It’s not hard to see why there’s a tendency to lower the speed limit higher on the highways these days. From safety issues to fuel economy and the environment, there are good reasons for higher speeds on the highway. A study by the US Department of Energy found that reducing the highway speed limit from 75 mph to 60 mph increases fuel economy. 25 percent due to lower wind resistance. Despite this information, I won’t complain if the highway speed limit is increased.
However, Californians in the early 1960s would tell me that there were more speed limits than the number on the sign. In 1959, California passed a law establishing the maximum speed limit on state highways at 65 mph. Before this law legally, the state had no speed limit, but the de facto recommended highway speed is 55 mph. The law was largely unpopular with California drivers and his influential opponents, including the Southern California Auto Club..
The main point of contention is the new way of enforcing the speed limit. A letter to the editor published in the April 1960 issue of Sugar & Sugar perfectly depicts the sentiments held by many drivers of the state. In the letter, Clive S. Liston of Mountain View, California lamented that the new speed limit was arbitrary. Under the previous system, the legally appropriate speed was determined on a case-by-case basis based on factors ranging from vehicle performance to traffic and road conditions. Effectively, drivers can go as fast as they want within reason.
Liston added that “More skeptics are likely to see highway patrols as just another driving hazard to check.” Sixty years later, he was absolutely correct. When driving fast on US highways, the focus is not on driving safely but on not being caught speeding. He feels that resources would be better used to reduce drunk driving and improve driver training and license testing.
Liston also claims that those two improvements will reduce accidents by two-thirds. I can’t find any data sets from the 1960s to back up his claims, but data from 2020 can back up his argument. In their 2020 crash reportt, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration found that drunk driving deaths account for nearly a third of all road deaths in the United States. Higher driving standards will naturally reduce road deaths, but it’s unclear by how much.
California’s highway authority in 1960 declared that the new speed limit law was just an experiment, but it still had only two notable divergences. In the mid-1960s, the state increased the speed limit on rural highways to 70 mph. Then, when the National Top Speed Law (55 mph) was implemented in 1974 and completely abolished in 1995. And while great effort has been made to reduce driving when drunk, not much has been done about raising driving standards.
