Alex Miller
Mr. Reuter
Economics
26 April, 2016
To Speed or not to Speed
There has long been debate over the speed limits throughout the U.S. ever since the oil shortages in the 70s. The action by the government was to reduce speed limits to 55 mph. This action helped to reduce the United States dependency on foreign oils and to help the environment.
Speed limits should be reduced again to 55 mph from 70 mph, not only to reduce dependency and save the environment but also to save lives and everyone money. The current speed limits in Wisconsin on major interstates is 70 mph and then 65 mph on state highways. This being said, no one ever really goes that slow, most travel about 75-80 mph. Everyone who does travel this fast is wasting money and gasoline. There is only one advantage to going this fast and that is to save time. What most miss out on or else completely neglect is the chance to maximize efficiency and save money. Here’s an example of how travelling the optimal speed can save you money, Let's take two hypothetical drivers, Bill and Bob. They need to go 60 freeway miles from City A to City B. Both cars get 30 miles per gallon if the driver stayed at 55 mph, the posted speed limit. Bill travels at 55, but Bob speeds and does 75 mph - wanting to get there sooner. At 75 mph, it would take Bob about 48 minutes to reach the destination. At 55 mph, it takes Bill about 65 minutes to reach the destination. At 55 mph, Bill used 2 gallons of gasoline. At $2.80/gallon, that's $5.60 to drive the distance. At 75 mph, Bob would use 2.5 gallons of gasoline. At $2.80/gallon, that would be $7.00 to go the same distance (“Speeding”). If Bill travels this distance to work everyday during the week he will save $14.00 a week. The only thing he would lose is a small amount of sleep. The trade-off between the private costs (fuel cost and damage and injury) and private benefits (time savings) is very large. There are also many external costs that come into play such as injury to others, health impacts and pollution. The costs far outweigh the benefits. All you gain is time, why gain time when you can gain money and ensure that you will be more safe.
Safety plays a very large factor in why speed limits should be reduced once again. The U.S. government reduced the speed limit to 55 mph in the 70s and 80s to help reduce fatalities in car crashes. Now that law is gone and speeds are higher than they have ever been. People on highways and interstates speed excessively, and it is becoming a major problem. In fact, “Speeding is a factor in 31 percent of all fatal crashes, killing an average of 1,000 Americans every month, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA)” (“Speeding”). This means massive amounts of accidents must occur, and the cleaning up and repairing of both people and vehicles has a cost. It is probably a lot more than you may think, “The NHTSA estimates the cost to society of speed-related crashes to be more than $40 billion each year” (“Speeding”). In this Illustration it is seen that as the speed of vehicles is increased along the x-axis, the number of crashes that occur increases as shown by the points along the graph. Along the y-axis it can be seen that as speed increases and the number of crashes occurring increases the percent killed in the accidents increases as well.
All the benefits that come with reducing the speed limits are great for the economy and will help improve the standard of living here in the United States. If trucking and airline companies aren’t afraid to slow down, we shouldn’t be either. It will save everyone money, so everyone should try to change the lead in their right foot into gold in their pocket.
Works Cited
Castleman, Tim. "55 MPH Speed Limit Makes Economic, Political, and Environmental Sense." USA News. USA News, 27 July 2009. Web. 25 Apr. 2016.
"Speeding and Your Vehicle's Mileage." Speeding and Your Vehicle's Mileage. California Energy Commission, n.d. Web. 25 Apr. 2016.
This is especially true with electric cars, my family has a Prius and if you coast/ drive right according to the speed limit there is a good change to reduce the fuel costs. I also recently got a speeding ticket and can say first hand the trade-offs of speeding are not worth it, I leave one or two minutes earlier and don’t have to pay any fines, works for me. I never really thought about the safety trade-offs and that also is a major point. A crash is something that costs a lot and If you're saving up for a cell phone because the interest rates are too high to buy with credit, all that money will now go towards the crash costs, looks like no cell phone for a while.
ReplyDeleteIf the speed limit were reduced to 55 mph would people stop speeding? They wouldn't stop speeding if they could get to their jobs 2 minutes faster. In Chicago where most freeway speed limits are 55 mph, no driver that is going the limit exists. Everyone drives at their own predetermined speed. Changing the limit would not accomplish anything, people will still drive and speed as much as they possible can.
