If the money we paid in road and fuel taxes went on providing a more reliale, robust, and wider reaching public transport system so we can park and ride more – as an example, where I live, it’s 12 miles from where I work. By car it takes approx 15 mins, by public transport it would take me 75 mins, and even then I’d still have to walk about 1 mile after that to get to the office.

Our alternatives are not available yet, so all the pressure these groups and website put on people driving certain vehicles, the higher costs of motoring from higher fuel costs and road taxes are only causing issues to motorists on lower incomes, as they need to decide between paying to drive (fuel, tax etc) or putting food on the table or paying the rent, they can’t do all three.

Unless there is a viable alternative for all, these arguments are without a firm basis – we can argue all day about mileage, gas use, prices, speed limits and ‘poor’ vehicle choices, and yes, in some cases, I do question why people NEED a huge SUV or pickup, that is never used to tow, and never goes offroad, but that’s that person’s choice – but it won’t stop them driving, it won’t get people to dump their oil burning cars and buy shiney new hybrids – we can’t afford it yet, we can’t afford in terms of cost and time to use a public transport infrastructure that is inadequate for a high percentage of the population.

I drive a 4×4! It’s an Audi A6 Allroad, but it’s still a 4×4 – does that make me a bad person? I use it every day, for work, for pleasure (dog agility, photography, shopping and vacations) and I won’t sell it to by a hybrid car, as there are none that I like the look of or would work for my lifestyle – it’s my car, my choice and I would use a train to travel to cities instead of a plane – but I still need to drive to the station in the first place.

As I said, until an alternative that we can all use is made available, then these arguments are a waste of time – use your typing skills to propose that your government ploughs money into alternative transport across the country, not just in cities, then when people have an option, they’ll use it.

The only way a civic non-hybrid gets 35 mph at 82 mph is with a tail wind or dropping in elevation. I have seen a huge difference in mileage depending on what direction the wind is. Up to +- 10 mpg.

However, aggressive driving and tons of acceleration actually does lower your mileage substantially.

About the prius thing, the statement about 1 mpg lost every mph over 50 is BS, and they even say so in effect themselves, saying you’ll only save 5 mpg if you slow down from 60-65. We get about 48-50 mpg driving fairly gently around 50 mph and 45-46 mpg around 75. That’s really not much difference.

http://www.greencarcongress.com/2007/05/ford_charts_imp.html

http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/driveHabits.shtml
(I know this is the government, and they’re all in some sort of conspiracy to collect money from Civic drivers through speeding tickets.. but there is it anyway.)

http://www.hybridcars.com/gas-saving-tips/maximizing-mileage-toyota-prius.html
And here is a link from this very website. Of course these guys don’t know that they’re talking about.. or why would you be reading their website… oh wait….

About my ‘jumps’ in percentage, I said only a portion of driving is done on expressways. Because this 55 mph limit of yours would only affect that, the percentage would be smaller. Then, given that no one would care about it, the real savings would be small, i.e. two percent.

And actually, I haven’t gotten 40 mpg at 55 mph. I don’t know if that’s even the peak efficiency. And even I hypothetically could by gently cruising for hours, that would be a savings of only 5 mpg (13% or so) from dropping a whole TWENTY FIVE MILES AN HOUR. Given my city driving that day, the MPG was probably closer to 36, meaning a drop of only ten percent. Is gallon of gas or less really worth an extra hour of my time? Sure, my peak fuel efficiency isn’t 80, but it doesn’t get hurt much. RPM at 80-85 mph in the civic is still well under 3000, I get to about 2000 at maybe 63 mph. MPG mostly depends on how high your RPM’s are at a given speed, the engine (stuff like ivtec which saves fuel, or so I’ve heard), and the aerodynamics. My dad gets only very slightly less mpg at 75 mph than 60 in his prius, definitely not a 20% reduction. The drop off as you go higher in speed is most likely more gradual the more aerodynamic the car, so this won’t equate to a 20% loss. Isn’t the loss SUPPOSED to be 25% from 55 to 75? At most, the difference in my car and my dad’s car has been quite neglegible. I’ve heard of people going from 40 to 27 in an unaerodynamic early 00′s hyundai accent from 60 to 80 mph, so aerodynamics would seem to have an effect on the curve.

I already stated why lower speed limits don’t work. They’re used as an abusive way to extract revenue from the public, and since only a part of driving is highway related and few will comply, the savings are neglegible. Ideally, the savings would be maybe 4%, since 20% supposed fuel savings and only 55% transportation use (11%), plus if you assumed half of fuel spent is spent on highways (6%), which I’m not sure is accurate, that cuts it further, finally adding in the reality that the savings is not equal for every car (4%). If you factor in the reality that probably 60% won’t change their speed and half of those who do will only slow down 10 mph, the savings will be 2% at best. I really don’t think it’s worth looking at at all when there are ways to make a HUGE dent in oil consumption without ripping people off.

Sociopath, what color is the sky in your world? You make some pretty impressive statements with no backing for any of them.

