President Nixon sets a national speed limit of 55 MPH - January 2nd, 1974

On this day in 1974, President Richard Nixon established a maximum speed limit of 55 miles per hour on every highway in the United States.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
This Day in History Class is a production of I
Heart Radio. Hello and Welcome to This Day in History Class,
a show that gives a quick look it's something that
happened a long time ago. Today I'm Gabe Louzier, and
in this episode, we're examining one of the least popular
policies of one of America's least popular presidents. The day

(00:29):
was January second, seventy four. President Richard Nixon established a
maximum speed limit of fifty five miles per hour on
every highway in the United States, known as the Emergency
Highway Energy Conservation Act, The law was primarily intended to
conserve the nation's fuel supply in response to the ongoing

(00:53):
fuel crisis of the nineteen seventies. The results were a
mixed bag, but the law remained in effect to regardless
for more than two decades. Prior to Nixon's law, each
state had the right to set its own speed limits
for all the roads within its borders. This had resulted
in highway speed limits that ranged from forty miles per

(01:15):
hour all the way up to eighty miles per hour.
Cars are less fuel efficient when driven at higher speeds,
but following World War Two, the US wasn't worried about
its gas supply like other industrialized nations. The country helped
itself to inexpensive Middle Eastern oil from nineteen fifty until

(01:36):
the early nineteen seventies. The gravy train finally ground to
a halt in nineteen seventy three. The Arab nations of OPEC,
the organization of the petroleum Exporting Countries, took exception to
the West support of Israel in the recent Yam Kippur
War also known as the Ramadan War. In protest, the

(01:58):
group abruptly east all oil shipments to the United States,
as well as Japan and Western Europe. When OPEK eventually
started selling again, it raised its oil prices to four
times what they had been previously. The embargo struck a
major blow to American and European economies, highlighting just how

(02:21):
dependent the West had become on foreign oil. The sweeping
energy crisis led to gas shortages and desperate attempts at
fuel conservation and rationing. Nixon's federal law on speed limits
was part of the American government's response to the OPEC
oil embargo. It was hoped that by forcing people to

(02:43):
drive slower, less gasoline would be wasted. Of course, Congress
recognized that a fifty five mile corrour speed limit wouldn't
go over well in some states, especially the western ones,
which had the longest, straightest and dullest st rural highways
in the country. That is why Congress enacted the law,

(03:05):
along with an ultimatum to the states, comply with the
national speed limit or give up all of your funding
from the Department of Transportation. With their federal highway money
on the line, most states lowered their speed limits right away,
but even if a state grudgingly complied with the law,

(03:25):
how to enforce it was still up to them. For example,
in Nevada, state police only issued full speeding tickets to
drivers going more than seventy miles per hour. Anything less
and the offender was just given a five dollar fine
for energy wasting. Of course, the big question is whether

(03:46):
the national speed limit actually reduced fuel consumption as intended.
The answer to that is still up for debate. The
law did curb petroleum consumption by over a hundred and
sixty in barrels per day, but that only represents a
drop in demand of about one or two percent, hardly

(04:07):
enough to solve an energy crisis. Part of the reason
the savings were so slight was that by the time
Nixon's law took effect, twenty one states had already adopted
maximum speed limits of fifty five miles per hour or less.
That means a large portion of the country was already
driving super slowly on the highway, so the national speed

(04:30):
limit didn't reduce their fuel consumption any further. It also
didn't help that the lower speed limit only impacted highway driving,
which is already better for fuel economy the driving at
lower speeds on congested roads and side streets. The law
didn't save as much gas as the government had hoped,
but the fifty five mile per hour speed limit remained

(04:53):
in place even after the oil crisis had ended. By
eight Studies show to steady decline in highway fatalities in
the years since the lower speed limit was introduced. Some
analysts pointed out that the reduction in deaths was more
likely due to a general decrease in recreational driving because

(05:15):
of high cost and scarcity of gas, but the government
insisted it was actually due to the national speed limit.
The Department of Transportation even launched a publicity campaign using
the slogan fifty five saves lives. Take a listen. Fifty
five saves lives. Since nineteen seventy has been the single

(05:35):
biggest factor in reducing highway deaths by more than thirty
six thousand people. One of them could be used saves lives.
By the nineteen eighties, the American public still widely approved
of the national speed limit, even if most motorists didn't
abide by it themselves. But the law still had many

(05:55):
vocal detractors, and one of the most prominent was rock
star Sammy Agar, the future lead singer of the band
Van Halen In. Hagar was pulled over while driving through
New York State. He had been going seven miles over
the national speed limit, and when the cops said he
gave tickets for anything over sixty, the musician replied, quote,

(06:18):
I can't drive fifty five. As the cop wrote out
the ticket, Hagar began scribbling down the lyrics for what
ultimately became his first hit song. It was titled you
Guessed It, I Can't Drive fifty five. The song captured

(06:48):
the sentiments of a growing number of citizens, not to mention,
state governments and industries in Congress acknowledged the backlash by
raising the speed limit to sixty five miles per hour
on all rural interstate highways. Then in the law was
scrapped altogether, and the right to determine speed limits was

(07:11):
handed back to the individual states. After more than twenty years,
the long strange experiment was finally over. It was a
sad day for some, after all, small towns along the
highways had made a fortune off of speeding fines and fees,
and those in the radar detector business had sold more

(07:31):
units than they likely ever would again. But for everyone else,
the laws repeal was a welcome return to the days
of sensible speeding, to a time when daily commutes went
by a little faster and nobody wrote rock songs about
speed limits. I'm Gabe Loser and hopefully you now know

(07:53):
a little more about history today than you did yesterday.
You can learn even more about history by following us
on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram at t d i HC Show,
and if you have any comments or suggestions, you can
always drop me a line at this Day at I
heart media dot com. Thanks to Chandler Mays for producing

(08:14):
the show, and thank you for listening. I'll see you
back here again tomorrow. For another day in history class.
For more podcasts from I heart Radio, visit the iHeart
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(08:35):
favorite shows.