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| Caption: After selling all the gasoline he was allocated for Novemebr, Daniel Bridger Thursday put up this sign and closed his service station until his new quota begins. Brigder's station is at 4751 N. Santa Monica Blvd. - Sentinel photo by Ron Overdahl |
Those events began a miserable 13 years of the insane national 55 mph speed limit. My livelihood was severely affected by the sporadic gasoline deliveries as well as my employees’ income, so I had a "dog in the fight”. What followed was a ridiculous national mandate by the federal government put in place by the Nixon administration. The law was widely ignored nationwide until many jurisdictions discovered a goldmine with fines/citations as a major source of revenue. Speed traps galore sprang up as a result. Those common sense states that refused to enforce the national speed limit were threatened by the Carter administration in 1977 with the loss of highway funding if they didn’t fall in line. The law was proven to be almost useless as far as conservation and soon took a back seat to the enormous revenue stream. Many fed up citizens avoided traveling on the safer limited access highways to run the back roads and avoid speed traps. The actual fuel savings computed by the federal government? Between 0.5 and 1%! This injustice dragged on until 1987 when they relented by raising it to 65 mph on certain limited access rural highways, finally repealing it altogether in 1995 after 21 years.
So that's how it began.
I was incensed, feeling like we were being punished due to the US failure to protect our national interest and security. President Nixon actually first proposed a national 50 mph speed limit for motor vehicles and 55 mph for trucks. Of course POTUS would never have to cross Montana or Texas by car at 50 mph! By the time of Jimmy Carter’s 1977 crackdown, in my mid 20’s, I had become a militant “professional speeder”. With a progression of radar detectors starting with an Escort, then Passport, and eventually a Valentine One and CB radios, the war was ongoing. My mission was to travel using a reasonable speed based on weather and traffic conditions. Most of the time that highway speed was quite a bit above the “double nickel” that President Carter demanded we should travel. Note: I was reasonable, not reckless.
It was years before I even considered driving as a profession. Although I had numerous close calls with various Smokey Bears, Sheriff's deputies and "local yokels", I was able to maintain a reasonably clean driver's license which fortunately enabled me to pursue truck driving as a career a few years later.
I have long believed that using the decades old, scientific, "85th percentile rule" in setting speed limits was and should remain the national policy. I long ago sold my last radar detector because of the much more sensible speed laws in most states. But, alas, there is an ongoing movement underway by the “nanny state” trying to discredit the 85th percentile policy. Please support the National Motorists Association, a non-profit that advocates for the motoring public. You can Google them online if you wish to join or link here. National Motorists Association Newsletters are free to sign up for.
