Clinamen

My latest geekly obsession is speed and rhetoric. I've been following the advice of a certain yellow dog and reading some Virilio. I've cleaned the library out of Virilio, in fact. But more on that at another time.

For now, I'd like to point you to current discussions about the link between the 55-miles-per-hour speed limit (or lack thereof) and the current financial mess. Yeah, really. Here's Michael Lewitt, editor of The HCM Market Letter and a money manager, wondering why neither presidential candidate has suggestion lowering the speed limit:

why hasn't either candidate suggested reinstituting the 55 mpg speed limit on federal highways? This would cut fuel consumption by a significant amount as it has done in the past.

Lewitt cites a a 2005 New York Times piece on fuel consumption:

The 55 miles-per-hour speed limit came as a result of the 1973 Arab oil embargo. The Nixon administration ordered states to lower their maximum limit to save fuel at a time when the first oil shock threatened to bring the economy to a standstill.

After steadily rising each year, gasoline demand suddenly stopped growing in 1974 and remained nearly flat for the next decade, keeping oil consumption in check.

Roland Hwang, the vehicles policy director at the Natural Resources Defense Council in San Francisco, estimated the savings of the speed limit in 1983 at 2.5 billion gallons of gasoline and diesel fuel, or 2.2 percent of the total use for these types of fuels.

But as gas lines faded from people's memories and energy prices went down, the federal speed limit was relaxed in 1987, allowing states to set higher caps of 65 miles an hour. Once more, gasoline consumption surged.

Smaller efforts today could make a difference. For example, driving at 10 miles an hour above the 65 miles-per-hour limit increases fuel consumption by 15 percent; inflating tires properly cuts gasoline use by 2 percent; keeping engines idle while in line wastes millions of gallons.

The trouble is that few drivers bother with these suggestions, Mr. Hwang said. "People are basically too lazy to pump their tires up."

Now, the link between the speed limit and the financial crisis isn't direct, but it's a link nonetheless. I very much doubt that there will be any move to slow down. Speeding up, maybe...but slowing down is unlikely.

As I begin to think through these questions of speed, I'm becoming interested in the various infrastructural shifts that are happening right now. How are airports dealing with post-9/11 travel? In the Pittsburgh airport, for instance, there's an entire mall inside the security checkpoints. This means that the only people who can shop are those who are traveling. Those picking up or dropping off passengers are locked out. No boarding pass, no shopping. No boarding pass, no access..and you are confined to circulating (or circle-ulating) around the exterior of the airport. Because stopping at the curb is a no-no these days.

Roads and airways, speed, and the various roadblocks to speed. All of these issues point me to my questions of speed and rhetoric: Are we stuck with "soundbyte" culture (I hate this term)? Are we "trapped" in a media environment that inundates us, pushes us along, and has little to no patience for slowness? Should we be trying to slow things down? Or, should we recognize the inevitability of speeding up.

[Photo credit: Daniel Hulshizer/Associated Press]