Driving 55 mph: I'm lazy, I'm not going to do it unless somebody makes me do it.

maddening sense of slowness and the ego issues you may have with being passed aside, there's the very real fact that going significantly slower than traffic, even in the right lane, makes you something of a hazard. Witness traffic piling up behind school buses (which at least in my state are limited to 55mph) on the freeway.

Causing traffic congestion is a ticketable offense in many places too...

Doing this on country roads or other places where the default behavior is to speed seems like a great idea though

 

Drive 55, but stay in the right lane. Don't impede those who want to go faster, but don't enable the gas guzzlers either. We know going 55 saves fuel, so be the first or join the pack. If lots of us do it, the "flow of traffic" will be slower in the right lane as it should be.
I find a lot of trucks driving slower these days, so you're less likely to be intimidated by the semi trying to crawl into your hatch. It's more like the minivan, the performance car, or the SUV. Let 'em go - you can wave at them when you see them stopped at the gas pump just down the road.

 

A few weeks back we drove to a wedding 100 miles away on the PA turnpike, at a steady 55-60 mph. We achieved about 10% better mpg on that car than I had ever achieved (30 mpg on a Lincoln LS V8) and never really felt threatened by the overtaking traffic. We also had the AC off at the time, but this was really because we needed a recharge (the Lincoln has automatic climate control so the AC is on by default)

 

I don't know about other states, but in Missouri this is the law (304.011 RSMo). So it appears that in Missouri you would at least be due a warning before a ticket could be written, and you could only be written a ticket in the event of "apparent willful disobedience to this provision and refusal to comply with direction of an officer in accordance herewith". The only reason I know anything about this is because "impeding traffic" is often used as a trumped-up charge against people riding bicycles on the road. Why is everyone always in such a hurry, anyway?

 

Some of the major trucking companies have recently changed their rules about drivers and cut back on the maximum speeds.

Note--these will be trucks with huge company names on them, and they are not the ones who cause trouble.

 

I just completed an 800 mile round trip from the S.F. Bay Area down to L.A. and back on I-5. We took our family hauling Sienna which normally averages around 22 MPG in mixed driving around home. I managed to average 29 MPG for the trip by keeping in the right lane with the trucks and drove ~60 MPH the whole way. The posted limit on most of I-5 is 70 MPH and plenty drive much faster. I never had a single problem at all with anyone visibly annoyed at my slow driving and I always managed to find a truck to keep me company at that speed. It was a very relaxing way to travel. (I kept imagining all those folks in the big pickups and SUVs driving 80 MPH and tossing $5 bills out the window every 10 miles or so. )

Cheers,

-- Ian

 

And then will complain that we have too many laws restricting our freedom.

If we're too stupid to do the right thing ourselves, we need to legislate it. Sad. (Yeah, yeah. Who determines what's "right", right? Well, we've mostly agreed that killing people is wrong, yet we still need a law about it, don't we? :sigh

 

Hey, nothing is stopping anyone from driving 55 mph. (in the right hand lane, or left I guess if you're in England)

As for me, the difference between the 42 MPG I get in the Prius when I drive 75-85 and the 45-47 MPG I get (tested this) when I drive 55 is not worth the time of my life that the slower speed adds to my driving. I travel between Las Vegas and SoCal at least once a week!

Heck, why not 50 MPH or 45 MPH at what speed does the MPG increase reverse? So why not that speed? Nice way to control a population by limiting their travel. uh, tinfoil hat time.

 

I'll consider it as soon as Hummers are extinct.

 

I know here in Texas there is a Min & Max posted (on the highways) 55 MPH in right hand lane = no problem

 

I pop-in iPod with world news-related podcasts, set cruise to 55 or so, and let everyone else deal with the ins and outs of adjusting their speed. Get 52 mpg. And the podcasts are so interesting I want to slow down and get to my destination later, to finish the podcast. (listening to spanishpod.com right now)

 

I'm starting to drive 55 more on the expressways now and I don't mind it at all, I make sure I stay in the far right lane, and actually here in the Chicago metro area, the speed limit is only 55mph on the expressways. It does not go up t 65mph until you get pretty far away from the city. We don't have 70mph speed limits in Illinois, so driving 55 even in a 65mph area is still legal as the minimum limit is always 45mph.

