So would my veggie car be exempt from speed limits since I’m not consuming foreign oil?…

On July 27th, 2008 at 11:49 am, twofoot said:

And thanks for reminding me of that point too

) And truckers are your friend – dont go ticking them off, because there’s more of them than there is of you.

But then again, trucks are designed different than cars. Hey I do good to break 7.0 mpg.

Regarding the topic however, if they drop the speed limit to 55, be prepared for costs to increase in pretty much every retail outlet you walk into.

But lets recap:

) Stay out of the left lane
) Do not *pretend* in your head that you are the police officer for the exact piece of road that YOU are driving on at that moment
) Be safe – and safe does not necessarily mean slow (seriously.. those of us who have had to pull bodies out of wrecks are not really excited about doing it all the time)
) Do not pull into the left lane to block someone going faster than you are
) Do not speed up and slow down in order to drive side-by-side to the car next to you so that you can arbitrarily slow down traffic behind you.
) Continuing to slow down in the left lane for no reason does not teach everyone behind you any lesson other than that you are an idiot.
) Do not give the real idiots any reason to prove they are the real idiots on the road
) Police Officers making a traffic stop on THE OPPOSITE SIDE OF THE FREEWAY are not going to notice that you are 1 mph over the speed limit. STOP SLOWING DOWN AND BLOCKING TRAFFIC OVER HERE!!!!!!

On July 25th, 2008 at 3:19 pm, rpg1616 said:
Great op-ed in the WSJ yesterday about this. Lower speed limit has no benefit when you factor in that (1) most people ignore it and (2) the cost in terms of lost time because of the slower speed.

Most people ignore whatever the speed limit is, Ignoring the 55 mph speed limit would result is slower speeds that ignoring a 70 mph speed limit….and, like it or not, save gas.

The objective is to save gas, not time.

A few lives saved could be thrown in for good measure.

But, relax, it ain’t gonna happen.

You’re ignoring one really big factor – the gears. I have a 6 speed and my car revs much fewer RPMs at 80 (which is typically where it shifts into 6th on a flat road) then at 55 – which it does typically in 4th gear.

This is probably the case with many cars, particularly higher performance ones. Lower output cars will probably be in top gear at 55 or 75 – in which case I’d concede your point is applicable and correct. But think about it this way using my car as an example – I can do 80 in 6th on a flat road by doing roughly 1800 RPM (meaning I’m barely giving it any gas at all). At 55, the car will shift inot 3rd usually and stabilize in 4th – in 3rd it’s going about 5000 RPMS and in 4th it’s usually around 3300 RPMS. The engine is doing much *less* work at 80. Wind resistance offsets it to some extent (less resistance going slower) but it’s marginal. And it’s validated by the fact that my car shows me my gas mileage.

Admittedly the majority of the commuting public doesn’t drive high performance sports cars or high output sedans but there is definitely a sizable portion out there that do. It’d be really hard to know the net effect (the increase in consumption for all of these cars at 55mph vs the savings of all the others from going down) but on the whole I’d probably guess that 55mph does in fact save gas in the aggregate. Individually though it’s a much different issue.

i’ve just filled my pedantry car geek quota for the day so I’ll stop now

Looks like your source regarding speeding tickets was pretty much right on. That’s absolutely insane.

The maximum fines are for drivers who are caught going 20 miles or more over the speed limit, which is now legally considered “reckless.”

$1K is a crazy high speeding ticket, but if it is reserved for people going 20+mph over the limit, I am fine with that.

Sadly, we have no speed traps where I live. What that means is, my life is in danger doing 60 in a 70, in the slow lane, on a road with light traffic at best.

WilliamRyan said:

But if it saves just one child’s life, wasn’t it worth it?

The life of my child is very precious to me, which is why I take this matter very seriously.

But if it saves just one child’s life, wasn’t it worth it?

No, your inability to write coherently is your fault.

All of your mistakes are my fault. You sound like a wonderful driver.

On July 25th, 2008 at 8:04 am, flenser said:
If you think traffics bad now, just wait until McCain/Obama get their hundred million new Americans. Congestion from sea to polluted sea

That’s a fact, most of the illegals around here have a Walmart basket full of anchor babies who are already legal. When the anchor babies start popping out kids at the max possible rate we’ll be approaching China as the most populated nation in a relatively short time. Our only hope is for things to get so bad here people stop coming, and maybe a few even go back home.