U.S. Sen. John Warner talks up 55 mph national speed limit

I strongly disagree with the 55 mph. As a OTR truck driver I know freight is scheduled to be delievered in a timely matter based on customer priorty. By lowering the speed limit to 55 I would lose over a hundred miles a day ( based on the goverment regulated "hours of service" which state that no commercial truck driver may drive more than 11 hrs a day and must have a 10 hr break afterwards )! Who do you think is going to pay for this ? The drivers and the consumers. On a three day run the driver either has to make up the 6hr time loss (100 mile loss per day = 2hrs of drive time at 55 mph, it`s very difficult to "average" 55mph while doing 55 in a rig) or spend more time at the truck stops which are already overpriced. The consumer will pay because of the extra time it takes in making the delievery of produce, milk and meats because these are time sensitive. Plus the cost of running the refridgerated trailer will be more. This IS NOT A SOLLUTION !

It is easy for small states (geographically speaking) to drive 55, it will not substantially change their ETA's. In the West 55 hurts business and communities. When will the West and Great Plains quit being used as economic colonies for the coasts and upper mid-west?

TO: Senator Warner:
Sir, your proposal to lower the speed limit is "right on". I worked in the auto industry & have some feel for this subject matter. Looking at vehicular traffic I would postulate that a 20% reduction in vehicle speed would result in about 27% reduction in fuel consumption. You will get many opinions on this, but be assured that the benefit will be much better than a simple linear gain. And the cost to the driver, professional or not, is really not that great; highway/freeway trip times will also not be simply linearly related since there are many other factors in trip cycle times that are beyond the influence the driver & this new imposed speed limit. The 20% speed reduction might closer correlate to a 12 to 15% increase in trip times.
If I may go on, I would propose that heavy trucks be limited to 55mph (think of the reduction in highway damage & driver (all drivers!) stress). Cars & light duty trucks could be limited to 60mph. This would spawn many consequential benefits. The speed reuduction proposal would buy us time to re-group (for this is what will be required) & re-think better alternatives; I am sure that this is indeed your intent. And it could be put into effect TOMORROW.....for, perhaps, 3 years - not a great cost considering the true, big picture. I am greatly supportive of your initiative - it is courageous & far-sighted with little down-side cost, typical of much of what you have done over your years of public service, says this Progressive!! With this strategy, we can "go to (this) war with what we have" .......... & WIN. And, a win would do us all good, doncha know. We should think too of the message that this plan would say to the nations of the rest of the world, many of whom think that we do not have the stomach for this "sacrifice". Wrong! Forge on. AgreaterUS

The fact is that the majority of fuel is wasted in bumper to bumper traffic. If the government wants to save fuel then look for ways at improving the flow of traffic. Traveling at speeds of 65 MPH or higher is still substantially more fuel efficient than driving at 5 to 25 MPH traffic chocking many cities. Here in the New York Metro area where you can sit for as much as an hour trying to cross one of the Hudson river crossings the fuel consumption rate is probably 3 times higher than a person driving at 75 MPH. The only effect a lower speed limit will have is to increase speeding tickets and fatten the treasury box at governments looking for extra cash. Speed in itself is not the main cause of accidents but rather careless/reckless driving.

First there have been vehicles that have exceded 50 mpg. back in the 50`s , then comes the second world war, after which people got lazy and greedy to the point we live in now!!! so trying to turn back that kind of time problem,GOOD LUCK. How about using a little,no excuse me a lot of COMMON SENSE, people need to change the terms of are so called representative`s , there are a lot of them that have been around with all these problems. Have they ever banded to GETHER all at one time and WORKED at solving any of these problems as a whole......hahahahaha. NO!!!!!!!! now you know your problems!!!!!!! start at the top of the heap.

Why on Earth would anybody wish reinstate a national speed limit on our highways?
That's not moving forward that's going backwards! Do they honestly believe that in the year 2008 we should be setting speed limits that are the same as those in the 1940's and 50's?

Interstates are the arteries of our country. Slow them down and you slow the economy down. And no, it will not effect fuel prices anyway. First because of the traffic created (it's weaving in dense traffic that causes many accidents by the way), second because oil prices are rising mostly due to dollar inflation and our government overprinting money (oil prices are relatively stable compared to gold prices, notice they have both gone up in unison, if our dollar was as stable as gold oil would be $30 a barrel right now), and third because most people won't follow a national 55 mph speed limit! I'm sure they will say that "well if we could just get people to slow down it might work". Well it's not reality and never will be so they need to stop lobbying to make laws that depend on something that will never happen!

