[kpeavey]

With a decline in gasoline availability will come a reduction in driving at any speed. Perhaps a speed limit is a moot point.
If 55 enforcement kills cops, then the 55 Saves Lives slogan should be reconsidered.

Jeavons Law comes into play at 55. Less gas consumption means more gas is available, acting as a market force in keeping the price down. Affordable fuel means that idiot kid next door can afford to run his motorcycle up the street and back, over and over again. It also makes it more affordable to the Chinese, who will continue their economic growth. Keeping the the speed limit high promotes gas consumption and brings about an end to the Chinese economy sooner, hopefully before they get too bold and send their army into the middle east to secure Iranian oil stocks.

The sooner we run out of fuel, the sooner the die off, the fewer people will suffer as a result. It would seem 75 saves more lives.
55 increases traffic congestion by increasing the flow rate of traffic. increased congestion will mean more local road construction. These roads would be completed just in time to have no more use when the global market share of OPEC crosses the 50% threshold and prices spike.

[Andy]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '5')5 increases traffic congestion by increasing the flow rate of traffic. increased congestion will mean more local road construction. These roads would be completed just in time to have no more use when the global market share of OPEC crosses the 50% threshold and prices spike.

[yesplease]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('kpeavey', 'J')eavons Law comes into play at 55.

[kjmclark]

I've been astounded at the extent to which this is already happening. Not because the authorities are lowering limits, but because people are slowing down.
I'm about two hundred miles away from home at the moment, and our trip took us on expressways in Michigan and Ohio that we've been traveling a few times a year for about 15 years.

I have *never* seen people drive as slow as this most recent trip. In Michigan, the speed limit is 70mph and people usually travel 80 to 90mph. We were passing just about everyone traveling at 75. In Ohio, the speed limit is 65mph and people usually travel at 75. Almost no one was going faster than 65.
My wife and I were puzzling over it when we realized that it's the gas prices. The average person is burning $9 per day in gas per car and it's starting to hurt. Gas prices in the Great Lakes are pretty routinely around $3 per gallon this year. The people who are usually out speeding on the expressway are more often the longer commute drivers, which means they're paying more than $9 per day.

We don't drive enough to notice the hit, but the people out putting 80 miles a day on their truck or SUV are getting nailed. I'm sure if we were out commuting every day the change would be gradual and we wouldn't notice it, but we only get the car out a few times per month, and only take this trip a few times per year. Wow, what a difference!

[TommyJefferson]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Jack', 'I') suggest a search for Jevon's paradox.

[nate33]

Does anybody know how much gas mileage is supposed to improve if you drop from 65mph down to 55mph? I assume it depends on the vehicle.

All I know is that my 1997 Mazda 626 4-cylinder stick shift typically gets 32-33 mpg at an average of 65 mph. I once drove from Chicago to Columbus and kept the cruise at 79 mpg and ended up averaging 34 mpg. Maybe it was a fluke, but there doesn't seem to be much improvement in fuel efficiency when I slow down - at least not in my car.

[yesplease]

Ya gotta do bidirectional runs with little to no traffic over a short time period with something like a ScanGuage to figure how much speed influences mileage for yer vehicle. There are are also confounds, like how people drive. If they *clump together they can draft off each other, so some may not see any increase from going slower. Ime, I can get what you get at 65mph at around 55mph in my V6 car, and going up to 65mph and then 75mph drops a few mpg off for each jump. My truck's way worse, w/ a difference of nearly 10mpg from 55-66mph.

*Very risky from the standpoint of liability IMO.

[Revi]

I like the idea of slowing everybody down. It's not going to happen, but it would be a great thing. If we could actually start conserving or working on efficiency it might mean we could forego taking over the next country with oil.

But we don't do things that way anymore.

[gg3]

Jevons' paradox breaks down below the threshold of connectivity of a given market area. (I was writing another of my long posts on this topic but didn't get a chance to post it before the Jevons' paradox topic scrolled away again.)
If you look up old descriptions of road travel, both before WW2 and in the 1800s, what you find is that it wasn't long ago when a 10-mile trip in one hour was regarded as good, and not long before that when a 10-mile trip in a single day was regarded as good.

Most of us will live to see the day when we look back on 55 or 50 miles per hour in a personal vehicle, and regard it as an enormous luxury that we all took for granted.
The culture will slow down whether we like it or not.

[EnergyUnlimited]

I am unconvinced that lower speed limits will address issues related to oil depletion.
Fuel efficient vehicles will not help either.
All what can be achieved is slight deferral of inevitable.

[BobWallace]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Revi', 'I') like the idea of slowing everybody down. It's not going to happen, but it would be a great thing. If we could actually start conserving or working on efficiency it might mean we could forego taking over the next country with oil.
But we don't do things that way anymore.

[inculcated]

Speed limits do nothing. Banning outright the use of personal infernal combustion engines might be a step in the right direction...

[Plantagenet]

35 years ago Americans were waiting in lines for gasoline and the speed limit was 55 mph.

Flash back to the Arab oil embargo of 1973. Then, as now, a weakening U.S. dollar was putting upward pressure on oil prices...
In mid-October of that year, Saudi Arabia and other Arab states imposed a ban on oil shipments to the U.S..... The price of oil quadrupled in the following months.

... the most effective step in reducing America’s energy use was one nobody chose: a deep and painful recession.

But the government took two steps — one to increase energy supplies, the other to reduce demand — that produced significant and long-lasting results. The first was to push through the Alaska oil pipeline, which rapidly increased domestic oil production.....the law turned aside legal challenges, primarily from environmentalists, to completing the pipeline.... in the years after the 1970s oil shock, Alaskan production added two million barrels of crude oil a day to U.S. oil supplies, while higher auto-efficiency standards saved two million barrels a day in oil consumption: a net four-million-barrel savings every day in America’s dependence on imported oil.

Other forces kicked in after the oil shock to help the U.S. overcome the blow. Congress lowered the speed limit nationally to 55 miles per hour, a step that “helped immediately,” says James Schlesinger, who was energy secretary from 1977 to 1979. A lower speed limit “is a way of quickly reducing domestic consumption,”

What’s little appreciated now is how effective these changes actually were — for a while, at least — in making the U.S. more efficient and self-sufficient. Crude-oil imports fell sharply for a time after 1979, and actually were lower in 1985 than in 1973, the year the oil shock began, according to statistics from the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

[Novus]

I have to agree. Time to lower the speed limit and also lower the top speed of new cars sold to no more than 85mph. It is so stupid that almost every car on the road can go at least 140mph. That is nothing but using the car as substitute for penis envy. It costs lots of energy just to have it even if it is never used.

[joeltrout]

I say lower it down to 55 mph and implement fines starting at a minimum of $1,000.00 for people speeding above 65 mph.

joeltrout

[emersonbiggins]

Go to hell, PA!

[arretium]

Hell no to 55. If you want to reduce your speed, you can and save money while you do it. Why should I be forced to drive slower? If I can afford to pay it, I should be allowed to do so.

[joeltrout]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('arretium', ' ')If I can afford to pay it, I should be allowed to do so.

[arretium]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('joeltrout', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('arretium', ' ')If I can afford to pay it, I should be allowed to do so.

[joeltrout]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('arretium', '
')
Think about this for a second. I've been a member of this website for years. Do you really think I'm going around and personally complaining about the high price of gasoline given what I know and believe about Peak Oil? Gas is cheaper than a gallon of Starbucks Coffee/Latte, Red Hook Beer, Milk, and Coca-Cola.