The 55mph Speed Limit, Women’s Concern Groups and the Power of the Appeal to Emotion
Shôn Ellerton, September 30, 2025
The power of using the appeal to emotion as a tool is a tried and trusted method to pass, usually, quite unpopular acts of legislation.
I remember many years ago just having finished up my high school years back in Colorado, my dad took me on a little road trip around the state. Being a railway enthusiast, he took me around the state to visit some of the world’s best preserved steam railway lines including the amazing Durango & Silverton and Georgetown Loop railroads.
Strangely, I clearly remember what he said whilst driving alongside a seemingly endless landscape of crops in the flat expanse of the San Luis Valley. He said that, sometime in the not too-far-off future, we will get most of our energy from plant-based material. We were passing by a field of carrots and my then understanding was that ethanol could be extracted from such sugar-rich vegetables. This was 1987 and the option of using ethanol at the gas pump seemed to be a fashionable and cleaner alternative to conventional petroleum. These were the days you could still buy leaded gas, the story of its origin of lead being used as an additive to fuel, invented by Thomas Midgeley Jr., being one of the most insane episodes in environmental history.
Energy in those days seemed cheap and abundant. Apparently there was an oil crisis back in the 70s, a time, no doubt, brimming with protests by activists who wanted nothing more than to stop all oil and coal production and instead, run the planet off renewable energies. The hypocrisy and ignorance perpetuated by some of these activists were rife as they trounced the streets wearing clothing and shoes that needed oil to manufacture them whilst some drove around in old gas-guzzlers spewing out black exhaust. I’ve said it many a time, but I tend to have a hard time taking most activists seriously.
The politicians under Nixon’s watch, of course, didn’t particularly help much during the 70s oil crisis when they forged out plans to make it more expensive to facilitate the movement of people and truck haulage by limiting the production and sale of gasoline. Nixon even proposed that gasoline not be sold on Sundays.
I imagine the news during this time would have been thick with stories alarming the public that fossil-based fuels will be used up in just a few years and that the earth would quickly succumb to noxious miasmas and toxic chemicals. I was one of those young kids not having even reached the age of ten who avidly watched the news and found it interesting except for the mundane local news and sports segments. For those not been brought up on American news, you have no idea how long the local news and sports stuff goes for. It’s as if the average mid-west American couldn’t give a damn what happens around the world.
So many were on the bandwagon of environmental concerns with the unbridled use of oil usage and how all the fossil fuels will disappear in less than a decade. Nowadays, of course, it is all about climate change, net zero emissions, and reducing carbon footprints. I don’t subscribe to these concerns in utmost seriousness because most of these problems would go away on their own accord if we didn’t waste so damned much in our consumer-driven society. I wrote in more detail about this in a piece I wrote in 2020 titled Focus on Waste, Not Climate Change. For example, it should be relatively easy to discourage manufacturers not to package a small microSD card in a giant hard practically indestructible bit of plastic which can frustrate anyone no end trying to effect an entry into its contents. And at the same time, we have vague and uninspiring politicians touting their virtuous sentiments on the problems of climate change.
Yeah. Go figure. Easier to prod at the common people than to change the way manufacturers, many of whom make products in countries with no exacting environmental measures in place.
The fuel crisis paranoia extended into consumerism during the late 70s and early 80s. The whole overemphasis on safety hadn’t arrived yet during this time. You could still ride in the back of a pickup, ride a bicycle without a helmet, and do lots of fun things which, these days, are discouraged or made illegal by bespectacled, lack-lustre, and humourless politicians who easily get their way by appealing to the most emotionally susceptible demographics in society using safetyism and virtue-signalling.
Sadly, and I hate to say this, most of these kind of policies stem from community concern groups which are, in most cases, massively dominated by women. They are often given the sob story by something tragic that had happened only to then be informed by the next speaker proposing a solution to the problem. That next speaker is often affiliated to a politician or a political party, who often have an ulterior motive unrelated to the actual issue in question.
I remember back in high school, those sort of groups centred on trying to change or introduce legislation to make everybody safer despite any other circumstances that may entail. There was a group called MADD, or Mothers Against Drunk Driving. The very essence that this concern group was called Mothers Against Drunk Driving is enough proof that these sort of groups are usually held, in majority, by women.
MADD had good intentions but it often brought in these politically affiliated speakers, always dressed to look nice, approachable and appealing. To emphasize the gravity of a tragic event which, possibly could have been avoided if certain measures were put in place, a guest speaker would be brought in to convey a tragic story. For example, the loss of a son or daughter tragically killed in an alcohol-related driving incident. The women in the group would be in tears at this point and would lose the ability to examine the unwanted repercussions that could occur if the solution was put in place. That’s when the politician goes for the jugular and makes that defining speech to garner acceptance of a proposal. This is the defining moment that the appeal to emotion is at an all-time high.
It’s not surprising that support for increasing the age of drinking, even from the ripe old age of 21 years old, had, and still has quite a large following. Some even suggest to ban drinking altogether to save those who might perish in an alcohol-related vehicular accident regardless of depriving others from drinking at all. And this is, despite the fact, that there are responsible young people who drink sensibly not to mention that you can join the military and go to war at eighteen years of age. Americans, in general, tend to be overly strict with underage drinking even if, on a special occasion, a glass of wine is offered to a sixteen year old in a private home. And interestingly, there is a higher amount of alcoholism in the United States per capita than the country of France, who’s people drink far more alcohol per capita than the United States! Without the draconian taboo laws which the United States often has with respect to drinking alcohol, the French taught their kids on the importance of responsible drinking and making it less exciting to break a taboo.