We should be making laws that optimize traffic flow and restore respect for the left lanes which would thin out traffic, reduce accidents, and help the economy by speeding up our internal transportation system. Overall, our speed limits are already under posted (never mind being 85th percentile, they aren't even average speed) combined with cruising in left lanes and not using them as passing only lanes leads to cars weaving and therefore causing very dangerous traffic snarls.

Our traffic flow is so inefficient it only takes a few cars to back things up because some people think they can drive in whatever lane they want at whatever speed and are bolstered in their belief by under posted limits.

Think about it; there are ALWAYS these packs of traffic moving down the highway of cars scrunched together. There is plenty of room ahead but one guy is blocking the left lane and 5, 10 even 15 or more cars are lined up behind him. If something goes wrong all these cars are packed like sardines which makes the accident that much worse. This also is the root cause of road rage; weaving and unnecessary braking to avoid collisions, which by the way wastes a lot of fuel.

The mere suggestion to implement old outdated policies that have been an absolute failure in the past will cause far more harm than good. Just like Prohibition and Jim Crow.

The 55 mph speed limit was also directly responsible for the immense amount of damage done to the American auto industry resulting in cars that were poor products both in terms of performance, safety and gas usage. After all, they only had to be safe and have decent performance at 55 mph. The answer to having safer more efficient cars isn't to lower the bar so that the car of the day with it's poor performance, safety and gas guzzling is acceptable, it's creating the demand for a better car by raising the bar. 55 mph set our auto industry back 25 years and in the process made our cars the laughingstock of the motorized world for which the industry is still paying the price to this day because we are just now starting catch up, and no 55 mph speed limit is going save us now.

They also say they favor returning to the 55 mph speed limit because it was "safe" and it "saved lives" and then attempt to make people feel guilty if they don't support it. If driving 55 mph is supposedly safe and according to some of them, saved 4,000 lives a year, then can they please explain to me why traffic fatalities were running between 50-60,000 annually during the years when the 55 mph limit was most strictly enforced and started declining to today's record low levels only after it was repealed? Also, even with the steady decline, why then am I still 66% more likely to die on the American Interstates for a given mileage driven than the German Autobahns, over half of which has no speed limit? The answer is our traffic flow system is total and absolute a mess, thanks in part to the generation that learned to drive during the 55 mph era when driving skills plummeted along with the speed limits!

If these people really want to make a difference then work with reality and help to make our roads fast and safe with optimal traffic flow while moving us forward. Here's a few suggestions:

1) Synchronize all of the urban traffic signals on the surface roads nationwide. Just imagine how many millions of barrels of oil a year that alone would save by eliminating all of the stop and go driving and urban congestion. A side benefit is that smog in the larger urban areas would be greatly diminished.

2) Teach motorists how to DRIVE, teach them to do it WELL under all conditions and circumstances. This will go a long way into cutting our highway fatalities to even lower levels than they are now.

3) Implement realistic but stringent fuel efficiency standards and stricter enforcement of ALL traffic laws, not just the revenue generating speeding regulations. A mandatory 30 day license suspension for first time offenses such as Texting While Driving would drive the point home in a hurry.

I know that the above will not go over well with that group because first of all it makes common sense and it is readily doable. And secondly, I suspect that they really don't give a whit about saving energy, lives, trees, bears or anything else. I believe that their intent no doubt is to exert a measure of control over other people's lives.

Lastly, do they really believe that any of what they are trying to force down everybody's collective throats will stop climate change or conserve a single drop of oil?

Climate change is a natural occurrence and nothing we can do will stop it (If you don't believe me, then ask the scientific community why the polar ice caps on Mars are melting...I'm pretty sure us humans didn't have anything to do with it). Secondly, every barrel of oil that we don't buy goes right onto the world market and into the hands of countries that may not have as effective fuel economy or emission regulations as the United States so in actuality, if by some slim chance they did get their way, they would be making the problem worse, not solving it!

Sorry to break it to them but gas prices will likely never be in the sub $1.00 a gallon range again since we have proven to Big Oil we are willing to pay much more than that no matter how ridiculously low you want the speed limits set. Also don't forget the wonderful field day that speeding tickets (shored up by new technologies such as speed cameras) and jacked up insurance rates will have taking money out of the hands of the consumer and and putting it into the coffers of bureaucracies and large corporations which will only serve to reduce consumer spending and hurt the already struggling economy even more.