A big-truck industry organization, the American Trucking Association (ATA) is calling on Congress to
institute a national 65 mile-per-hour maximum speed limit. A seeming contradiction to what many RVers see in the form of a blur of a semi-truck passing them, the ATA says it’s one step that could help reduce the high price of motor fuel.
“Our industry can’t simply absorb this rapid increase in fuel costs,” says Mike Card, an ATA representative. “We must pass some of these costs through to our customers, which ultimately translate into higher prices on the store shelves.”
In addition to a 65 speed limit, the ATA is asking for more incentives to get auxiliary power units into big rigs. These power units would allow auxilary equipment like air conditioners to run on less fuel, rather than idling drive engines to keep them going.
Photo: Paul Keleher on flickr.com
This entry was posted on Friday, May 9th, 2008 at 8:00 am and is filed under general. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Why not a 60 MPH speed limit, and rigidly enforce it? I consistently drive my three vehicles (two of which are diesel) at 60 MPH or less on highways, and I have experienced a 2-5 mpg gain in fuel efficiency. “Experts” have stated many times that if most Americans would drive at 60 MPH or less, the fuel savings (resulting in less demand for oil) would eliminate our dependence on foreign oil. I have heard no one refute this fact. The significant decrease in demand should result in greatly reduced fuel prices. Remember the mid-1970’s when the Feds instituted the 55 MPH speed limit? The Feds should do it again and this time make it mandatory, not voluntary by the 50 states. Do we really need to drive as fast as we are currently driving? The escalating cost of fuel, with no clear end in sight, could be stopped and reversed if we Americans would just drive slower. I am puzzled as to why, with all of the news coverage of the current Presidential election primaries, not one of the candidates has advocated a slower national speed limit as a means to deal with the escalating cost of fuel. Driving slower has saved me a little each time I fill up my tank, and it adds up over time. If we all drove slower, it would benefit all Americans with LOWER fuel costs. If we could eliminate most or all of our dependence on foreign oil, we could set our own price for fuel. We Americans rallied around the flag after the terrorist attacks of 9/11 to confront a serious threat to our nation. We need to do the same now and defeat another threat to our nation, an economic one, in the guise of escalating energy costs.
[…] to remember the lessons from history. According to RV News Service, via the RVTravel newsletter, a trucking group wants Congress to set a national 65 MPH speed limit to reduce fuel consumption. While this sounds good, let’s look at the best general […]