Remember when high speed limits were common?

Nobody seems to remember the days before the Feds set a speed limit of 55 in the mid '70s to conserve fuel and not for safety reasons.

Expressway speed limits for cars were 60 to 65 inside of large cities and 70 to 80 outside of cities for cars. The speed limits were 5 or 10 mph lower for large trucks and also for smaller vehicles pulling trailers.

A few of the western states had no speed limits on expressways outside of large cities. Drivers could go as fast as they wanted and would be ticketed for going too much slower than the average speed of traffic around them.

Even in the other states, expressway car traffic averaged at 75 to 80 mph. One usually had to top 90 mph to get pulled over and ticketed.

There were long military convoys of 40 to 60 Army jeeps and trucks that chugged along at 45 to 50 mph in single file in the right lane, yet people managed to deal with them.

Nobody thought about going slower until the fuel shortage of the '70. Having learned to drive in those old days, I welcome the return of higher speed limits.

I just wonder why nobody has suggested slightly lower speed limits for large trucks as was done in the old days for safety. That seems a sensible thing to do.

Rich Lorimer

Streamwood