Drivers behave as if gas is cheap

As you see from graph below, US oil imports increased steadily from 1980 when US abandoned the Nixon/Ford/Carter oil use reduction policies and went with the Reagan/Bush/Saudi oil use increase policies. 55 mph was one of the successful oil use reduction policies Reagan killed. The only reason we saw a slight decrease in oil imports (and no let up in the 20 years of resulting oil wars at $1T per year cost) was the other disaster of Reaganomics, unregulated Wall St and the resulting economic depression.

Reduced speed limit started in 1973 was killed by Reagonites in 1987.

Oil use in the US needs to be cut by 50% and oil imports eliminated and the 55 mph speed limit is an excellent way to make progress to that goal.

 

Can you pop up some statistics? In my 5 minute search I can't find much.
IIHS did one in 2003. In Texas on roads where speed limits were raised from 55 mph to 70 mph, before the change 15% where going 70 mph or higher, 15 mph over the limit, and 4% were going 20+ mph over the limit. After the change 17% were going 75+mph, or 5 over the limit or more. It seems that the number of reckless speeders at least from that one study dropped by a substantial amount. The absolute speed did increase, which would be expected.

In 2003, NHTSA reported that alcohol over the legal limit was a factor in 41% of speeding fatalities. In 2003 there were 1403 speeding fatalities on roads with posted limits over 55 mph, in 2009 this has dropped to 964. Its the slower roads especially the ones with drunk or distracted driving where speeding is more of a problem.

 

...probably if USA went on diet it would save mega-tons of green house gases more than all the Prii and Ev's.
But diet is about as popular reducing speed limits below 70- 75 mph. Of course I should diet too.

 

Want to see the waste in action? Look at the Gallery Layer on Google Earth, then select Nasa and then the Earth City Lights option. Now head over and look between the UK and Norway/Denmark and you'll find the North Sea lit up as brightly as cities. How can this be if nobody lives there? Well, it might just be the light given off by the hundreds of flares from North Sea oil production.

Shocking waste. Infact I too agree that it's a criminal waste.

 

It isn't a contest: Find the single thing which reduces new ghg most, and do only that. While it makes sense to start with the easy effective things, anything we do that helps should be encouraged.

 

That is definitely true.
But we should look at success and failure rates. A great deal of money was put into 55 mph speed limit and car pool lanes. Neither of these have been effective. Attempting to do a failed policy, expecting different results, without analysing why it failed is typical government, but non-effective.

CAFE standards have been shown to be effective. They simply were implemented a little fast, which caused some backlash. Government incentives also are effective. The SUV tax credit greatly increased the number of SUVs, used by busineses and greatly reduced cafe. With hindsite, the new cafe rules should help. The ZEV mandate caused backlash and likely slowed hybrid adoption. Restrictive government policies like CARB's 10 year waranty requirement for phev batteries has also slowed adoption.

If with less effort, the government can save more oil, by cafe standards, then this needs to be implemented first, instead of the whining masses wanting to keep the same inefficient cars but simply slow down. When people are asked to slow down they cheat. You simply can't cheat and get worse mileage in a prius than a tundra. No matter how fast you go in a tesla, you simply can not burn any oil in most of this country.

Alternative fuels also can decrease oil consumption. Unfortunately we have been lobbied to mandate food for fuel. Flex fuel with methanol can save a great deal of oil.

When some are fed up with some bad policy choices, its not that they make no sense. It is just that they are diversions, that in the end may be destructive to the goal. We need to remember that 55 mandate came with a tarrif on foreign fuel efficient cars. The tarrif was removed, but voluntary restrictions added. All this did prop up the american auto industry and helped insurance companies make higher profits. As a package it increased oil consumption, and slowed efficient vehicles.

 

Maybe.

The bumps in the late seventies and eighties correspond to a spike in gas prices. I wish this chart had a average for all vehicles. We might not see any improvement then. The model T got 25 MPG...

 

CAFE was effective in promoting SUV adoption.
Government subsidies of 'green' cars was effective in shutting off discussion of the massive subsidies given to oil.