Fact: Slowing down will save gas. It isn’t about a philosophical disagreement with government regulations. It is physics. Your jumps from 20% to 5-10% to 2% defies logic. 55% of 20% is 11% (using your numbers).

Fact: Slowing down will save lives. Regardless of how impressive your brakes and reaction time are, the slower the traffic is moving, the safer it will be. Again, this isn’t philosophy, this is reality. You may feel that we shouldn’t, on principal, restrict drivers ability to drive how they want, but that doesn’t change the fact that if everybody drives slower, the highways are safer.

And, yes, some cars will have peak gas mileage at above 55 mph. Some very aerodynamic cars might peak at 65 or 70 mph. These vehicles are typically sports cars and have high gear ratios (like a corvette). Every car’s gas mileage will decrease very rapidly above that. The fact that your civic got 35 mpg doing 80 only proves that the Civic is very efficient. You’d probably have gotten 40 mpg at 55 mph. (Indeed the EPA rating on your car is 36 mpg highway). The vast majority of cars are going to get peak gas mileage around 55 mph. The less aerodynamic a car (i.e. Suvs, trucks, etc.) the lower that peak speed will be. Not coincidentally, those vehicles also use more gas.

And regarding electric cars, driving 80 in an electric car will waste energy in the same way that driving 80 in a ICE car will. That energy may ultimately come from a power plant, but electric cars will not solve the speed question.

Again, I’m not a proponent of lower speed limits. I think there are other ways to reduce consumption, but I think we should look honestly at speed limits. They will lower consumption of gas. That is a fact. Whether this benefit is worth the cost, or whether there are better ways to reduce gas consumption, that is a whole other issue.

Last time I went to L.A. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing on my way back to Las Vegas. The line of cars on a Sunday afternoon went all the way from L.A. to Barstow, which is 115 miles away!!! Good thing I was driving on the other direction and there wasn’t any traffic.

What I am trying to say with all this is: If you could travel on a train that doesn’t use gas at all, that would take you less than half the time, and that you know it’s impossible to get stuck in traffic, wouldn’t you rather do that?
Instead of playing around with gas taxes and all that stuff, I think the government should invest in quality traveling.
And if for whatever reason you still need a car at your destination you can always rent it.

And about lowering the speed limit, technology nowadays improves so fast that lowering speed limits just doesn’t make any sense. We are doing the same speed limit today and 20 years ago. Nowadays cars have incredible gadgets to help you drive. The braking distance is not at all the same today and 20 years ago. Now we have traction control systems. Instead of drums we have ventilated powered braking discs, anti-blocking system, amazing tires that no longer explode like they used to do and even with some tires you can keep driving for a couple hundred miles at low speeds before getting your tire replaced.

So what we need to do is to reinforce the basic driving rules like staying on the right lane unless you are overtaking, using your blinkers and do a speed according to your vehicle and it’s characteristics. If we all respected that there would be very little accidents. I can tell you that driving fast can be safe. I’ve driven on the Autobahn in Germany doing over 120 mph and it felt like doing 60. If you want to go slow you stick to the right lane and you leave the left lanes for Ferraris, Lamborghinis and everyone that wants to enjoy the pleasure of driving.

Drive safe and promote public transportation!!

Sure, insane enforcement levels help curb this, but for what? Speeding doesn’t kill, morons driving fast kill. As long as you keep a safe following distance, use your turn signals properly, and keep right when you’re not passing, you will be driving safely. Of course, you also need to know the limits of your car and not take it too fast around turns.

And don’t give me that reaction time BS, because everyone’s reaction time is different, and modern cars stop A LOT faster than the government’s pathetic ‘stopping times’. Saying that your reaction time is faster at lower speeds is just suggesting the limit be lowered to 0 because it doesn’t suggest anthing.

Oh, and also, mileage depends on the car. I recall back in September, I got 34-35 mpg doing 82 mph on the freeway in my 06 civic coupe combined with quite some time in city traffic. Gas mileage depends on the gearing, RPM’s, and aerodynamics of the car. Not every car peaks at 60 mph.

The environmental lobby in Germany neglects the fact that a speed limit would only net a 2% carbon savings for the entire country, all the while disrupting traffic, pissing people off, giving out unnecessary fines, etc.

Want to ‘save gas’? Demand that the government ban corporations from holding electric car patents. Have them offer incentives to companies who wish to mass produce electric cars. It’s a small investment, but the benefits are ENORMOUS. The oil barons have for decades purposely ignored and postponed the technology until we’re desperate for an alternative so they can make big off high oil prices. And don’t give me that BS about electric cars hurting the power grid and still producing pollution either; even the Tesla roadster which is as fast as a Lamborghini Gallardo ( I believe now in limited production) can go 230 miles on $2.50 of electricity. Using oil to power a car wastes a lot more energy in transition and requires much more enery investment to extract, refine, transport, etc. Even if electric cars may technically use electricity from a polluting power plant the amount of CO2 comparatively released is probably less than 10%.