May 6, 2008 11:20 pm US/Central
Good Question: Should We Drive 55 MPH?
(WCCO)
With gasoline prices at record highs and demand for fuel continuing to grow many WCCO-TV viewers are asking whether lowering the speed limit to 55 mph would be a good idea.
In 1974, President Richard Nixon signed an emergency energy law that set a national maximum highway speed at 55 miles per hour. The idea was to conserve because of a fuel shortage that rose to the level of crisis.
The limit remained at 55 mph until 1987, when President Ronald Reagan allowed speed limits to rise to 65 miles per hour. In 1995, the power to set speed limits was returned to the states.
"We get this question all the time," said Bernie Arseneau, Minnesota's top traffic engineer with the Department of Transportation. "Current law says speed limits should be safe and reasonable. Lower speeds don't necessarily equate to safer speeds."
According to Arseneau, research indicates that when the government sets a speed lower than the reasonable speed the road was designed to handle, a "small percentage obeys the limit no matter what. The rest drive what they feel is comfortable."
In other words, a large percentage of people ignore the artificially low speed limits. The end result of that is a minor improvement in fuel conservation and a higher risk of crashes.
"The goal is to have everyone driving the same speed," said Arseneau. "It may be less safe" to lower the limit.
"When you artificially lower the speed limit, you make a bunch of law breakers out of usually reasonable people," he said.
However, strictly as an energy issue, if everyone drove 55 miles per hour instead of 65 miles per hour, there would be significant fuel savings. Government energy experts say the savings would be in the area of 20 percent.
For example, if an average car peaked at 30 miles per gallon, driving 55 mph, a 90 mile trip from Minneapolis to Rochester would cost $10.50 (assuming $3.50/gallon gasoline).
Driving 65 mph reduces mileage to 25 miles per gallon, raising the cost to $12.60. That's a $2.10 savings on one leg of the trip, simply by reducing your speed to 55 mph.
Truckers are opposed to the move because that same 90 mile trip would take an extra 13 minutes driving 55 mpg, and time is money.
The success level of the mandatory 55 mph for 13 years is difficult to measure. According to the U.S. Department of Energy, fuel consumption continued to rise during those years. In a 1987 report titled "
The High Cost of the 55 MPH Speed Limit", the conservative think-tank Cato Institute reported that the fuel savings was 1 percent, at a maximum.
Also, the safety benefits of the lower speed have been difficult to chronicle. While highway crashes and fatalities dropped during this period, researchers have had a difficult time pinpointing whether improvements in automobile safety during the manufacturing process may have been the larger factor.
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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