Red, Green, and Blue

This is a post by Jim DiPeso, policy director of Republicans for Environmental Protection

“Go on and write me up for 125
Post my face, wanted dead or alive
Take my license and all that jive
I can’t drive … 55!”
-From “I Can’t Drive 55,” Sammy Hagar, 1984

From its birth during the grim days of mood rings and the OPEC oil embargo, the 55-mph national speed limit experienced an unhappy existence - reviled by drivers and ignored more often than obeyed.

Fighting 55 was an easy sell for state politicians, especially Western governors presiding over rural states where long drives through empty country are part of everyday life. In 1987, when Congress allowed states to raise the limit on rural interstate highways to 65 mph, several did. In front of motorists egging him on, Nevada’s then-Governor Richard Bryan personally switched out the hated double nickel on an I-80 speed limit sign outside Reno. Bryan, a Democrat, topped off the photo op with imprecations against what he called East Coast speed limits. And a good time was had by all.

Eight years later, the national speed limit was euthanized by the 104th Congress and 55 vanished from the nation’s consciousness. Twenty somethings who hear Hagar’s song on the radio today may be excused for wondering what the old rocker was screaming about.

But maybe not anymore. With high gasoline prices, the old idea has been dusted off.

Senator John Warner, R-VA, has asked the Department of Energy to study whether reimposing a national speed limit would make sense as a way to bring short-term relief from high fuel prices. Warner’s letter to Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman quoted a Congressional Research Service study estimating that the double nickel cut national petroleum consumption by about 2 percent.

Warner’s letter said that once a car’s speed increases beyond 60 mph, every 5 mph above 60 amounts to an extra 30 cents per gallon in fuel costs.

What Speeds Are Most Efficient?

Warner asked Bodman to figure out what speed would be the most fuel-efficient in today’s cars, estimate the total fuel savings that lower speeds would yield, and determine whether the savings would bring price reductions.

The retiring senator emphasized that he is looking for short-term relief. More domestic oil production and development of alternative fuels are long-term fixes that won’t much to bring prices down anytime soon, he pointed out.

“We must be straight with the American public and not raise hopes that these (long-term) efforts will provide immediate solutions and possible relief,” Warner wrote. The overheated partisan rhetoric coming out of DC shows, however, that Warner’s more verbose colleagues are not heeding his cautionary advice.

But back to the main point of his letter … would reinstating a national speed limit lower demand for oil? There is evidence that drivers are responding to high prices already by cutting back on driving and packing themselves onto transit for the daily commute. Thirsty SUVs are sitting unwanted on dealer lots, a ’90s fashion statement done in by practical economics.

Warner’s questions to Bodman are straightforward inquiries about physics, auto engineering, and economics. Getting answers to them would be useful. But dicier social questions unmentioned in Warner’s letter bear examination. Would a national speed limit be welcomed by drivers stressed by high fuel costs? Or would it stir up the old resentments expressed in that ’80s rock song and foster a culture of evasion? Those questions are worth pondering too.

Image credit: Pat Hawks at Flickr under a Creative Commons license

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