Friday Humor: Lowering the speed limit to three miles per hour?
Yeah, the idea of lowering speed limits has been brought up before, with the intent on lowering the emissions and fuel usage by forcing people to drive slower. This would work, of course. The slower an engine turns, generally the less fuel it is using. And, generally, the less fuel that an engine is using, the less emissions are being produced.
Maybe we should propose adopting a new slower speed limit, like is being done on one street in ChangSha, China. On this street the speed limit is 5 kilometers per hour, which is just over three miles per hour. So, anything over a gentle walk is speeding. No jogging! Some motorcycles and scooters would have to be banned, because they are too difficult to control at that speed. No problem, though, just get off and walk! The world's emissions problems solved!
[Source: Weird Asia News]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Ron Fischer 1:37PM (7/20/2007)
Try this: on your next commute record travel time and distance. Calculate average speed. You'll be surprised at how low it is. Now consider how much of the commute is spent accelerating far above this speed only to require lots of wasteful braking to get down to it (or below) again later. No one likes pokey drivers, but we do tend to push speeds beyond reason.
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Calvin 1:38PM (7/20/2007)
This is the stupidest thing I've seen in a while. Unless they warp space-time and shrink the length of the street then the emissions each vehicle produces will be HIGHER for each trip each makes. Most vehicles are most efficient when they have just shifted into their highest gear. In other words, the best speed limit would be about 45 MPH/70 KPH.
This also doesn't account for increased traffic resulting from having cars spending more time on the road and getting in each other's way more often. Even if a car produced the same amount of emissions per mile for any speed it would still be in the way of the next guy and cause him to be out on the road more to accomplish the same trip.
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Fabio 2:02PM (7/20/2007)
I guess Jeremy was just being sort of provocative/humorous... at 3mph no car will drive efficiently, wasting way more fuel than if it ran at higher speed.
However, Ron has made a good point: the best way to save money, fuel and earth from pollution while still driving a car is to never drive it at speeds higher than the average.
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A.Brien 2:09PM (7/20/2007)
I hope this is a joke, communism at is best. You have to live before thinking abouth security and economy. This goverment is responsible for millions of death since to 1940's, one uniform, many innitiatives, the buddishs people, the cultural revolution of the sixties, etc.
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kballs 5:47PM (7/20/2007)
Oh and we should lower it to 3mph TO SAVE LIVES! You people who go 5mph ARE ROAD RAGING MURDERERS!
Seriously though, ICE cars actually have a sweet spot of about 40-50mph where they get their best MPG (steady state). 3mph actually results in VERY poor MPG because your motor can't go that low of an RPM without stalling, so you have to still do low-medium RPMs in 1st gear - burning a similar gallons per hour as you would going 40mph, but since you're going much slower you're also getting much worse distance per gallon.
Now an electric or electrically driven car would get good efficiency at low speed since it wouldn't have to deal with gearing issues or energy wasted just on turning over the motor but not getting used to move the vehicle, and wouldn't have air resistance in the picture.
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derek.hofmann 7:24PM (7/20/2007)
Lowering the speed limit on a street to 35 mph or less would suddenly make it legal to drive a Neighborhood Electric Vehicle on it. I'd go for that!
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TIMMAH! 12:04AM (7/21/2007)
I predict an increase in road rage incidents. You flip someone off and then get out of their car, run up to yours and pound you!
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