Drive the speed limit.

In a 2005 Jetta, driving a daily, mostly highway commute of 19 miles each direction, I went from 380 miles to 480 miles per fillup simply by slowing the hell down and doing 55 mph instead of 75 mph. A/C vs. windows got nothin' on that 20% mileage increase.

While it took a period of adjustment, I find that the drive is much less stressful as I no longer have to worry about "how am i going to get around this slow poke?!?!"; instead, I am the slow poke driving courteously and legally in the right hand lane. Safer, cheaper, more environmentally sound, and 100% devoid of chances to get a ticket.

The oddest thing I find is that it scratches my nascent, rebellious punk rock itch. How ironic that courtesy and adherence to the law should be this "punk"'s way of sticking it to society!

So your the one.

If you are driving in city conditions, it makes a lot of sense to drive at the speed limit, because driving fast usually means just racing to the next stop light. You are not going to get to your destination an faster.

Highway driving is very different. I'm not sure where you live that you have 55MPH Speed Limits, but where I live the average Highway Speed Limit is 70, and most drive at least 75. If you drive 55MPH here, you are a hazard.

I suggest it is not your rebellious punk rock itch that is kicking in, but rather senility. You are turning into Andy Rooney. So eat your prunes and take the bus gramps.

You hit the proverbial nail on its proverbial head. Slow down and save lots of money, lower your blood pressure and extend the life of your vehicle and all of its parts. If we lowered the speed limits and enforced them for a couple of years we would save millions of barrels of oil, lower insurance rates, save countless lives and prevent many serious injuries.

But I guess its easier and more fun for people to argue over the extra 3 miles they are going to get out of a 20 gallon tank of gasoline by rolling down a window.

Cute idea, but doesn't really work that way...

When Nixon forced the 55MPH speed limit on us he did so arbitrarily. Studies done by the Department of Transportation showed, to save any significant amount of gasoline, the speed limit would have to be lowered to 45MPH. No one would drive that slow, so they implemented a "compromise" - the 55MPH,which did not save fuel but made us feel like we were doing something. It, also, was treated as a financial windfall in states like California, (they promoted the myth that driving faster that 55 was markedly dangerous. It wasn't. When they raised the speed limits, California conveniently forgot about all the money they had given their fascist highway patrol - my favorite was their campaign to convince people they were doing them a favor by stopping them for speeding - to convince people that driving faster than 55MPH was unsafe.), who milked all the speeding tickets they could out of it.

If reducing the speed limit could produce a measurable savings in fuel, it would be re-imposed in a heartbeat. That it isn't is a pretty good indicator that it didn't work the first time.

Nineteen miles is not a significant distance. Try living in the wide open spaces of the west, (California is not the west I am talking about). It is between 60 and 75 miles to the nearest city with significant services from where I live. I am talking about a city with supermarkets, clothing stores, et cetera. [There is not even a pharmacy in the town where I live.] We have no choice but to drive the distance. Nothing in Montana is "just down the road" - "just down the road" begins when something is "only" 100 miles away.

Trying driving through a whole lot of nothing at 55MPH. You'll go nuts, quick. Not to mention it takes much longer to get there, which isn't always practical. Furthermore, there is no significant difference in MPG between driving 75MPH and 55MPH in my car. Even when the feds mandated the 55MPH limit, the State of Montana didn't give out speeding tickets when you exceeded 55MPH. They gave out "energy wasting tickets" - $5 a pop and no points. At least, Idaho, Wyoming and Arizona did the same thing.

What works in the big cities does not work in rural areas. If you were really serious, you would ride public transportation, instead of driving. Would that it were we had public transportation where I live...

Cute argument, but from the first tank of gas I tried this with, it did work. As stated in my first post, 75 mph to 55 mph equaled a 20-25% mileage increase. The speed limit on the Baltimore beltway is 55. The speed limit on 795 to Owings Mills is 60. I drive no slower than 5 mph under the limit. I go through 7 stop lights on my way to work. It's not city driving.

"If you were really serious, you would ride public transportation, instead of driving."

Really serious about what? What argument are you attributing to me that I'm not making? Regardless, public transportation isn't convenient here either. If you were serious about whatever it is you think I'm not serious about, you could move.

How is someone driving slower than the speed limit a hazard? Be careful here, I am setting a trap for you.

Interesting results on the MPG.

When I said, "you" would take public transportation, I was addressing the collective you, not you personally.

