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Senator Warner asks about speed vs. MPG |
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Friday, 04 July 2008 |
Senator John Warner, R-Va., has asked Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman in a letter July 3, 2008 to look into what speed limit would provide optimum efficiency given current technology.
Warner cited studies that showed the 1975 national 55 mph speed limit saved 167,000 barrels of oil a day, or 2 percent of the country's highway fuel consumption, while avoiding up to 4,000 traffic deaths a year.
"Given the significant increase in the number of vehicles on America's highway system from 1974 to 2008, one could assume that the amount of fuel that could be conserved today is far greater," Warner wrote Bodman.
Warner asked the department to determine at what speeds vehicles would be most fuel efficient, how much fuel savings would be achieved, and whether it would be reasonable to assume there would be a reduction in prices at the pump if the speed limit were lowered.
The department's Web site says that fuel efficiency decreases rapidly when traveling faster than 60 mph. Every additional 5 mph over that threshold is estimated to cost motorists "essentially an additional 30 cents per gallon in fuel costs," Warner said in his letter, citing the DOE data.
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