Originally Posted By Jerret_S:
Ohio only in the last 15 years upped the limits on most highways.

I remember interstates were 60 mph 55 for semis, then 65 and 55, the. They let the trucks go the same speed which was way better for traffic then finally 70 mph for all.

Originally Posted By K30MuleLAR15:


Tricky Dick wanted to save the U.S. from using arab oil. We have the largest reserve in the world, oil here in the U.S., for strategic reserve. Why not use everyone else's oil then ours.

Originally Posted By Jerret_S:
Ohio only in the last 15 years upped the limits on most highways.

I remember interstates were 60 mph 55 for semis, then 65 and 55, the. They let the trucks go the same speed which was way better for traffic then finally 70 mph for all.

Originally Posted By Hatari:
It was the china virus shot/mask mandate of the 70’s.

Originally Posted By Ambridge77:
If I'm not mistaken, there were "Welcome to Maryland - still 55" signs after repeal.

I tried to find pics, but I couldn't.

Originally Posted By j3_:
I didn't notice anyone paying attention to the speed limit then any more than they do now.

Originally Posted By Seabee_Mech:
Montana came up with a $5 ticket for "An unnecessary waste of a natural resource" after the 55mph speed limit was forced on them, with no points and not put on your driving record. Driving across the open big western states like ND,MT,WY at 55mph was mind numbing.

I remember the day Maine changed the speed limit on the interstate to 65, I was driving from Bangor to Portland to pick up my sister at the airport, they were removing the 55mph signs and putting up the 65 mph signs as I was driving down. It felt like I was flying.

My '80 Corvette has one of those stupid 85 mph speedometers in it:

https://www.ar15.com/media/mediaFiles/119852/1982-chevrolet-corvette-collector-s-edit-3211394.jpg

Originally Posted By JohnfromHR:
Dumbest law ecer and people accepted it, njobodynfoightnir, sheeple.

Originally Posted By CZ75_9MM:
It was bad, really fucking bad. Took forever to get anywhere.

Originally Posted By TontoGoldstein:
At one time we had different speed limits for trucks and passenger vehicles and different limits for night and day.

Originally Posted By Jerret_S:
Ohio only in the last 15 years upped the limits on most highways.

I remember interstates were 60 mph 55 for semis, then 65 and 55, the. They let the trucks go the same speed which was way better for traffic then finally 70 mph for all.

Originally Posted By Redman556:



When it was implemented yes. We didn't have near enough oil production capacity when it was enacted as we do now. We were very low on what we could produce and refine. We thought we were basically nearly out of what we could pull from the ground. People forget that a huge percentage of the oil that we pull up today was unknown in the 1970s. Or, like shale oil, we couldn't pull it out, or at least not at an affordable price in the 70s, and we didn't start getting that cheaply until the 1990s, so that was 20 years away. Our only option in the 70s was to buy it, and the majority came from the Middle East.

We didn't have a strategic oil reserve either until 1975, so that wasn't there either.

When that law was passed it made perfect sense. It doesn't now because we have the lens of history to look through.

I remember the odd and even days, where you could only get a few gallons at a time, and it depended on whether or not your tag had an odd or even last number. Then, your car or truck on average, only got about 15mpg, and that was if you had an efficient car or truck. Most people didn't. The little Japanese cars were extremely rare and nobody trusted them yet. You might see one Honda or Nissan, Datsun at the time, for every 250 to 500 American cars. Hell, my grandmother still had her pristine 1957 Chevy, plastic seat covers and floor covers, like a brand new car. It was only 16 years old. Lots of those old cars running around then. The gas crisis IS THE reason that Japanese cars got popular in the US, and why US cars went on a major diet.

At the time, the common scientific consensus was that we were running out of oil in this country, and at some point, around the world.

Our military's primary job was protecting the countries that sold us oil and protecting the shipping lanes for it. Our primary focus in government was to be sure to keep the Soviets from influencing those countries through overthrowing governments and attacks on allied countries from Soviet allies nearby.

It was really close at times. People tend to forget that at that time the Soviets had the US and Canada surrounded by countries they'd had successful communist coups in. Almost all of South America, and half of Central America, and they were working on Mexico. it wasn't until Reagan's second term that we turned that mess around.

We have to look at it through the same lens that people in the early 1970s saw it through, with no knowledge of future events. It was a very stressful and unsure time. If you weren't around and paying attention, this won't make the same sense that it will to people that were there.

Originally Posted By vaughn4380:
Ohio Highway Patrol troopers just loved that 55 speed limit. 60 mph = guaranteed a ticket.

I imagine they cried at night when it was repealed.

Originally Posted By Redman556:
When the law was passed, almost no cars had overdrive in them. By the time 82-83 rolled around, over half the cars had it. Any car going over 55mph was drinking gas, and that's one reason it made sense. Almost all cars were running 1:1 gearing. When overdrive started to become more available in the early 80s, now you were running .7:1. That gave you another 10mph. IOW, where you could get 25mpg at 55, now you could get that 25mpg at 65mph, because you'd turn the same rpms at 65 that you used to at 55. Then multiport fuel injection around 86-87 allowed fuel to atomize better, bumped HP/Torque numbers, improved throttle response, and the mpg numbers jumped about 5mpg. We've had a lot of improvements since then.

Your average MPG for full size cars in the 70s up until 78-79, was about 15mpg. Overdrive changed that to about 20-22mpg. Fuel injection bumped it to 25-27mpg.

That was the game changer that made the 55mph speed limit unnecessary.

Originally Posted By Homernomer:


Really?
It was hard not to notice A FUCKING RADAR DETECTOR IN EVERY CAR and the nonstop chatter about speed traps on the CB radio. Entire movies were produced around speed limits and getting around them. See the 1977 documentary
"Smokey and the Bandit."

Originally Posted By Seadra_tha_Guineapig:

bro, do you even rear axle ratio? what's better, 1:1 with a 2.73 rear end or .7:1 with a 4.10 rear?

Originally Posted By OldCarGuy:
It was also irritating to have speedometers that did not read above 85 mph in the 80s.

Originally Posted By Kingstrider:


Lol my 63 VW has the original 1300 motor and the fastest it can do is 60 mph going downhill in 4th gear with the windows up.  It is super slow.
https://i.imgur.com/cKMyaJwh.jpg

Originally Posted By GDaawg:
Cars back then folded like a tin cans when wrecked. Maybe the lower speeds were better for survival rates.

Originally Posted By vaughn4380:
Ohio Highway Patrol troopers just loved that 55 speed limit. 60 mph = guaranteed a ticket.

I imagine they cried at night when it was repealed.

Originally Posted By AeroE:

Illinois was another hold out.

55 mph led to everyone driving 5 to 10 over, and that stuck.

Originally Posted By GDaawg:
Cars back then folded like a tin cans when wrecked. Maybe the lower speeds were better for survival rates.

Originally Posted By 549:


Even as a young kid, I wondered if having two different speed limits for different types of vehicles could lead to safety issues.

Didn't buses like Greyhound have a lower limit also?