ReplyDeleteIf the speed limit were reduced to 55 mph would people stop speeding? They wouldn't stop speeding if they could get to their jobs 2 minutes faster. In Chicago where most freeway speed limits are 55 mph, no driver that is going the limit exists. Everyone drives at their own predetermined speed. Changing the limit would not accomplish anything, people will still drive and speed as much as they possible can.
ReplyDeleteYou have brought up some very valid and interesting points. However, I think that it’s worth the extra money if you can save yourself time. In our culture people are always in a hurry and having faster speed limits is beneficial. If people would obey the speed limit the danger of driving at high speeds would be significantly reduced. And for those who are concerned about safety and saving money, can’t they just take the slower back roads? I think that if people were more conscientious about driving the speed limit, especially on the interstate, and those who don’t want to go fast speeds would just take the slower roads, it would be a good compromise for all drivers.
ReplyDeleteGreat points and discussion. Overall the argument here is what's worth more? Spending time or money? Also would this law be paid attention if the speed limit was lowered to 55? Even though it would help the environment many people are still ignorant to helping out our environment.
ReplyDeleteAlex, I really like the points that you brought up with this post. However, I would like to correct one thing. The government decreased the speed limits in the 70's and 80's, not to decrease fatalities, but because the two oil crises that were going. This extended fuel efficiency, which happens to further argue your point to decrease the speed limit. Unfortunately most of the companies in America rely on transit to ship their goods. If the speed limit was reduced, this would cause the relative productivity of the company to go down.
ReplyDeleteThis is topic's main argument is would you like to waste more money and get to places on time or save money and get to where you're going later than you were hoping? People with jobs know the feeling that if you get to work late, you get riddled with complaints that you didn't get there in time. Lowering the speed limits down to 55 mph would just encourage those drivers who go that slow already to just go even slower and make people even more late. With the speed limit being 70 mph, it makes those slow drivers go faster so people can get places faster. Even if the speed was reduced to only 55, there are people in the world that'll still do the 75-80 mph so they aren't late. So in reality, the only thing that people will lose is fuel efficiency, but with the money that they get from their job, they can easily pay to refuel their vehicle.
ReplyDeleteI for one, am for the speed limit being lowered down. Part of that is because I am a slow driver to begin with--because I am very environmentally conscious. Air pollution is one of the most talked about types of pollution. Cars and other modes of transportation emit CO2, which builds up and gets caught in the atmosphere, being one of the causes of climate change. Less gas means less pollution, and less money coming out of our pockets.
ReplyDeleteI do definitely agree that those who speed by excessive amounts should realize that in the end they are barely saving any time. I disagree with however the idea of reducing the 70 mph speed on county highways to 55 mph. It could possibly be safer and you will save more money, but it is your own personal risk of going on the highway. Unless you are traveling across the country, there are many ways you can get from point A to point B by taking a road like capital drive where it is anywhere from 50-55 mph. Lowering the speed limit could possibly be even more dangerous because I don’t believe many people would actually go 55 mph on a highway. They would still race down the streets at 80 mph, putting those who are following the rules at risk. This article was very interesting to read and I did agree with you on some of it, but can see some problems beginning to appear if the speed limit on highways is reduced by that much. Maybe we should change the speed limit to 65 (assuming people will then go 70-75mph) but 55 is too low in my opinion. Very well written post!
ReplyDeleteI definitely agree with you in this blog post. I believe that as of right now speed limits are very high and considering everyone tends to go 5 over anyways it makes them even higher. Although we are able to get places more efficient I believe there are more negatives to raising speed limits than positive. For example I would rather drive slower and be able to save on gas because I have to pay for my own gas and my job doesn't pay that well. In addition to that if we drive slower we may be able to lower the risk of crashing. As a result of a lower crash risk we will be able to save time while driving because interstates and highways won’t be backed up due the accidents.
ReplyDeleteAs someone who walks home everyday, I definitely agree with the people who say that people are all about getting places quickly. When I’m crossing the street, sometimes it seems like I can feel the impatience. It just seems like people don’t care about other people on the road, they just want to get where they need to go as fast as possible, people would still go about 75 even if it was 55, because it definitely seems like people are rushing everywhere, because they think that time is so precious, which it really isn’t.