I'm not having any trouble going to the slower speed, when I saw how much my mpg increased I was thrilled.

I made a 68 mile trip last weekend up to Gurnee to take my daughter to Six Flags Great America an I got 58mpg going about 56-62 mph. Coming home I went a bit faster because we were escaping a brief storm that blew over the area and my daughter's friend freaks out in storms, so I drove about 65-75mph and only got 52mpg on the ride back,

I'll go 55 no problem!!, I love just taking my time now and enjoying my ride in my Prius..

 

Sure there is. Apparently being "lazy" is stopping the person quoted above. Maybe you missed my point?? Maybe I didn't make it well enough.

 

Amazing how the Prius makes you want to drive slower--not faster. You find yourself staying around 35-40 on local roads--around the speed limit. Driving is so smooth and serene--you just want to relax and enjoy it. A unique experience.

 

Why stop at 55 mph?

I say lets go after the real offenders, commuters. They waste thousands of times more fuel than the occasional vacationer driving over 70mph. There should be a commuter tax based on distance between home and work. Each year when one re-registers their car with the state, the state would assess tax based on commute distance. I would suggest the tax be applied to any commutes >2 miles.. I naturally would be exempted because I live only 1.5 miles from my work.

Yeah, that's the ticket, a commuter tax.

Other wasteful acts, subject to severe fines.
Teenage students driving to school.
Weekend cruising, aimlessly wandering around looking for something to do.
Trip to store for less that $25 purchase.
Idiotic embellishments, adding unnecessary weight to your car.

Hey, I'm really enjoying this. I like thinking of ways to impose my values on others.

 

Why I don't like this idea.Excuse me while I work in the globally accepted system of measurements.
Speed limit on the open road in South Australia is 110km/h
in other states it is 100km/h on most roads and in Northern Territory it is 130km/h

I recently went to Townsville in Queensland, I travelled mostly at the speed limit, that is about 1000km at 110km/h and the remaining highway at 100km/h for a total return trip of 6000km plus some running around while there.
If I dropped my speed to 90km/h maximum for the entire trip I would add 10% to travel time for 5000km and 20% for 1000km that means it would have added 6.6 hours to my driving time or almost a full day at 8 hours a day meaning I might have needed to pay for an additional nights accommodation. Even at a cheap motel I'm up for an extra $66 for accommodation for that one night, I'm also going to eat 1 more take away or hotel bar meal costing me maybe $20 or more so slowing down cost an extra $86 in costs but how much fuel did I save?
I averaged 5.1L/100km for the trip, so that equals 305 litres but if I slowed down to 90km/h I might have got 4.3L/100km or 258 litres for a difference of 47 litres. At $1.50 per litre that would have cost me $70.50.

I would have been about $16 worse off if I drove at 90km/h rather than the posted speed limits.

 

notice the jack-in-the-box antenna ball? yep, i don't shut the truck off driving through drive-thru *trips to store for less than $25*

notice the step-side bars? yep, my girlfriend through my last couple years of highschool was only 5'4". *teenager students driving to school*

you can't see it, but i've got a diablosport programmer and a boost modifying that makes it put down 400hp. i'm not out aimlessly cruising, i'm looking for rice-burners to drag race *aimless driving*

idiotic embellishment brought to you by ARB, shipped from Australia.

did i break all of your commandments?

am i the only Prius owner who isn't S-M-U-G and trying to create a nice little soviet-utopia where everyone is the same?

 

If you get 45 mpg doing 55 mph, then either you can't do math or something is wrong with your prius cause I get a legit 53 mpg averaging 65 mph.

 

There already is such a tax. It's just applied to the cost of gasoline. This has the added benefit of punishing the gas guzzler more than the 50 MPG hybrid and the fast driver more than the slow driver.