Okay, so there are talks of reinstating the national 55MPH speed limit from the “oil shortage” era. Yes, it would save gas, but what the fuck?? For one, we’d be trading money saved from less gasoline consumption for the cost of enforcement. I have no numbers on anything here, I’m shooting from the hip, and I don’t give a fuck. If you want stats and a bibliography, go out and get them.
Better than a national speed limit, IMO, would be to enforce fuel consumption regulations. With the technology we have today, we shouldn’t be building engines that make tons and tons of horsepower. We should be building more fuel efficinet machines. What is the point of having a 300hp Subaru? Sure, it would be fun to drive. But you can’t even USE 300+hp safely on public roads. And you sure as hell don’t need it. My little Protege makes only 130hp and it easily is fast enough to be dangerous. And say we impose the 55mph limit. Why would you need an insane amount of horsepower if you can only legally drive 55? Oh yeah, you wouldn’t.
We haven’t complained about this enough. A 98 Ford Explorer for example gets about 14-15 MPG in town. BOLLOCKS! That is a small SUV, mostly used to haul kids. And Ford sells a shit-ton of them. They ought to be fined for making a rig that can’t get 20MPG. It doesn’t need to be able to tow a house, it needs to be fuel efficient. And Ford can make those gigantic pickups of theirs get about the same mileage. And they are much more powerful. So what the fuck?
Hybrid (gas engine + electric motor) technology is actually doing both for us, making power, and saving gas. The new hybrid Accord will get something like 30MPG in town. While still making more horsepower than the gas-only version. And the gas-only version only gets like 20MPG. SO let’s mandate the shit.
I know, I know, we can;t mandate it, because the politicians are fed by the oil industry. So that could be a while. It’s also exactly why we haven’t worked on efficiency. And why Americans have been convinced they need the biggest, gas sucking-est, earth-murdering SUV they can get their hands on.
This just drives me nuts. We are targeting the wrong parts of the problem. Much like the War on Drugs. Or the War on Terror. Or public school funding. Or…
/rant
May 4th, 2005 at 2:07 pm
The cost of enforcement would be negligable considering the revenue from the tickets.
But it’s still a stupid idea. I suspect it’s almost certainly a ploy from the police lobby. As you rightly point out, most gas is consumed on city streets, from stop light to stop light, by SUV’s. Or, freight trucks. But your average rice rocket going over 55, is nothing. I drove my car back and forth 80 miles, usually roughly at 80-85 mph, and got 30mpg. If i dropped down to 65, I got like 35 at most. So it wasn’t really worth it.
This is just one more piece of fodder thrown out there to make it look like they give a shit about fuel economy. And it will only cost taxpayers money, rather than costing manufactures money developing better products.