Moving from where I live, isn't possible or I would do it.

Driving significantly under the speed limit is most certainly a hazard, and definetly a major pain in the ass.

Move to Florida and check yourself into a retirement community already. Then you can putter around in your rascal and mosey on down to early bird dinner special with your left turn signal on.

Andy Rooney called, and he wants his schtick back.

tj, your unfounded, age-based jokes aren't funny, and you aren't addressing my posts. I never advocated driving significantly under the speed limit. My original post stated clearly that driving the speed limit itself was all that was necessary.

In Maryland, where I live, the speed limit of most highways is 55 mph. The average speed on the road is 70-75. I do 55.

Regardless, I still would like to know what exactly makes someone driving significantly under the speed limit a hazard, much less someone doing 0-5 mph less than the posted maximum?

Please respond civilly; your political posts gave me the impression that you were a more pleasant person than these last 2.

...or a lot of other places.

If, for example, you chose to drive on an 8 lane freeway or even a standard 4 lane freeway and were significantly below THE SPEED REQUIRED TO KEEP UP WITH TRAFFIC, you would be ticketed for creating an obstruction.

Think that isn't fair? Well, look at it this way. Traffic tends to move in bunches. When a grouping of cars has to start changing lanes to dodge around you, the odds of severe accidents increases tremendously. Rather than try to force ALL traffic to maintain an artificial limit, it is more cost-effective and safer for all drivers to ensure that everyone is moving at roughly the same speed.

You might be able to live with the accidents that happen around you, but the police don't actually enjoy scraping human beings off the pavement because you feel the need to get home smug rather than safe.

I have no experience with Texas, but my father actually is the guy flying the helicopters that transports human carnage from the highway to the hospital in Maryland. He's never pulled an accident caused by people speeding like idiots to move around a driver following the maximum speed limit. He has pulled plenty of people who were exceeding the speed limit and unable to stop in time when forced to brake abruptly upon encountering a deer in the road/an accident on the other side of the hill/a rubbernecking situation.

Fact is, a car going the speed limit is going to be paying much more attention to his surroundings than the jackass swerving between lanes because he has to prove he's king of the road. And the jackass is spending more on gas, to boot.

Jackass? Not very civil or pleasant.

In your on post you state that almost everyone around you is driving about twenty miles over the limit, indicating that the 55MPH limit is not an effective law. If people in the crowded Eastern corridor can't bring themselves to putt along at the double nickel, how can you expect anyone in the vast expanse that is most of the United States to drive at that snails pace.

Yes, there are interstates that go through major metro areas, where lower limits make sense. Just like you should not speed through a school zone.

Outlaw driving fast in America, you will make most Americans outlaws. By your own admission, this is already true in Maryland.

A great American once said "I can't drive, fifty five!"

Sorry, I've heard that cheesy excuse too many times to take it seriously. The simple fact is that if you don't keep up with traffic, you are an obstruction on the road. In some states, it's called "creating a hazardous condition".

Deliberately causing EVERYONE AROUND YOU to brake frantically so that you can save 50 cents a day is dangerous. That you appear to be getting a perverse thrill from watching the carnage that drivers like you cause on the highways makes you a sad little man. Bragging about it makes you a fool.

You're not asking the right question, cmolt. Someone driving significantly slower than the average speed on a highway is at least as much of a hazard as someone driving significantly above that average speed. It's the speed relative to other vehicles that matters. It's much safer for all the cars on the freeway to be moving about 70 mph than for 99% of them to be doing 70 and 1% to be doing 50, EVEN IF THE LIMIT IS 55.

It is just as true to say that it would be safer for all the cars to be doing 55 instead of 99% at 55 and 1% at 70.

One of the issues with US highway traffic is that regulators ignore the science. Traffic research shows that the ideal speed on a highway is that at which about 85% of drivers naturally drive, and the number of people who routinely exceed the speed limits on many roads suggests that they are set too low. Sometimes this is due to a statewide maximum, sometimes it's due to local governments looking at drivers as a revenue stream.

In "setting a trap" I think you've fallen into one that was already there.

I think there is no foundation for your assumption that someone driving the speed limit will necessarily be paying more attention than someone exceeding it. Someone who is truly a "jackass" may indeed not be paying enough attention, but he's as likely to be a jackass because he's dawdling along 15 mph slower than the flow of traffic, or talking on his cell phone, or a combination of factors.

It's safer to move close to the speed of the flow of traffic.