Why were speed limits introduced in USA?

UCANTCME

WHY DON'T YOU JUST CALL YOUR LOCAL DMV OFFICE, THEY WILL BE ABLE TO ANSWER ANY AND ALL OF YOUR QUESTIONS AND AT THE SAME TIME YOU WILL BE GETTING THE CORRECT ANSWER TO YOUR QUESTION.

dodge man

they did this to try and slow down the amount of deaths that were happening on the highways,it worked in some cases,but as cars got faster they had to sightly raise the limit some,now they go up and down with it,they also thought this would save on gas,but they didn't take into consideration the amount of new drivers that get their license every day,there's been lots of reasons for them putting a limit on it,the speed limit only works when we obey it ,good luck on it.

Al Mac Wheel

I have only been paying attention to the news for about 50 years, so I am not up on all relevant history.

Here's a link to some info about speeds on the Internet.
http://www.net-peeker.com/History.htm

I assume you know about Einstein's contribution to scientific theory. There's a lot not known about him by the general public. For example, he was not very popular with the US government because he was so outspoken against racism.
http://www.amnh.org/exhibitions/einstein/light/limit.php

A jokester answer might be that laws got passed because it was thought to be a good idea, to ensure safety. Obviously people who like to drive fast, might think this is a stupid idea, that the highways belong to the people, and we vote on best speed by concensus.

I remember during Nixon years that there was a gasoline shortage due to OPEC mad at USA, and so speed limits were imposed because automobiles get better gas mileage at lower speeds.

Here's some wikipedia on it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Maximum_Speed_Limit

Apparently Canada admired the US wisdom, and copied the mandate
http://www.history.com/tdih.do?action=tdihArticleCategory&id=7223

Mr Quiet

People generally abuse things when there are no rules so they introduced limits to curb the fatalities and make driving safe for the general public,

Chuy

so people could go over them and police become richer and richer ( goverment scam )

Alex

To conserve fuel... learned that in my history class

Andy B

so people would not speed but you now people all we do is speed.

David C

??? what???

Carman Nguyen

To conserve energy,during the fuel shortage crisis of the 80s

oklatom

Safety.

reddcobalt07

Henry Ford started building cars and folks started racin.

Jack The Ripper

Of course the argument is safety,even though it doesn't necessarily increase safety. After all if you have 30 dumb people following each other bumper to bumper at 65 mph how safe is that. The fact is that you are safer if you're on the Audobahn than on any US highway. In congested areas speed limits make perfect sense,not so much to avoid accidents but to decrease the severity of accidents. Otherwise it's just another way for the government to gather revenue through citations. The best safety measures are not speed limits but are instead requiring people to be better drivers in order to get a license,and stringent maintenance requirements for vehicles to be licensed.

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