During WWII the speed limit was lowered to 35 MPH to save fuel, and everybody got by fine. It also saved tires, and reduced traffic fatalities.

The kinetic energy of a moving body is proportional to its' mass and speed. Dieting may lower our mass, but it is a slow and difficult process. Lowering our speed in an automobile is easy.

Simple Physics: It takes energy to accelerate your body, even if you are just riding in a vehicle. That energy comes from the fuel your engine burns. That energy has to be dissipated when your body is decelerated. The energy goes into heating your car's brakes.

Here's the rub: When you are in an accident, your breaks probably dissipate very little of the kinetic energy in your body. Bending the frame and body of you car dissipates some of that energy, and the rest is dissipated by your body. Dissipating energy in your body never feels good: When you walk into a wall or get hit by a club, it hurts. If you fall, unless you catch the fall by dissipating the energy in your leg muscles, it hurts. A fall of over about 20 feet dissipates more energy than your leg muscles can handle; bones break and flesh bruises. When you get burned by too much heat energy, it hurts. If you grab onto an electric wire dissipating electrical energy in your body also hurts.

Your body can absorb energy if it is not too fast. But automobile accidents don't happen in slow motion. And the faster you are going the worse the damage. Everybody, knows that. And the damage goes up at least at the square of the speed--maybe more.

A Simple Solution: reduce the speed limit to 30 MPH!

Yes, I am serious. This would double the miles per gallon in almost all vehicles. And, after the auto manufactures realized the vehicles could use much smaller engines the milage could be doubled again. And it would cut the auto accident injuries at least in half. Everybody really knows this. Cutting the speed limit down to walking speed would virtually eliminate all auto accident injuries.

30 MPH is a number very close to the WWII speed limit, and yes it would take some adjustment; but eventually people would live a little closer to where they work. And "Live Happily ever after". Today with world wide communications, and the Internet; we don't need high travel speeds as much as we did back in the 1940's.

Here is a discussion and explanation of Automobile Milage.

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