More 55 Jive

Here we go. The majority of idiots and the minority of people are at it again.

For more than 20 years, federal law capped the speed limit nationwide at 55 mph. The speed limit was abolished in 1995, but rising fuel prices have prompted some people to call for a revival of the law.

The law was hugely unpopular. Today, 32 states have maximum speed limits of 70 mph or higher. But some people have argued that it's time to revisit the idea of a lower standard speed limit.

"The faster you go, the more you waste," says Tim Castleman, a California man who favors a 55-mph cap.


Leave it to some idiot from California to want something this stupid.

The nationwide limit was part of a fuel conservation effort spurred by gas shortages in the early 1970s. The 55-mph limit became law in January 1974 and was originally supposed to expire in mid-1975. But Congress made it permanent, and states that didn't comply were threatened with the loss of federal highway funds.

Proposed by President Nixon and enacted in January 1974, the nationwide speed limit was described as a temporary emergency response to oil shortages and was to expire in mid-1975. But Congress soon made it permanent, and the 55-mph limit immediately became part of the national culture.

In the 70's we had gas lines because of shortages, not because of high prices.


Today, we have high prices and the gas companies have as much gas as you can stand to buy.

"The faster you go, the more you waste," says Tim Castleman, a Sacramento man who is promoting a Drive 55 campaign.

Yeah and I peel the crust off my bread and waste it. Are you proposing I can't do that either?

Bread used to be ten cents a loaf. Now, because of the crust peelers, it is $3.00.

This Tim Castleman, a California man, is obviously a guy who drives 55 or less in the left lane of the freeways.

Until gasoline approached $4 a gallon, Castleman didn't find a lot of support for reinstating the 55-mph limit that Congress abolished in 1995 after more than 20 years.

"It was a terribly unpopular law," acknowledges Castleman, who maintains a website, www.drive55.org.

Indeed, reinstating the national 55-miles-per-hour limit, or 60 mph as some suggest, would seem a tough sell after the first experiment proved about as successful as Prohibition.

And passing a law limiting the speed you can drive will lower gas prices how?

Opponents such as Jim Baxter, head of the National Motorists Association, a Wisconsin group, argue any fuel savings would be tiny and that higher limits haven't made highways less safe.

"All we would do by establishing another national speed limit is we would generate a lot of tickets, a lot of insurance surcharges, and give a little boost to the radar-detector industry," Baxter says. "There would be no change in fuel pricing."

"People have to be willing to comply with it," he says. "And they weren't."

At least the people in Wisconsin have some common sense as opposed to the tree hugging, alfalfa sprout, tofu, avocado-eating California idiots.

Sen. John Warner, R-Va., introduced a bill last month that orders a study to determine the effects of a national 60-mph speed limit.

Warner says the 55 limit reduced fuel use by 167,000 barrels a day, or 2% of highway consumption, citing a Congressional Research Service report. With far more vehicles, fuel savings is likely to be far greater now, he says.

Rep. Jackie Speier, D-Calif., has proposed a 60-mph limit in urban areas and 65-mph elsewhere.
"There is no need for OPEC or the oil companies to help us out," Speier says. "Every driver can affect change simply by easing up on their right foot."

Both point to findings by the Environmental Protection Agency that fuel efficiency decreases above 60 mph.

Speier says 11 other House Democrats, most of them from California, are co-sponsoring her bill. And she claims support from environmental groups and the American Trucking Associations.

Few other politicians have been eager to climb aboard, Baxter says. He notes that Warner is leaving office at the end of this year and that Speier represents a San Francisco and San Mateo district where voters may be less tied to their autos than elsewhere in the country. The public isn't real excited about going back to a 55-mph national speed limit.

Have you ever noticed when the California people get involved a lot of people go stupid listening to their dumb ideas?

Here's an idea - let's pass a law that says you can only drive a car on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, and you cannot leave the city limits where the car is licensed.

Also let's include in that law that you cannot go over 25 miles per hour, thus doubling your savings.

Ground all airlines from flying, shut down all trucks from leaving the city and require all cargo be shipped by rail.

Pass laws that require all of a person's relatives to live in the same city since travel outside of that city will be illegal.

By all the relatives living in one city, the urge to break the law and visit relatives that live outside the city will be eliminated.

Ban the use of all electric appliances including air conditioning except on Sundays, thus allowing people to attend church and then have a Sunday dinner as a family.

Now there is a start, don't you think?

I can suggest a lot more ideas but the best way would be to go stay at a Holiday Inn Express in California and you will come up with a lot more ideas.

As Sammy Hagar said in a 1984 hit record, "I Can't Drive 55."