
A handful of people on Capitol Hill are once more talking about instituting a nationwide 55 mph speed limit in an effort to reduce gasoline and diesel fuel consumption.

Most members of the Congress would prefer to talk about something else.

Nevertheless, a Virginia Senator keeps on bringing up the old double nickel despite the 55 mph speed limit's history of angering motorists and littering county court houses with speeding tickets while enriching local governments at the expense of drivers.

The first time Congress imposed the double nickel the country was in the midst of the energy crises of the 1970s. The speed limit remained on the books for 20 years raising so much contempt in the countryside that Congress threw it out in 1996.

Virginia Republican John Warner claims the 55 mph speed limit saved 167,000 barrels of petroleum a day in the 70s. He has asked the Energy Department to study what would be the most fuel efficient national speed limit now and is suggesting he will eventually introduce a bill impose a fuel saving limit.

Warner is perhaps more able to raise the issue than his colleagues. He has announced his retirement at the end of his present term and thus won't ever have to face the voters again.

Warner's letter to the Energy Department cites a Congressional Research Survey report stating that the 1974 speed limit law reduced oil consumption and traffic fatalities, cutting highway deaths by as many as 4,000.

Since Congress tossed the double nickel on the trash heap, states have set their own speed limits. Most impose a 65 mph maximum but some states allow higher speeds, including Texas with an 80 mph legal speed in the western part of the state.

The 55 mph national maximum speed limit appears to be no more popular during this summer of $4 gasoline than when it was during 1973 energy crises. A Rasmussen Reports survey found that 59 percent of respondents opposed lowering the speed limit.

Opposition to the 55 mph limit was 76 percent among the youngest people questioned, motorists under 30.

Truckers, ravaged on a daily basis by record diesel prices, would like to see a nationwide speed limit set at 65 mph. Cutting speed back to 65 mph would increase mileage in big trucks by more than 25 percent, according to trucking association estimates.

Big semi-trailers and rigs will burn $135 billion in diesel fuel this year, in increase of $22 over last year.

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