Pulling A Fast One
May, 2000
When Congress imposed the 55-mile-per-hour national speed limit in 1974, it was trying to conserve fuel because of an international oil crisis. Americans were to sacrifice time for the national good (adding, by one estimate, 200 million man-hours to our yearly commute). For more than a decade, we were late for work and late for Monday Night Football to save a meager 27 million barrels of oil, or about one half of one percent of the annual consumption. Congress, unable to persuade by fact or comm...
