55 mph would help conserve fuel

By Dave Churchill (Contact) | The Daily Journal

Published Friday, April 27, 2007

Heading home from a business trip earlier this week I reached the Fargo airport about 11:30 in the evening, Northwest’s last flight in for the day.

As a compulsive clock-watcher, I always time my trips to and from the airport (and everywhere else). A lucky green light was showing as I turned right off the airport road, and weeknight traffic was non-existent. Conditions were perfect for a minimum-time drive. I was not disappointed – from parking lot to garage took not too much more than an hour.

As I motored home along the nearly empty Interstate, I thought about how quick the trip to Fargo had become, indeed how fast every drive seems to be.

Back before speed limits went the way of the dinosaurs, we’d occasionally drive from Fergus Falls to Madison, Wis., to visit relatives. It is about a 450-mile drive and at the time a real odyssey. We drove at 58 mph, as fast as we dared over the speed limit, because a ticket would have been a real budget-buster for us. If we could have driven without stopping, always maintaining that speed, the trip would have taken about seven hours and 45 minutes.

Today, with higher speed limits and a trend for all drivers to edge further past those limits, the same trip would take just 5:50.

Of course, those aren’t “real” times; they don’t account for slowdowns like heavy traffic, construction or weather, and slower speeds near the start and end points. But they are interesting calculations about what today’s speeds mean.

The same math applied to a trip to Fargo yields about a 15-minute time savings. Over that shorter distance, the speed change doesn’t have as much impact; 15 minutes isn’t a lot of time, not something most of us would mind spending on occasion.

We used to spend that time in the car as a matter of course, because for the 14 years preceding 1987, the national speed limit was 55 mph, an energy-saving measure that President Nixon imposed in response to the 1973 Arab oil embargo.

As we wrestle again today with our nation’s dependence on foreign oil, it’s worth thinking about a return to the days of 55 mph limits. It is believed that the speed limit saved, during the 1980s, about 2.2 percent of the total gasoline and diesel fuel that would otherwise have been used. We are driving faster now than we were in the early 1970s, so perhaps the savings would be even larger now.

It is an idea not likely to be popular. Under pressure from drivers wanting to go ever faster, most states have continued to inch speed limits upwards. Just this spring, the Minnesota Department of Transportation announced a plan to raise some rural speed limits that are now 55 mph.

A couple of months ago, I wrote an editorial about how silly that idea was. My concern was safety. Now, I wonder if it isn’t a silly waste of fuel.

A 55 mph limit becomes more palatable when compared to some other alternatives to saving fuel. Europe imposes ultra-high taxes designed specifically to curb fuel use. How does $6 a gallon sound? I’d rather spend 15 minutes more on a 60-mile trip than $3.75 a gallon more for fuel.

Tougher limits on vehicle fuel economy are another option. We love our SUVs and pick-up trucks and vans, but they are not fuel efficient. Which would you rather have the government do: Tell you what you can drive or how fast to drive it?

Most of us would choose none of the above, given a perfect world. But it’s not a perfect world and one of those imperfections is the increasing scarcity of liquid fossil fuels. We can put our heads in the sand, but it won’t stop the gas from some day running short.

No economy measure will prevent that from happening. But they would all help. And perhaps it would be better to make some of our own choices before they are forced on us. Driving a little slower might not be a bad option, considering the alternatives.

Journal publisher Dave Churchill’s column runs on Fridays. This column appeared in a previous edition of The Journal.