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In those days most commercial travelers, both cars and trucks had both CB radios and radar detectors. 55 was a serious drag when you are out there to make a living. In west Texas the posted limit now is 80.
It reduced our reliance on imported oil from 36% in 1974 to 28% in 1985. Since relaxing of the rules, reliance on imported oil rose close to 60% in 2009.
IMHO, a side benefit of the 55 mph speed limit was that it gave automakers the impetus to develop vehicles that performed better under the emission regulations. Few cared that a mid 70's V6 Cutlass performed like crap because it wasn't supposed to perform like a muscle car.
Notice how government regulation dragged automakers kicking and screaming into make fuel efficient, high performance cars when they said it could never be done?
You are correct.
The 1973 oil crisis began in October 1973 when OPEC members proclaimed an oil embargo.
"The National Maximum Speed Law (NMSL) in the United States was a provision of the Federal 1974 Emergency Highway Energy Conservation Act that prohibited speed limits higher than 55 miles per hour (90 km/h). It was drafted in response to oil price spikes and supply disruptions during the 1973 oil crisis." (Wikipedia.)
The effective speed limit was about 62. Nobody ever got a ticket for 60, but iw rare to see a driver pushing his luck to 65. Enforcement was pretty rigid, in every state, and anyone who got in the passing lane and went by a string of cars would be almost guaranteed a ticket.
It seems to me, in retrospect, that this was the turning point in the general feelilng by Americans that the police had become the enemy. The war on drugs was taking place at about the same time, but ordinary people were caught up in the net of fearing the double-nickel police, too.
Cars of the time had the aerodynamics of a brick. As they pushed air in front of the car, the faster you went, the more energy it took to get the car to go faster. There's a lot of crap that was going on with car makers of the day. They had to lower the NOx which was labelled as THE culprit in air pollution with not much regard for anything else. The engines of the day had carbs that were not much better than a slop pot. It wasn't until they started with fuel injection that they really made decent engines. Those of the early 70's couldn't get out of their own way and most struggled to get over 10 mpgs. They also had to deal with a new gasoline called unleaded which created a new list of issues like valve recession. The engine were pretty much a new design from then on. It was common for an exhaust to smell like rotten eggs, sometimes so bad you couldn't stand to follow behind one. The idea of using a taller axle ratio and slower engine rpms gave reasonable, for the times, performance and fuel mileage. That's the same time when the sheet metal on a car became so thin you could no longer sit on a fender without doing damage. It's also when cars were required to have a 5mph bumper that more resembled the front of a Peterbilt. Lots going on back then. But the slower you ran a car, the better the gas mileage back then. The 70's was a horrible time for cars and car makers.
I mean, I guess you could say that the same external forces that gave us the 55 mph limit also helped cars run cleaner and more efficiently, but I wouldn't go so far as to say that the 55 mph limit had the direct effect on the cars themselves.
"The National Maximum Speed Law (NMSL) in the United States was a provision of the Federal 1974 Emergency Highway Energy Conservation Act that prohibited speed limits higher than 55 miles per hour (90 km/h). It was drafted in response to oil price spikes and supply disruptions during the 1973 oil crisis." (Wikipedia.)
I started driving in the 80s when this was already the law. What were your feeling about this law when it was first passed? What were your feelings when it went away?
My feeling was finally it is gone. Well intentioned idea but horrible. I often make 500 and 1000 mile trips for business. It would take forever at 55.
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