In the fall of 1973, in response to the OPEC oil embargo, President Nixon issued an executive order mandating a 55 mph national maximum speed limit. The following January, Congress made it official and passed a "temporary" one-year continuation of the limit. And so began a 22-year odyssey where reality and rational public policy never crossed paths.
Initially, this law was passed to conserve motor fuels, but it soon became lauded as a safety measure. It was for safety purposes that the law was made permanent in 1975. (It was eventually learned/admitted that the reduction in highway fatalities in 1974 was largely the result of reduced travel. The high fuel costs and recession in 2008 had exactly the same effect, although to a lesser degree, because fuel availability was not an issue, unlike the 1973-74 era.)
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