FINALLY......55 MPH is coming to the SF Bay Area!! (global warming, Prius, bike)
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Back in the 70s and the oil embargo, the typical US car was 55oo lb and sported a V8 that got 15mpg. If you left your car running while filling up, you pulled away with less gas than you pulled in with. Goose the gas pedal to rev it up and it was like flushing a toilet-- the accelerator pump dumped 2 oz of gas down the throat at a time.
Now cars weigh 2500 lb, have only 4 or 6 little cylinders and miserly fuel injection. They all look alike because they're computer designed using the same formula for aerodynamics. Back then gas mileage fell noticeably at speeds above 55-60. Today it doesn't start to matter until 65-70mph.
BTW- except for the OP, none of us, thankfully, have mentioned "carbon footprint" the politically motivated none-problem. We should be conserving fuel specifically and energy generally for the sake of conservation.
Waste not, want not.
The falling MVA death rate started several yrs before the embargo and lowered speed limit, and continued for a decade as more & more autos were made with disc brakes. It's not like there was a sudden fall in death rate with lower speeds.... If you're old enough to remember-- driving a 5500 lb Oldsmobile with a 440cu in V8 and drum brakes could get inadvertently exciting at times.
Wow, what a memory lane trip!
I was a kid just graduated from college at 20 with $1600 saved from my $400/yr Regents scholarship.
So I bought a lightly used Olds Dynamic 88 ('The Red Rocket'), a convertible with a racing ignition no less, that swallowed up my 5'1" self.
It could fit seven of me and when I floored it you could see the gas gauge needle going down, HONEST.
Then speed limits were merely suggestions.
Ah, yute.
We can stop many of those accidents with better highway design and better layouts for our work zones and thus save many lives. Speed is not the enemy. Constant stopping and starting reduces our fuel economy and increases our greenhouse emissions.
Good post. It's pretty simple logic: a certain percentage of drivers will do something stupid at any given moment--change lanes without looking, stop unexpectedly for no reason, not watch the road as they mess with the radio, adjust their make-up in the rear view mirror, etc-- (I always wonder how many accidents are caused by drivers fumbling with the seat belt they forgot to put on before they pulled away?)
The more cars on the road at any moment, the more accidents to be expected...Reducing speed limits won't cause a decrease in sorties, but it means each car will be on the road for a longer period of time each trip, ie- more traffic on the road at any given moment -- more accidents.
In regards work zone accidents-- if you don't like the way I drive, then stay off the sidewalks.
Good post. It's pretty simple logic: a certain percentage of drivers will do something stupid at any given moment--change lanes without looking, stop unexpectedly for no reason, not watch the road as they mess with the radio, adjust their make-up in the rear view mirror, etc-- (I always wonder how many accidents are caused by drivers fumbling with the seat belt they forgot to put on before they pulled away?)
The more cars on the road at any moment, the more accidents to be expected...Reducing speed limits won't cause a decrease in sorties, but it means each car will be on the road for a longer period of time each trip, ie- more traffic on the road at any given moment -- more accidents.
In regards work zone accidents-- if you don't like the way I drive, then stay off the sidewalks.
Thank you!
With regards to work zone accidents; that is one more area where speed saves lives. Years ago our NHTSA (National Highway Traffic Safety Administration) came out with some recommendations for road work in a publication they called "Building a better mouse trap". Of course I cannot find that article now, the article disappeared. But the highlights of that article focused on the better use of our highway dollars to build faster, more efficiently, with better materials to last a longer time.
Examples of that would be forcing contractors to warranty their work. That way, when the highway breaks up the following Spring they are responsible for the replacement. Another example was to lease the road to the contractors so their profits are measured by how fast and efficiently they work. They also mentioned bonding road contractors to ensure their product.
But they did not stop there; they also talked about better products practices to make our roads last longer and to help our contractors work more efficiently. The idea is that if we have to do road work, we get out there and get the job done quick, and then get the heck out the way! Speed again saves lives. The longer these projects take the more lives that can be lost.
In the meantime my State never read that article! One of my major secondary roads they have been rebuilding, a two and a half mile stretch of that road, for three years close to my house. We would see a few workers working on a bridge for days, months, and then another small group working on the shoulders, utilities, or exits at other times. There was no coordination - which is typical for my little corner of our State. Workfare cost lives, it is an unsafe practice that should be illegal. If our leaders and planners do not know how to efficiently work on our roads then they should not be in the position they hold.
The quickest way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions is to lower the speed limit to 55 MPH.
