josh, this is like claiming the engine uses less fuel when it's shut than when it's running. aerodymics aren't magic. a vehicle moving at 65mph is still encountering more air resistance than when moving at 55mph. there are many interesting aspects in automobile technology today, yet today's average vehicle consumes more fuel than in years past. it *may* be that today's vehicles are as aerodynamically efficient at 65mph as earlier vehicles were at 55mph, but that seems doubtful and in itself means little. gearing? a vehicle in 6th gear (wish they'd started making them decades ago) will always consume less fuel at 55mph than at 65mph. can you provide any citations to back up these rather outlandish claims you make?
On 4/25/08, Josh Boltrek <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Very well put Chip. Too many people are overly-anxious to demand laws to > fix what ought to be dealt with using common sense and/or market/social > forces. Very often, laws are enacted to affect change for things which are > changing anyway (say, in response to voter 'demand for action'). This can > often lead to a backlash, as the results tend to swing too far in the > desired direction. This is because the legislators are simply implimenting > what is often happening on its own. Thus, we spend half our time > legislating what 'ought to be the law,' and the other half trying to figgure > out how to effectively rein-in the results of those laws. > > On the topic of speed limits specifically: Many cars now are actually more > efficient at 65 MPH than they are at 55 MPH (due to gearing, aerodynamics, > better tyres, etc). The other thing to consider when thinking about speed > limits is time savings, and how that can affect accident rates. Many > studies have shown that accident rates have decreased with the higher speed > on US highways. This seems to be because drivers do not have to spend > nearly as much time monitoring the speedometer, and they can relax more- > simply driving at a speed that is comfortable. This leads to less fatigue, > and therefore fewer accidents. Cleaning up accidents takes a significant > amount of time and resources, and building new cars to replace crashed ones > uses even more. > > Therefore, I put forward the idea that leaving the speed limits where they > are will ultimately use less fuel than reducing the speed limits will. If > petrol gets expensive enough, people will naturally begin to demand higher > efficiency from their cars, and drive at the most efficient speed for their > particular car. The most notable result of the 55 MPH speed limit was not > actually fuel savings, but rather massive revenue gains for the Highway > Patrol. > > Cheers, > > Josh > > > > ----- Original Message ---- > From: Chip Mefford <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > To: sustainablelorgbiofuel@sustainablelists.org > Sent: Friday, 25 April, 2008 2:46:30 AM > Subject: Re: [Biofuel] We Need To Solve The Oil Crisis--Now > > Brian Schneider wrote: > > Hello, > > Just a comment, why don't we in the US do something else that was > > done in the 70's oil crisis...drop the speed limit back to 55. > > There were a *lot* of problems with this. I'm not going to > go into it all, in fact, I'm barely going to scratch the > surface. But essentially, the nationwide 55mph speed limit > was about as popular as prohibition, and caused many of > the same problems. > > In interest of full disclosure, > when ever I hear 'There ought to be a law", > I duck. > > We have plenty of laws. a few orders of magnitude > too many I'd say. In fact, I'd point to the > current state of affairs as my primary exhibit > in the 'laws don't fix anything' presentation. > > > _______________________________________________ > Biofuel mailing list > Biofuel@sustainablelists.org > http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/sustainablelorgbiofuel > > Biofuel at Journey to Forever: > http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html > > Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (70,000 > messages): > http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/ > > > Get the name you always wanted with the new y7mail email address. > www.yahoo7.com.au/y7mail > -------------- next part -------------- > An HTML attachment was scrubbed... > URL: /pipermail/attachments/20080425/ad0ead5a/attachment.html > _______________________________________________ > Biofuel mailing list > Biofuel@sustainablelists.org > http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/sustainablelorgbiofuel > > Biofuel at Journey to Forever: > http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html > > Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (70,000 > messages): > http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/ > _______________________________________________ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/sustainablelorgbiofuel Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (70,000 messages): http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/
