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Automotive News & Views Should the US government bring back the 55 mph max speed limit again?
1418 messages, Last post on Dec 16, 2008 at 11:21 AM
You are in the Automotive News & Views Forum. Your Hosts are steve_ & claires
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55! What a joke that was. I drove from L.A. to Oklahoma during the 55 limit, and I thought I would never get there. Plus, the amount of time and money spent on having cops out there in unmarked cars giving tickets when they could have been used on other things was ridiculous. Montana had the right idea during that time. If a motorist was doing under 70, the motorist got a $5 waste of natural resources ticket. 
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The 55 NSL was a tremendous waste of time and law enforcement resources. I also think that the law was so ridiculous that it reduced respect for traffic laws across the board. On top of that, you will find that almost every US car designed during that period was a less than stellar vehicle. My 1984 Thunderbird Turbo Coupe was good for just one stop from 80 mpf. Try for two and the pedal dropped to the floor... Now that the authority to set speed limits has been returned to the states(where it belongs), all we need is a law which makes camping in the left lane a capital offense.
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Replying to: roadburner (Dec 06, 2007 11:50 am) That authority was returned to the states in 1995 after repeal of a national speed limit law. Some federal strings are attached to federal highway trust funds money. link. I think there are dui and public transportation strings attached; probably a few other "national" things. All the rural interstates seem to run between 65 and 75 mph, expect for some sparsely populated counties in Texas where the limit is 80. I recall that Kansas had 80 mph limits back before the 70's oil crisis. Check out the Who Pays for our Roads? discussion too. |
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Replying to: roadburner (Dec 06, 2007 11:50 am) Such a shame that they will never pass that one... I remember that when they passed the national 55 law I had a Volvo 142. Now, anyone who ever had one of these things will know that you can get passed by glaciers driving one. If you could get the floorboards to rust out you could increase your speed by using the Fred Flintstone method of propulsion. That said, I had trouble staying awake doing 55 in it in New Jersey! Surely given today's far superior cars there's no place for turtle speeds on Interstates.
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Replying to: fezo (Dec 06, 2007 12:32 pm)
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Replying to: andres3 (Dec 06, 2007 7:05 pm) For more entertainment, after a fashion, look up the guy who was speeding in that wiki link.
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Replying to: steve_ (Dec 06, 2007 7:40 pm) The problem isn't people clogging up the courts, its on officer's writing frivolous tickets making people want to clog up the courts. I for one, don't see a problem with clogged up courtrooms; preferable to the current joke of a justice system our traffic rules in CA have led to. |
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Sammy Hagar  
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| for a simple reason and that is that highway traffic is similar to water and responds to the laws of hydrodynamics which means that traffic will move faster on a straight road than on one that is curved and has a lot of obstructions (i.e. other traffic). Trying to make traffic move slower than the 85th percentile of the average speed of the natural traffic is unnatural and bound to fail as it did back in the unlamented 1970s. | |
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...Hitler was an auto enthusiast (although he was usually driven by a chauffeur in his Mercedes) who supported the racing efforts of German automakers and pushed for the construction of the Autobahn, so I don't know if he would necessarily be in favor of the 55 mph speed limit. No word yet on the position of Lenin, Stalin or Pol Pot on it... German attitudes on speed are interesting. Driving is taken seriously. Germans drive faster than we do, even on those parts of the Autobahn with a speed limit. But I sense a greater respect for speed and what cars can do over there. (They are also much more interested in the technical aspect of cars, and would never make vehicles like the F-150 or Camry best sellers, and GM would never dare to offer clunkers like the Cobalt, G6 or Impala to the German public.) People take driving more seriously, and have a more “mature” view of speed. They aren’t running around squawking the “speed kills” nonsense, but they don’t glorify “hooning,” either. Drivers who camp in the passing lane are not tolerated. Fast driving is seen as a pleasurable, safe and rapid way to get where you are going, and both cars and drivers are expected to have the capabilities necessary to handle it when on the Autobahn. |
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