Drive Against 55

Some states are flooring it

When Richard Nixon signed into law the Emergency Highway Energy Conservation Act in 1974, it seemed to be one of those rare, unimpeachably wise legislative acts: the measure made 55 m.p.h. the national speed limit. Since automobiles operate more efficiently and far more safely at 55 than at higher speeds, the limit has in seven years saved more than 20 billion gal. of gasoline and as many as 60,000 lives.

Now, however, the 55 m.p.h. speed limit appears headed for a stretch of rough pavement. Bills to raise or circumvent the speed limit are under consideration in more than a score of state legislatures, particularly in the West, where ornery "sagebrush rebellion" sentiment fuels anger at all kinds of federal impositions. In some states, highway patrolmen are looking the other way as speeders pass. In others, such as Texas and California, fast drivers greatly outnumber police available to stop them. Last week in Nevada, a state consisting almost entirely of wide open spaces, the Governor signed a bill that makes speeders caught going no more than 70 subject to only a token $5 "energy wasting" fine. (If clocked any faster, Nevadans will still be cited for speeding.) Montana has legally flouted the national limit since 1974 with a similar statute. Says newly unleashed Las Vegas Driver Dennis Gomes: "Here it's not like one of those Eastern states where the population density is so much greater and it's maybe 55 miles from one end of the state to the other. I would rather have a little risk and get to where I'm going faster."

According to the National Safety Council, heavy-footed Nevadans and Montanans face chilling risks on their highways: those states' automobile death rates are respectively first and third highest in the U.S., several times greater than in 47-mile-long Rhode Island, for instance. In February, when a bill to institute a higher speed limit in Georgia was under debate, State Representative Benson Ham bitterly opposed the measure on accident-prevention grounds. Snapped Ham at one of his antagonists in the legislature: "I'm not surprised to see a funeral director speaking for this bill." The move was defeated. Police in many states enthusiastically support the lower limit. Says Maryland State Police Captain Milton Taylor: "Here in the Northeast Corridor we've got so much congestion that it's almost impossible to drive sanely at more than 55." Taylor concedes that there are regional differences. "Out in the prairie states or the Southwest they've got the stretching room for a higher speed limit."

Arizona and North Dakota have moved to raise their limits, but only if the federal maximum is raised or repealed. And, in fact, Republican S.I. Hayakawa recently introduced a repeal bill in the U.S. Senate. Yet the Reagan Administration does not intend to press the issue, even though last year's Republican Party platform included a call for removal of the national 55 m.p.h. limit. The federal official in charge of making the limit stick, Highway Administrator Ray Barnhart, is a reluctant taskmaster. Says he: "I think it's a stinking law, but I'm going to enforce it." His means are potent: if the feds determine from periodic speed checks that more than half of a state's drivers are ignoring the limit, U.S. highway funds can be reduced. In the case of Texas, for example, lax enforcement --about 70% of Texas drivers are speeders --should technically trigger an annual loss of $8 million.

Proponents of a higher speed limit sometimes make a perverse fiscal argument against conservation. As South Carolina State Representative Eugene Stoddard explains, "Driving faster hurts gas mileage. More gas would be used, and that would increase our gas tax revenue." Indeed, in each year since 1974, the states have collectively been deprived of perhaps $250 million in taxes on the 3.4 billion gal. of gas a 55 m.p.h. speed limit is said to save annually. Admits Colorado State Representative Bob Stephenson: "Money drives this issue." Perhaps. Yet it is mostly the myth that citizens have some divine right to barrel down the highway unfettered by law or prudence that makes a good idea seem dangerously unAmerican.

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