Having recently completed a 2000-mile driving trip in four days, I declare myself a fervent fan of the 70-mph speed limit now in place in much of North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia and Florida. How I love the South.
I feel this way even in light of the recent study claiming 'speed kills on U.S. highways' because auto fatality rates did not fall quickly enough in the U.S. in the 1990s.
(In 1995, Congress lifted the national 55-mph speed limit, a law Stephen Moore called 'probably the most disobeyed in American history.' More praise of the move is here.)
The reason I think it is good to be able to peg the cruise control on 79 mph for hours on end is you just make such damn good time. An obvious statement, maybe, but a deeply rewarding experience nonetheless.
I was imprinted long ago with the tendency to perceive all mile measurements while driving in terms of a 60-mph speed. Got to go 20 miles? That will be 20 minutes.
What a difference to be able to look at that sign and think, 'That will be MUCH LESS than 20 minutes. 15, tops.'
Got to go 45 miles? Now I'm thinking 'Half an hour.' I LOVE that. It almost mitigates the dreariness and interminable monotony of a long-distance drive, to experience such sheer efficiency.
'My goodness,' you can say to yourself, 'that Stuckey's is 10 miles away: I'll be there before this song is over.'
It's exhilarating. During stretches of minimal traffic, it's perfectly safe because you're all driving at the same speed and relatively it's like you're standing still, like you're sitting in a field among scattered concrete garden gnomes and occasionally getting up to walk past one.
The roads are less jammed up because everyone is getting to where they need to go so much more quickly. It must be safer, because everyone's not looking in their rear-view mirror the whole time or tensing up at every bend in the road where cops may be lurking. And it's got to be better for the police because they can spend their time and paperwork on the real red-meat bad-asses who are hitting 90 and 95 mph - rather than worrying about the chintzy little boring citizen who just wants to break 70.
Sometimes I wonder what it must have been like for guys like George Washington back in the 1700s, riding a horse 20 miles to get from Mount Vernon to Alexandria all the time for supplies or just to hang out and quaff a few.
In his wagon, that had to be a one-and-a half- hour drive in each direction. If George was around today, I think he'd hop in the SUV and floor it. Why spend 20 minutes on the trip when you could do it in 15? He'd get home and be all like 'Hey Martha, I just went up to the store and got a bushel of hemp seeds and made the whole trip in 30 minutes. ' He wouldn't spend 45 minutes if he didn't have to.
So I consider myself a patriot, a Minuteman if you will.