ReplyDeleteThis article posed a good argument whether the speed limit should be changed or not. I did not know just how much money someone could save if they drove slower. However, the trade off to driving slower is giving up time. I believe that the speed limit should be changed back down to 55 mph because it safer for everyone on the road and would help to reduce the number of fatal accidents. People will also save money if the speed limit is lowered. There will still be impatient people who drive 70 mph or above, but then there should be more police on the road monitoring that. Overall, I agree with you in that reducing the speed limit will save people money and overall help the economy.
ReplyDeleteWhile I agree the speed limit should be lowered from 75, perhaps 65 mph would be a better choice than 55. Also, I think all drivers should be required to take a road driving test every five years (same test you go for when you first get a license). Perhaps that would eliminate a lot of these drivers that are a hazard out there. From an economic standpoint, less accidents caused from speeding would decrease insurance costs, resulting in more money in the consumer's pocket.
ReplyDeleteI agree with your statement and I like how you included that example of Bob and Bill, it really shows how much money and gas they could be saving if they went 55 mph rather than 70 mph. I know that there have been increasing amounts of accidents in the U.S, and increasing the speed limit worsens that. One thing that is interesting to see is that I know in Germany that they don't have speed limits and they have fewer car accidents than we do and we have speed limits and are still receiving a great amount of accidents each year. It would be better of for all the people to start driving at 55 mph than 75-80 mph.
ReplyDeleteAlthough older cars may waste more gas by going 75mph on the highway, many newer cars are designed to cruise at this speed on a regular basis. The most cost efficient speeds of later model cars is actually around 70mph, meaning these new speed limits are actually adapting t technology as well as catering to peoples time needs. And after all, time is money, so lets get going.
ReplyDeleteThis is an interesting topic to talk about. When taking a look at what speeds everyone goes and comparing to the efficiency speed of 55 miles it brings up a good point. When seeing that when raising the speed it can increase fuel consumption of as much as 20% hurting the environment. But you also have to take in consideration the time is money. And that when you take a look at when the speed is reduced to 55 you have to think are they actually going to go 55? When you think of a 17 minute time difference that might not sounds that big but on bigger and longer trips more time will be spend driving. But overall you did a really good job talking about the economics of how much the speed impacts the economy and environment.
ReplyDeleteEverybody wants to go fast. Whoever has watched Fast and Furious wants to go over 100 mph and drift and all that crazy crap. If you got the money than you can go fast. Gas shouldn't be an issue for someone who's got the money. If your poor, than you shouldn't even be on the highway. Based on multiple studies, the best speed to get the best gas mileage is 35 mph, so considering that most of us aren't millionaires, we shouldn't even be using highways if we want to save money.
ReplyDeleteI didn't know that they were thinking about changing the speed limits again. Very eye opening to see that the faster you go the more gas you use. I didn't know that. However I think the speed limit should stay the same do to the fact that so many people drive between 70-80 mph. If the speed limit were to be decreased the amount of speeding tickets would increase. Making lots of drivers unhappy. We live in a society that everything must be fast and always on the go. So the speed limit should stay the same to fit in with that theme.
ReplyDelete-Kristie
Interesting topic of choice. I never once considered how speeding will in the long run, be more costly than driving the speed limit. Of course, you can't drive under the speed limit to save yourself more money because that's just as illegal as it is to speed, but if speed limits were reduced then everyone would be forced to drive a little slower and help with the economy's growth. Then though, people would be on the highway for longer amounts of time causing more build-up/traffic, and no body wants more traffic.
ReplyDeleteI didn't know that they were thinking about changing the speed limits again. Very eye opening to see that the faster you go the more gas you use. I didn't know that. However I think the speed limit should stay the same do to the fact that so many people drive between 70-80 mph. If the speed limit were to be decreased the amount of speeding tickets would increase. Making lots of drivers unhappy. We live in a society that everything must be fast and always on the go. So the speed limit should stay the same to fit in with that theme.
ReplyDelete-Kristie
I’m a bit confused as to how speed limits have any correlation to the dependency on transportation. I feel like you should’ve explained that more so the reader could understand. As technology advances, so do the designs and efficiency of cars. They are now more aerodynamic and use less fuel/mile. These advancements should allow for fast speed limits.
