Everyone who has a driver’s license in
the United States knows (or at least should know) that a vast majority
of drivable roads and all highways have a speed limit. Those speed
limits vary across the country. Since I was born and raised in the
New England area, I think of the highway speed limit as being from
55-65 miles per hour. As you move to the west and to the south, the
speed limit starts to increase to 70 or 75 miles per hour. But I
think we all must be honest here; very few people actually do the
speed limit on the highway. You get a few people who are under the
speed limit and a ton that are 5 miles per hour or more over the
speed limit and occasionally someone is dead on. So, at times it’s a little confusing.
Where am I going with this? This
week I’ve been asked to figure out why we have these speed limits and if they are
going to change.
It was interesting to learn that the
first speed limit actually dates back to 1865 in the United Kingdom. It was defined in the Locomotive Act. In cities, the speed limit
was 2 miles per hour and in more rural areas it was 4 miles per hour.
This legislation wasn’t just about the speed limit though. In fact,
the more interesting part in my opinion, is that it required you to
have three people to operate a vehicle: a driver, a stoker and
someone who carried a red flag or lantern that walked in front of the
vehicle. The man with the red flag or lantern was there to make sure
others were aware the vehicle was approaching and it forced the
vehicle to stick to a lower speed. Later in 1878, they added that
vehicles must stop if there is a horse on the road and vehicles could
not emit any smoke or steam that may frighten a horse. Finally in
1896, the speed limit was increased to 14 miles per hour and they no
longer required each vehicle to have three people to operate it.
We have come a long way since then.
More and more cars started to clutter up the roads, speed limits increased, regulations like
license plates and driver’s licenses were put in place and vehicles
are now owned and driven by millions of people across the United States.
Nationwide, prior to January of 1974,
the highway speed limit ranged from 40 to 80 miles per hour and the limits
were determined by the states. Towards the close of 1973, the Arab
members of the Organization for Petroleum Exporting Countries placed
an embargo on oil shipments to the United States in response to their
supporting Israel in the Yom Kippur War. In an attempt preserve the
limited oil supply, the Nixon administration passed a law that set
all national highways to have a speed limit of 55 mph. While the
federal government doesn’t have the authority to enforce this, they do
regulate how funding is allocated to the states. They took advantage of this and as part of the law any state that did not lower their speed limits would be denied
federal funding from the Department of Transportation. Some states
were not happy with this but had little choice but to comply.
Notably, Nevada and Montana protested in a small way by only giving a $5.00 fine to
anyone who went over the speed limit on a road that they previously
had no such restriction. They called it an “energy wasting”
ticket.
In 1987, Congress increased the limit
to 65 miles per hour due to public pressure. Finally in 1995, the law
was repealed and the control of speed limits was given back to the
states.
Some argued that the increase in speed
would increase the number of accident related fatalities
and opposed both the increase and the repel. There are mixed findings
on whether or not this is the case. When the law first was passed,
the number of fatalities did in fact decrease. When the speed limit
was first raised, there was an increase in fatalities and another
increase when the law was repealed. However, this does not mean that
the speed limit was the cause. An increase of the number of cars and
the fact that people starting using highways instead of country roads
are two possible factors. Studies that considered these factors
and others actually found a small decrease in the fatality rate.
As for the original goal of the law,
the amount of fuel saved by the United States was somewhere between
0.5-1 percent. Which was not nearly as significant as originally
thought.
So, are they going to change speed limits any time
soon? Well, that depends on the states. For example, Texas is
considering raising the speed limits on some of their highways to 85
miles per hour. But as far as I can tell, most have no immediate plans for change. I didn’t
come across any states that were considering decrease speed limits
except temporarily for construction. But if anyone else does let me
know.