The 55 MPH Tax
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Liberty Magazine's Tim Slagle deserves credit for seeing this one coming in time to hit the July issue (
Reflections, p.12), and for doing the math. In the last week or two, do-gooders of every political persuasion have started bleating "bring back the 55 MPH speed limit" to save gasoline. No one stops to count how much this damnfool proposal costs the drivers. To quote Slagle:
The [Associated Press] article states that slowing a car from 70 to 60 miles per hour will give you a 2 to 3% gain in efficiency. That paltry benefit is precisely the reason Americans refuse to slow down. It is simple economics; if gas costs $3.33 a gallon, a 3% savings amounts to around a dime a gallon. If your car burns gas at a rate of three gallons an hour, [e.g., 60 mph at 20 mpg*] the 30 cents you save by driving 10 mph slower will take ten minutes out of your life. Very few people in America are willing to sell their time for three cents a minute.
Yet bureaucrats and busybodies have no compunction about demanding that every driver give up a slice of his time in the name of some vague public good. It's not enough that
they can slow down -- and I'll bet that none of them currently do -- but
everyone else must be forced to live
their preferred lifestyle.
Here's an idea: leave the speed limit alone. Those that want to conserve gas can slow down. Those who think their time is worth more than $1.80 an hour -- or $2.20 an hour, at $4.08 a gallon -- can opt to drive faster and pay a bit more. That's freedom of choice.
__________
* In one of life's little ironies, those virtuous souls who own high-mileage automobiles will be compensated
less for slowing down.
Brad
- Thursday 03 July 2008 - 04:51:39
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