View Single Post
  #7  
Old July 5th 08, 07:56 PM posted to misc.transport.road,rec.autos.driving
Bill[_12_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 36
Default 55 returning? It had better not-the dumbest law since Prohibition


"XOZ" > wrote in message
...
> On Jul 5, 3:56 am, "Matt Wiser" > wrote:
>> Anyone notice Sen. John Warner (R-VA) proposing a National Speed Limit?
>> It's easy for him
>> to do so, as he's retiring from the Senate, and won't have to face the
>> wrath of angry voters.
>> According to AP, he's contacted the Dept. of Energy to ask what speed
>> limit (either 55 or
>> 60) would be most fuel-efficient. 55 may have been OK east of the
>> Mississippi, but here out
>> West (I'm in CA), it stank. Anyone try an L.A. to Salt Lake at the
>> despised double-nickel?
>> Or SF to Dallas or Seattle to Denver? Brock Yates said it best in 1975:
>> The 55 speed limit
>> is/was the dumbest law since Prohibition. Speed limits should be set by
>> the
>> states, period. If CA wants to go to 70 on Interstates and other rural
>> freeways, or AZ, NV,
>> UT, and NM want 75, let them. Like the Sammy Hagar song goes: "I can't
>> drive 55."

>
> How dare any of the speed nazis from Vagina propose anything. Those
> people in the "Commonwealth" should put everybody in the legislature
> out of office for what they're doing to their own citizens with speed
> enforcement. Any return to the 55 MPH is highway robbery, plain and
> simple. And btw, try driving I-16 in South Georgia at 55...it's not
> just those western states that an unreasonable 55 MPH would be a
> police state bonanza for.


For those who weren't around for the original 55 law, it should be pointed
out that the law itself didn't change any speed limits outside of federal
property. Instead it coerced the individual states into lowering their speed
limits by threatening to withhold federal highway dollars for those that did
not comply. This is the same technique used to impose the 21-year-old
drinking requirement, among others. No state can be forced to lower their
limit by federal law, just "encouraged". So even if a federal law were
passed, there is always a faint hope that at least some state legislatures
will have some backbone, and not sell out their citizens for their 30 pieces
of federal gold.



Ads