Speed is money: Are you slowing down?

We do not need lower speed limits to conserve fuel. In Europe, where gas is much more expensive, they have much higher speed limits yet manage to conserve. For example in France, where gas is over $8/gal, the freeway speed limit is just over 80 mph and like here traffic moves a little faster than posted speed. I have been going easier on the throttle now that gas is more, but I don't need or believe in lower speed limits to convince me to do so.

The savings from driving a more efficient car will far outweigh the idea of lower speed limits, which would be universally ignored anyway and take us back to the days when police were more like revenuers than law enforcement.

We are already moving in the direction of more efficient cars in a big hurry, for proof of that all you need to do is go down to the Toyota dealer and try to trade in an Explorer on a Prius! (or even just try to buy a Honda Fit off a dealer lot!).

I have 3 comments
1) Why not try enforcing the existing posted speed limit? I am very confused about speed limits. If I just do the posted limit, then I am passed by all traffic. Lowering the speed limit would have little effect unless it is enforced.
2) In the July 23rd(today)front page article about traffice deaths on page 10a, it states that 42,642 people died on the roads in 2006 across the US. Why doesn't the press play that up? Look at the totals for North Carolina. 551 traffic deaths in the first 5 months of 2008. If a plane crashed and 551 people died we would have a NTSB investigation!
3) The cost of gas hurts at $4 a gallon. I am on a fixed income and have to be careful on spending. Of course it saves money to slow down! I have slowed down about 5mph in general and I save around 15% on my gas. It just makes sense. Is that what people are lacking?

Everyone laughed at Ford and Carter with the 55 MPH limits and other energy conservation efforts. But they both showed leadership in a time when being conservative was about saving and not wasting, rather than self-righteousness. Reagan and the neo-cons eventually neutered it in '87. If driving 60 rather than 70 saves 15% of one's fuel consumption for the same miles driven, reduce vehicular pollution emissions, denature some aggressive driving, and reduces the likelihood or severity of an accident, then that seems -- intelligent. If we import 14% of our oil from the Middle East, and driving a bit slower will remove nearly all need for that import, we consumers suddenly have a powerful tool to change poorly-considered foreign policy and alliances ourselves. We don't have to wait for the next Beltway bozo. Slowing down creates all manner of opportunity for America. Imagine a world where we can fully deal with Iran on our own terms, leave Iraq to its tribal blunders, pull out from supporting a brutal Saudi regime, and denature Bin Laden's motivators against us. Slowing down would be vastly more patriotic than wearing a flag pin. Pity we are in too much of a rush to understand it.