This will reduce emissions by 25%.
The San Francisco Bay Area is proposing to take the first steps.....from the article.
......"The letter also outlines a plan to “lower the speed limit to 55 mph on freeways to improve safety.”.........[/b]The blueprint is part of Plan Bay Area 2050, a long-term roadmap charting the course for the future of the nine-county San Francisco Bay Area...................
........................ to help the final Plan Bay Area 2050 meet the 19 percent reduction in per-capita greenhouse gas emissions mandated by state law."[/b]
Those of you in California need to write Governor Newsome and indicate that there is NO REASON to wait to implement 55 MPH in the Bay Area. He ALONE has the authority to lower the speed limit to 55 MPH tomorrow.
We cannot wait on reducing greenhouse gas emissions. We need the 55 MPH speed limit NOW.
California, Oregon and Washngton missed all their greenhouse emission goals due to emissions from vehicles exceeding the environmental speed of 55 MPH!!
The Governors of all three of these GREEN states need to implement 55 mph NOW.
The good news is that there is NOTHING President Trump can do to stop 55 MPH!!
So, this is really about bashing Trump, not reducing emissions.
Is there any evidence that 55mph would reduce emissions by 25% in today's vehicles?
Today's vehicles are much cleaner and more efficient than the American cars of the early 1970s when 55 was first imposed.
Last time I drove in the Bay area was early 2019, and it was terrifying. All these elevated curving ramps and elevated highways, with right exits, left exits, and crazy traffic. The posted speed limits were 45 or 50 yet everyone was doing 70 to 80 and very aggressive, worse than Boston. They come right up behind you and flash their brights. I try to stay out of people's way but if I have a left exit, I'm not going to move to the right, sorry.
Anyway it's hard to imagine this crowd all slowing down to 55 (let alone 50). And Calif. is so huge for anyone traveling any amount of distance to add an extra half hour or hour to their trip... fuggetaboutit.
The quickest way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions is to lower the speed limit to 55 MPH.
This will reduce emissions by 25%.
The San Francisco Bay Area is proposing to take the first steps.....from the article.
......"The letter also outlines a plan to “lower the speed limit to 55 mph on freeways to improve safety.”.........The blueprint is part of Plan Bay Area 2050, a long-term roadmap charting the course for the future of the nine-county San Francisco Bay Area...................
........................ to help the final Plan Bay Area 2050 meet the 19 percent reduction in per-capita greenhouse gas emissions mandated by state law."
One must wonder what's going on in the OP's mind. Another misleading greenie post? Note that the article doesn't say reducing speed reduces greenhouse gases at all. It talks about safety and congestion.
Like others, I well remember slowly plodding across the midwest at 55 on roads designed for 70 or 80. Didn't do much good either. We should also remember how percents can mislead - a 10% savings in gas for a car getting 35mpg is much less than that for a car doing 15mpg.
If we really wanted to cut emissions, we'd get people out of their trucks and back into cars. But that won't happen....
a) Only about 1% of American roads have speed limits in excess of 55mph now, so eliminating them would hardly change anything--even if we assume people will obey the new speed limits.
2] You need to take gearing into account: a car travelling at 45mph, for instance, in 3rd gear will burn considerably more gasoline per mile than one travelling 45 mph in 4th gear....Semi trailer trucks can have as many as 18 gears and limiting them to 55mph can cut their mileage in half...
This is one of those "let's do something so it looks like we care" movements that is not very well thought out.
Isn't the speed limit for 18-wheelers already 55mph?
Isn't the speed limit for 18-wheelers already 55mph?
Many of the major companies have governors on their trucks. I used to drive from the East Coast to the West Coast in trucks that could not go over 58 to 62 mph on a straight away. Of course they could go faster downhill. Now some companies can even remotely turn their trucks up to pull the hills and turn them back down after they have reached the top. We had units in our trucks that monitored every place we went. Keep in mind that our freight was sometimes very expensive and this way the companies solved security issues as well.
I don't know what the current governor settings are because of all the years I have been retired. It was a very slow trip to LA in one of those trucks. I used to hate going through Albuquerque, NM because they have signs that the minimum speed in the passing lane is 65MPH - I could not go fast enough to legally pass. The one good thing about being so slow on the road is that so many motorist told me with hand signals that I was number 1! Of course I will not say what finger they used to relate that information!
The independent truckers could run their trucks at whatever speed they choose.
PS Some states had slower speed limits for trucks; but it was not a National speed limit.
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