...and in the rest of Texas; article.

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/story.ht...olitan/1172365

 

I heard that, it is bull shit. There will be no reduction in smog

 

More environmentalist Politically Correct bullshit.

I'm pretty sure C&D did a test a while back (or studied all the data on the issue) and concluded that lower speed limits don't help enough to be worth it.

Just like lower speed limits have minimal effect on saving lives.
(Let the weak ones weed themselves out instead of giving them the power to write laws that bring everyone else down to their level.)

 

Yeah, this will suck , I think I'm going to have to break down & buy a Valentine 1

 

cnatra,
welcome to the board. Where are you in TX?

 

Just goes to show you, there are A wholes all over the country.

 

Being a meteorologist, I took classes about this whole pollution thing. I do not doubt that individual cars generally produce less pollutants at 55 mph. They probably saw this data, ran the models they have considering this new factor, and saw that indeed the car should produce less pollutant overall if they lowered the speed limit.

Now does this mean it will work?

Something probably needs to be done. I live 200 miles southwest in Corpus Christi, and can see a smog bank roll into the area from Houston everytime we have northeast winds. I don't really think this latest solutions will work for a couple of reasons.

Anyone who has spent any time in Houston knows that speed limits are mearly suggestions anyway. I don't think this will do a lot to change driving habits there.

The problem isn't newer cars, its older one. You could drastically reduce emission problems by junking every car that is, say, 20 years or older. Those old junker cars you see on the road put out at least 20 times what the CLS does.

I have met the guys who ran these models, and the last thing I would think to call them are environmentalists. Its one of those things where environmental groups, the EPA, and our own politicians are breathing down their neck for ANY way to improve the situation. That way Texas can fight the EPA and say they are doing everything possible to correct the problem when the EPA comes in and says, 'Hmmm...still non-compliant, here's your XXX billion dollar fine, have a good day.'

 

Yeah, I always thought that was funny. An old car blowing smoke with brand new licence plates [tabs] meaning they just passed the [required] environmental inspection.

I guess they don't do this all states but I can remember in Minnesota having a bit of a problem sometimes passing these (with my Integra) and that car was only a few years old. How the hell does a '85 Daytona pass?

 

hell yeah, they're suggestions... they're suggestions of what speed you could be going if you weren't weren't sharing the roads with 3 million other drivers at the same time.

seriously, the speed limit reduction won't have much of an impact in houston until we reduce the number of cars that sit idling in bumper-to-bumper traffic on I-10 during july/august for hours at a time.

 

NE Houston