The new push for 55 mph

Yup, I'm buying this, all right. (Now where'd I put that roll-eyes smiley face anyway?)

LOS ANGELES — Though it lasted longer than disco and leisure suits, the national 55-miles-per-hour speed limit was another remnant of the 1970s that did not endure.

Yet with high fuel costs reviving memories of the energy crisis of that decade, proposals to bring back the "double nickel" or something like it are emerging, with backers saying federal speed limits could save fuel, money and perhaps lives ...

Here's why this idea is gaining any traction: Anyone who's been on a highway lately knows the higher gasoline prices are motivating many of us to slow down to 65 or slower. My guess is that state troopers aren't catching enough "criminals" to pay their salaries as handily as they were when people routinely went 75-80-85. Lowering the limit to 55 would restore some balance to the state coffers, now that 66 would suddenly be 11 mph over the limit.

"We've been calling on people to do it for themselves, do it voluntarily, do it for the country, do it to stop climate change, do it to save money, do it to make our roads safer," says the busybody Californian quoted in the story. Like many busybodies, he's now decided that if people aren't willing to "do it for themselves, do it voluntarily," well then, "we" will just have to force people to do it at gunpoint.