Back to 55?

WHEN recounting the greatest advances for freedom enacted by the Republican-controlled Congress over the past decade, conservatives often overlook the abolition of the 55 mile-per-hour speed limit on federal highways. Enacted back in 1974, “double nickel” (as it was called) was supposed to save both oil and lives. It saved neither, and it may have been the most openly disobeyed and detested law in America since Prohibition. In 1995, Republicans in Congress let the states establish their own speed limits and motorists have been thankful since.

Now, as Congress finishes up work on the 2005 highway bill, some nanny-state interest groups want to reestablish a national speed limit. And these groups continue to agitate for lower state limits.