Can't drive 55? How about 65 instead

Trucks use more fuel and wear out tires faster at high speeds, but independent drivers don't want big business slowing them down.

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NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Sammy Hagar's protest ballad for speeders would need a 10-mile-per-hour update if a trucking group gets its way.

The American Trucking Associations, which represents trucking companies, is calling for the return of a uniform national speed limit, something this country hasn't seen since the 1990s. But this time the ATA is after something a little more modest: It wants to drop the limit to 65 mph for all cars and trucks.

A national limit on speed limits, set at 55 mph, was enacted in 1974 in response to a severe oil shortage. Even after the crisis had passed, it was kept in place because of apparent safety benefits. In the mid-1980s, restrictions were loosened to allow higher speeds and the law was finally stricken altogether in 1995.

Today, states are allowed to set their own speed limits, and 31 of them have limits over 65 mph, according to a list supplied by the ATA. In Texas some highways have speed limits of 80 mph. The other 30 have limits of 70 or 75 mph on some highways.

The ATA has been calling for a national speed limit of sorts on trucks since 2006. The group wants a federal requirement that electronic speed limiters on all tractor-trailers be set at 68 mph.

That wouldn't be a huge change for its own members, said Clayton Boyce, an ATA spokesman. According to him, 77% of the ATA's member trucking companies already set their trucks' speed limiters at 68 or below. It's a little above 65 so drivers won't constantly be running up against the speed limiter, allowing some leeway.

A regulation would bring every trucker in line, making the industry safer and would bring financial benefits, Boyce said. Setting a limit will relieve pressure on some truckers to drive faster to keep up with competitors and will make the highways safer for everyone, including truckers with slower rigs.

Slowing a fully-loaded semi from 75 mph to 65 results in a 27% improvement in fuel economy, according to Boyce, while it lengthens engine oil and tire life. These savings should more than make up for money lost due to longer travel times, he said.

But the ATA fears that reducing the speed of trucks while allowing cars to barrel through at 75 or 80 mph could create a hazard with cars weaving between slower trucks. That's why the group wants an across-the-board speed limit.

So far, it's just a plan, and even the ATA's two-year-old proposal to just limit the speed of trucks has made little headway, Boyce said.

Setting a national speed limit would be even harder, requiring congressional action. But rising fuel prices lend new impetus to the proposal.

As with trucks, driving cars at high speeds greatly reduces their fuel efficiency. As speed increases, so does the effect of wind resistance, the biggest energy drainer at highway speeds. Every 10 mph faster a car goes reduces fuel economy by about four miles a gallon, according to Roger Clark, a fuel economy engineer with General Motors.

Some car and truck driver advocates bristle at what they see is the ATA's call for government interference.

"Idaho and New York are two different places, and the states are in the best position to set speed limits," said Jim Baxter, president of the National Motorists Association.

The NMA, which describes itself as a "motorists' rights organization," was originally created to fight against the old 55 mph speed limit. Today it advocates setting speed limits based on the speeds actually traveled on a given stretch of highway.

The Owner Operator Independent Driver's Association, which represents drivers who own their rigs, also opposes both of the ATA's proposals.

"We think it's astounding how people who drive desks understand the operating conditions" faced by truckers, said Todd Spencer, executive vice president of OOIDA.

Most truck drivers are paid by the mile, Spencer said, so the financial pain of slower limits would be felt mostly by the drivers while the benefits would be reaped by corporations represented by the ATA.

"If they paid drivers by the hour for their time," said Spencer, "their perspective on these issues would change dramatically."

There would be little gain in safety from setting such low speed limits, said Spencer. Truckers tend to speed much less often than other drivers, anyway, and car drivers will simply ignore artificially low speed limits, he said.

For that reason, said the NMA's Baxter, lowering speed limits won't save gas, either.

Low speed limits actually promote greater fuel consumption by creating big speed differences, he said. The few vehicles that conscientiously obey the law become obstacles to the majority of drivers who ignore it, a situation that invites more braking and hard acceleration, said Spencer.

The ATA's Boyce countered that independent truckers would reap savings themselves on gas, oil, tires and insurance and ought to support the plan.

But, for some independent truckers, the lure of speed may outweigh rational business and safety arguments. "There are some among them who are diehard cowboy drivers who like to go as fast as they can," he said.