Having a national speed limit of 55 mph to help reduce gasoline prices is a "hare-brained" scheme that would line the pockets of local government and insurance companies, a Pennsylvania-based motorist group said Thursday.
Route 222 traffic on a section of the highway marked 65 mph.
"If you want to drive slower, go ahead and drive slower," said Tom McCrarey, a spokesman for National Motorists Association, based in Devon. "But don't make everybody else drive slower."
Putting a 55-mph cap on speed limits would lead to more speeding tickets, which would financially benefit local municipalities as they collect fines, McCrarey said. It also would provide a windfall for auto insurance companies, which can increase premiums and collect surcharges on every ticket.
"Insurance companies are behind this," he said.
McCrarey was reacting to U.S. Sen. John Warner's comments from earlier this month about reinstituting a 55-mph national speed cap, a law that was rescinded in the mid-1990s.
Warner, a Virginia Republican, cited studies illustrating how driving less than 60 mph improves a vehicle's fuel efficiency and could save 4,000 lives annually across the country.
According to the U.S. Department of Energy, every 5 miles a motorist drives faster than 60 mph adds about another 30 cents a gallon to fuel costs.
Warner's suggestion, if followed by most motorists, would theoretically mean a downturn in American demand for oil and, consequently, a downturn in domestic gasoline prices.
Gasoline prices are, on average, nearly $1.10 per gallon above what they were at this time last year, according to the U.S. Energy Information Association. AAA reported Thursday that the average price of regular gasoline was $4.03 per gallon.
The price spike is the result of fast-rising worldwide demand for crude oil. According to the U.S. Energy Information Association, crude oil constitutes about 74 percent of each gallon of gasoline.
When an Arab oil embargo in the early 1970s drove up the price of gasoline, the federal government introduced the 55- mph speed limit. The feds repealed the limit in 1995, when crude oil cost $17 per barrel and the price of a gallon of gasoline was $1.10, according to The Associated Press.
"Given the significant increase in the number of vehicles on America's highway system from 1974 to 2008, one could assume that the amount of fuel that could be conserved today is far greater," Warner wrote in a letter to Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman, the AP reported.
McCrarey said there's nothing to prevent a driver now from traveling 55 mph "as long as they stay in the right-hand lane and let faster traffic pass on the left."
However, he said, imposing a 55-mph speed limit could lead to more traffic deaths because many motorists would continue driving above 55 mph, making slower traffic hazardous.
"Speed doesn't kill," he said. "Difference in speed kills."
To lower gas prices, the United States would be better off expanding domestic drilling, McCrarey said.
However, according to several news reports, it would take a long time to search across thousands of square miles of ocean and land for possible oil wells, then build facilities to extract that oil.
And according to
www.marketwatch.com, "Recent studies by the Bush Administration's own Energy Information Administration (EIA) have shown that expanded drilling offshore and in the (Arctic National Wildlife Refuge) would have little impact on supply before 2030 and an 'insignificant' impact on prices at the pump."
Meanwhile, there appears to be no movement in Harrisburg to reduce Pennsylvania's speed limit from 65 mph to 55 mph.
"As of today, there have been no bills introduced in the House and I've heard of no action (elsewhere)," said state Rep. Dave Hickernell, a Lancaster County Republican who serves on the House Transportation Committee.
E-mail: dpidgeon@lnpnews.com
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