Re: On Topic? Cars, anyway: 55 MPH speed limit...

"Brent P" <tetraethylleadREMOVETHIS@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message 
news:JsednVVKGdZT6xXVnZ2dnUVZ_r_inZ2d@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> On 2008-07-24, CharlesTheCurmudgeon <CharlesTheCurmudgeon@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> 
> wrote:
>> As I've often said, there are two kinds of drivers on Chicago 
>> expressways:
>> The Quick and The Dead.  You ain't quick.  You're actually a traffic
>> obstacle.  Especially on some of the tollways, where the average speed
is 
>> 75
>> at times.
>
> I've experienced I294 where 90mph would make one of the 'slow'. Autobahn
> speeds with the chaos and rudeness of american drivers. The speed isn't
> the problem of course, 90mph is perfectly safe if it wasn't for the LLBs
> etc.
>
>> I thought 55 was a stupid idea.  Even when I was driving my 1501 (One
of
>> those $3748 1979 Toyota Corolla specials, no carpet, no 5th gear, a 
>> little
>> 1.2 engine.)  I still was going faster than that, although getting her 
>> over
>> 65 was tough.
>
> 55mph was really never obeyed in any meaningful way. Part of the reason
> the NMSL was eventually repealed is it got more and more difficult for
> the states to cook the books. The feds kept allowing greater and greater
> mathmatical gymnastics but the states still couldn't show the public was
> obeying it.
>
>

The public WASN"T obeying it.  Supposedly the maximum speed in Crook
County 
is 55 on all the expressways.  I've seen I-294 hitting 90.

Just like Prohibition, observed mostly in the breach.  And our banning of 
marijuana, done only to keep the Mexicans out.  (Lot of good that did.)

Charles the Curmudgeon