National Speed Limit

I'm not the only one, apparently, who thinks that slowing down Americas highways might make solid sense. Republican Senator John Warner from Virginia has sent a letter to the Energy Secretary Bodman asking him to evaluate what speed limit may provide optimum fuels savings given today's technology.

The reply from the Energy Departments Spokeswoman Angela Hill further illustrates how incredibly dumb our current administration is: "If Congress is serious about addressing gasoline prices, they must take action on expanding domestic oil and natural gas production."

That's just Bass-ackwards. Why conserve what we have? Let's just go drill for more, and we'll have it in 30 years, and then prices will go down THEN (you know, when our kids are our age). Special interests obviously have control of our government and we will continue to pay for it until the end of time.

Anyway, according to the department of Energy's website, the optimum average speed for fuel economy is about 60 MPH. They have a handy little graph on that page I've linked to. Every 5 MPH over 60 MPH will cost 7% to 23% more in fuel economy - or an "additional 29 to 94 cents per gallon". That's a pretty big range.

Here's the problem: for those of us who WANT to drive at the optimum fuel efficient speed, we can't on the highway. We'll get hit, run off the road, or pulled over by the police for going too slow. It amazes me. This is one reason I try to avoid driving on highways at all - it isn't really safe. I take the back roads, or the "blue roads" as I've heard them called (blue roads being secondary routes on paper maps - remember those?) as much as possible. I seem to get the best mileage around 45 MPH - the speed limit on the roads in my area. No wonder I'm getting 38 mpg in my civic where apparently other people aren't doing so hot (most user reported averages I've seen is in the 31 mpg range). It's easy once you start caring and paying attention.

The only problem is that no one cares (Ok - very few care) and we're all too lazy to get out of bed early enough so that we don't have to speed to avoid being late for work. There is nothing in the world that is important enough for me to be in a hurry.