 

If you look don't see the lines ascending between 1975 when ford first put in cafe standards, and when they were implemented, you are looking at a different chart. Fuel economy increased 62% by 1985. That chart looks like neither the fleet or new cars, what is it? You may also notice a large flat area of the chart where fuel economy standards were not raised. We can thus see cause and effect. If it was simply oil prices then the mpg would have dropped in the 90s with cheaper oil, instead of going flat. You need to look at the dates of policies. Price signals effect the demand side, but you can see from recently introduced cars and trucks, the new cafe standards in 2007 started a similar upward trend. IMHO we should see a similar upward trend through 2025, when the new rules are fully implemented.



As for the Model T-getting 25mpg, we can't leagally build model t's anymore. We need to make cars much heavier to implement safety and emissions control. I wish we could peal some of this back to make more affordable cars. But also, how was that model T tested? It was originally designed to run on ethanol or gas, but prohibition moved us to gasoline. Those damn politicians in washington, always doing things to increase oil use.

 

Plot fleet mpg vs CAFE vs petrol price and the real story emerges

 

No, we can at most see correlation. But I can see a correlation with price as well. Look at the car section between 2002 and 2010. Price goes up, and MPG goes up, standards are flat.

Maybe. Or maybe there was a conversion from cars to light trucks.

 

Do you HAVE that chart? I looked, but couldn't find one.

 

I was not saying gas prices have nothing to do with it. Cafe standards are just part of the equation, these make the automakers provide consumers with choices at a reasonable price when they want an efficient car. Since auto companies are an oligopoly, they often build cars they want, instead of cars customers demand. Then they get in trouble and get bailed out by governments There are two government policies that are in play in the chart, with increased car fuel economy. The first was cash for clunkers, which was one of those stimulate the auto industry responses. It did replace some vehicles with more efficient ones. The second was the new cafe standards in 2007, which got auto companies to speed up sales of efficient cars.

This was one of the problems with the cafe standard, the light truck loophole. It looks like it will be finally plugged in the rules in 2020.

Ideally we would have raised cafe standards in the mid 90s, closed the loophole, and implemented an oil tax to stimulate demand for efficient cars. All of these things were talked about. If they were implemented perhaps the auto companies might have been building cars people wanted in 2006.

I'm sure I have a chart that will answer your question. I can't remember what chart that is. Can you be more specific?

 

Sorry, no. I have seen it before but do not have it at hand. It might be necessary to look for the data in two parts: CAFE vs fleet mpg; and fleet mpg vs fuel cost.

Wikipedia has this snippet about CAFE I thought was interesting. Common sense, anyone ?

 

From 2004, the peak year of the Large SUV -
Average U.S. Car Is Tipping Scales at 4,000 Pounds - NYTimes.com

The Alliance of Automobile manufacturers and IIHS have put forth this myth that bigger vehicles are safer. The next line is its ok to get worse mileage if you are heavier. The sad fact is, SUVs have made the highways less safe. Cars have gotten heavier so that occupants are more likely to survive when hit by an SUV

Csaba Csere: Why Mileage Hasn't Improved in 25 Years - Column - Car and Driver

 

Drivers behave as if gas is cheap, because it IS cheap. People complain about gas taxes and prices, but the oil industry and private transportation are heavily subsidised in many ways.

 

I'm not sure what you are looking for, but it should be here
Light-Duty Automotive Technology, Carbon Dioxide Emissions, and Fuel Economy Trends: 1975 Through 2011 | OTAQ | US EPA
Appendix D, has weight/hp and fuel economy for cars and trucks by year.

In 1975 combined was 13.1
It increased fast through 1982 to 21.1
Peaking in 1987 at 22.0
It then slowly declined in 2004 at 19.3 - this decline was because of vehicle mix, partially caused by the suv loopholes
In 2011 it is rising again to 22.8 mpg

Average vehicle weight is now 4084, and average power is 228 hp.
In 1987 vehicle weight was 3221 @ 118 hp

The new cafe rules should ensure that we continue rising this time.