Boy you know times are changing when a Republican Senator suggests reducing the national speed limit!  In other news, on a week long road trip I was amazed that everybody was driving the speed limit, particularly the truck drivers.  People were also driving much more smoothly.  The very few who weren’t really stood out.  Watching norms and values change is always facinating, but it’s nice when they change in directions I happen to approve of.

All of which lead me to believe that this story about police adding a surcharge to speedin tickets to pay for fuel wasn’t entirely accurate.  I suspect the police are writing fewer tickets and the surcharge’s actual purpose is to fill a revenue shortfall.

Every additional 5 mph over that threshold is estimated to cost motorists “essentially an additional 30 cents per gallon in fuel costs,”

That’s a chart I’d like to see, i.e. the cost in cents/gallon of marginal increases in speed.

Update: This posting is pretty good.