ReplyDeletePersonally, I don't believe the speed limit should be increased. As you said, people normally drive 75-85 mph on the highway. Even if the speed limit was decreased, they would still drive that fast and the only thing that would change is that there would be more speeding tickets issued. Also, with the low gas prices these days gas isn't really an issue. You could argue that people's speed while driving affects the environment, but there are honestly so many other things that also do that focusing on the speed won't do anything.
ReplyDeleteAlthough I agree somewhat with your argument for safety, newer cars may be closing the gap between high speeds and low efficiency. Newer cars that have many gears such as eight or 10 as compared with the four speed in my 2000 Mazda, allows engines to create high output speeds while keeping the engine at low speeds thus sipping fuel. Newer designs for turbochargers, fuel injectors, and valve systems linked with computers allow cars to maximize air to fuel ratios at different speeds for the best possible fuel efficiency.
ReplyDeleteTo start off i really liked the graph you decided to include, it really puts the fatality rates into perspective. However, it doesn’t really relate to the whole topic, since the main goal of the graph was to show fatality rates of certain ages at different speeds. Personally, I think a graph showing the fatality rates on highways in general could have given more information. But I digress; Overall, I can see the main points you are making. The speed is high and people are killed easier and they use up more gas. This is very true and a great point. However, decreasing the speed limit won’t decrease the amount of people that speed. People always want to get to places and do things faster, I mean we complain about our phones not sending the text fast enough and it has to go to space and back in 3 seconds. People will always speed, and decreasing the speed limits definitely will decrease the fatality rates, but it will also increase things like traffic and travel times, which would definitely change the daily lives of people. The other reason you stated, saving money, is also very true. The sad fact is that most people don’t care about the little difference and will just speed because they want to. In the end, i feel like decreasing speed limits will make a lot of other things worse and less things better.
ReplyDeleteAlthough lowering the speed limits on highways would save money and gas, the opportunity cost of production and time is lost. Not only do everyday employees traveling to work use highways, but so do companies transporting goods-- a main source of transit. Time isn't the only thing sacrificed by making the traveling distance in your scenario a 17 minute difference, so is the productivity of both the worker, as they are losing time at their job, and all production of companies. While lowering the speed limits slightly could produce an overall good effect with lowered fatality rates, conservation of gas, and saving of money, a jump from 70 mph to 55 mph is too excessive for the current pace of the workforce.
ReplyDeleteSpeeding is a problem, but I think that raising speed limits would help not only with saving time, but also with fuel economy. We live in a fast paced society, and people hate long commute times. Raising the speed limit could alleviate this. Also, cars are becoming more efficient and safer at higher speeds, especially with the advent of cruise control, hybrids, and electric cars.
ReplyDeleteIn all honesty, I feel as though that speed limits are redundant anyway, because no matter if there's one instilled no one really follows it. Take a highway like I-94, the speed limit is 70 m/ph, you still encounter individuals going 75-80, people who are going 80-90, and people who are going 50-60. The speed limit is irrelevant. So I agree with the statistics that say they're fatal car accidents since they raised the speed limit but unfortunately I don't think that has to do with the speed limit but just the ignorance of people.
ReplyDeleteWhat if the extra money spent on gas is smaller than the money earned in the time saved... The opportunity cost is greater than that of the extra gas. I do like how you connected this to the economic implications of accidents, however I'm not sure the recent raise from 65-70 which is less than 8% is enough to significantly increase the amount of accidents. County Executive Paul Farrow discussed this with my history class last year. He said that research has shown the increase from 65 to 70 will not have a large impact on accident rates. It really comes down to whether people value time or money.
ReplyDeleteThis is an interesting point on the problems of speeding in the our country. I question whether or government truly the on a high level how fast society drives. We've all seen the radar signs that tell you how much over the speed limit you are driving. With the technology we have, it would not be difficult to ticket people electronically for going over the speed limit. It will be interesting to see if our government actually implements this type of technology. I believe they never will to save money.
ReplyDeleteThis is an interesting point, however drivers who go faster than the speed limit make the choice that their time is worth more than the extra money they save on gas. Also, in recent years raising the speed limit on the interstate has had minimal impact on traffic accidents. I agree, however, that the way we enforce our speed limits now is very subjective to the officer, in that driving 7 over one day can be fine, but 7 over another could get you a ticket. I believe that the speed limits should be raised to the speeds that most people drive on the roads, but they should be better enforced.
ReplyDelete