🚀 go-pugleaf

[Extracted without permission from Friday's Washington Post editorials:]

MARYLAND: 55 IS FINE

Once again a proposal to lift Maryland's top speed limit to 65 miles
an hour is weaving through the state legislature at high speed.  Last
year, it made it all the way to the governor's office, where it was,
fortunately, brought up short by a veto.  This time, the state Senate
ought to play traffic copy by pulling the thing over and sending it to
the junkyard before it gets that far.

The legislation has already been passed by the House and is scheduled
for a Senate committee vote today.  If you've driven on an interstate
highway in Maryland recently, you might wonder what the point of it
is.  There seems to be no inhibition on large numbers of people going
65 mph and over despite the existing limit of 55.  The legislation
would, nevertheless, authorize the higher speed on certain stretches
of the interstates designated rural, some of which are not all that
rural (270 north of Gaithersburg, for example).  The chief effect is
likely to be a de facto speed of 70 or higher in a number of areas
that carry a lot of traffic.
z
It's hard to believe that this won't cause an increase in traffic
deaths and injuries, although some proponents of the higher limit
argue that point.  What's less debatable is that the 55 mph limit
reduces air pollution and - more important - gasoline consumption.
That was the point of it when Congress enacted the limit of 55 nearly
20 years ago to help the country deal with an Arab oil embargo by
conserving gasoline.

The embargo is long over, and oil is relatively plentiful - at least
for now.  Congress has allowed states to ease up on the 55 mph limit,
and many of them have.  Some in the Maryland legislature say this is
justification for their state's upping the limit also.  But the fact
is that wasting oil still isn't a good idea.  And in these days of
"Buy American," it might be worth noting that one of the
biggest-selling imports in this country is oil.  All in all, there's
not much reason for lifting the limit to 65 and a great deal of sense
in keeping it where it is.

---

If this proposal passes, Maryland might finally leave the company of
the states in the continental US that still have 55 mph limits [PA,
RI, CT, NY, NJ, DE].

I'll not comment on the editorial, save for questioning one of the
Post's main arguments - will highway speeds of 55 mph save any gas
over 65 mph speeds?  Extemporaneous evidence suggests a 65 mph limit
will _not_ increase gas consumption.

-Declan / declan@seas.gwu.edu