Taboos and bans generally do not work and often do the exact opposite thing that they were intended to do.
I witnessed the power of the appeal to emotion about a month ago when I attended a schools concern group about kids mental wellbeing only to find out that the main purpose was to gain support for the Australian Labor Party to introduce an Under 16s Social Media Ban to be enacted for December 2025. A guest speaker, Wayne Holdsworth, was invited to talk about his teenage son who committed suicide because he was bullied on social media. It was indeed a tragic story. I looked around the room. Mostly women and many of them were in tears. Immediately after, a minor singer-songwriter celebrity by the name of Greg Attwells affiliated with the politicians proposing to introduce the ban offered the solution to the weeping ladies who just lapped it up and then showed their appreciation with a great round of applause. I looked around and saw most of the men there, of which there were very few in the room, with their arms crossed not saying a word.
Now, the unwanted ramifications of bringing this proposal to life are supremely bad mustering in an age of state censorship, control, and a breach of human rights. It follows very similarly to the recent Online Safety Act which was put into place in the UK during July 2025. I discuss this whole issue in my piece with a somewhat lengthy title, Australian Authoritarianism May be a Reality if the Social Media Ban for Under 16s Kicks Into Effect.
Where, you might ask, were the dads or other men?
Well, that’s the problem. The problem with men, in general, is that they generally don’t bother attending these very important community groups to strike a meaningful balance. I’m not suggesting one sex is better than the other, but women are definitely more prone to being victims of appealing to emotion. I saw that firsthand myself.
Back to lowering the speed limit to 55mph.
The proposal, back in the early 70s, to introduce much lower speeds was further aided by such community groups, like the ones aforementioned, on grounds of safetyism, rather than the primary reason for fuel conservation. Nixon proposed the speed limit as an emergency measure to the oil crisis but, to be enacted, it would need to be passed by Congress which would require the approval from the states who, in return, would receive federal money to be injected into their highway infrastructure as a condition.
Drumming up support by the people of each state wasn’t terribly difficult. Getting an emotional rise by frightening the people that the world is going to run out of oil isn’t nearly as easy as bringing in guest speakers talking about their experiences of their loved ones dying from high speed-related road accidents. Bringing the two together seemed to bring all the advantages together making it only a couple of months before the Emergency Highway Energy Conservation Act was enacted by Congress.
No doubt, most who attend these local community campaigns, which can be quite extensive in terms of visit numbers and expensive requiring quite a bit of public money, are women.
There was enough inertia behind the hype centred around the fossil fuel crisis to keep the stories flowing well into the early 80s. Having travelled regularly in Europe during my youth, I couldn’t place why, in Europe, they had far higher road speed limits whilst back in the USA, an absurdly low speed limit of 55 mph was put in place. After all, it was a global oil crisis not just affecting the United States but many other western nations as well.
Let me tell you. Driving at 55 mph on multiple-lane interstate highways through vast open spaces was the most frustrating and painful experience I remember when I first started to drive when I turned sixteen. In today’s world, I would say that most of us have automatic gearboxes with cruise control which, not only saves gas, but helps us to prevent speeding. My first car was a manual and it certainly didn’t have cruise control. I spent a good portion of my time looking at the speedo instead of the road because the cops were extraordinarily vigilant in catching speeders. Some of the more astute of us purchased ‘fuzz busters’, an electronic device which detected if Smokey was hiding behind a billboard armed with a radar gun. However, we were warned that if you were caught speeding and had one of these devices, you’d get into more trouble. The police even had aircraft, and still do today, to catch speeders.
Speed cameras, by the way, are generally very unpopular in the United States. Americans are far more aware of being watched over by their government than their European and Australian counterparts. Try to erect a speed camera on an American open road and it’s likely that someone will come around with an acetylene torch!
The concept to conserve energy with the 55mph limit was flawed in many ways, much like the flawed concept in Australia today, where sly politicians are stating that electric cars should be taxed more heavily because they wear out the road more quickly because they are heavier than petrol and diesel cars.
Both cases are technically correct.
Driving at 55mph does save more fuel than driving at 80mph and electric cars are heavier than petrol or diesel cars. But trucks contribute to more than ninety-five percent of road damage which is also technically correct. And most car pollution stems from idling or slow-moving cars stuck in traffic jams in congested cities. Stopping and starting cars through an endless procession of traffic lights is very heavy on fuel usage. It doesn’t take a genius to work out that you get more miles per gallon on the open road than in busy urban areas and cities.
Do you see my argument here?
Another very bad knock on effect of having an absurdly low speed limit on the open road is an increase in accidents caused from driver weariness and utter boredom. Not to mention an increase in irritability and road rage. There is no excuse for causing an accident by pleading that one is either bored or tired, but they are just old-fashioned plain statistics and it does happen. Drivers need the right amount of stimulation to keep their eyes open while driving. I alluded to this in a piece I wrote back in 2018 titled Safety Fast and added that many motorway designers in Europe abandoned the concept of long straight stretches of roads as the Romans would have built, but rather, to introduce slight curves throughout to keep road drivers more stimulated. However, on the subject of higher speed limits, the flip side is that it is undeniably true that accidents are more severe.
Ultimately, the 55mph limit did not make much of a dent in conserving energy if you take the whole oil-burning industry into account. Nor did it improve safety statistics. As with most ill-designed legislation that becomes enacted, it can take years before common sense prevails and that legislation being reversed.
It was not until 1987 when the speed limit was raised to 65mph, and not until 1995 until there was a total repeal of the national speed limit. That’s a staggering twenty years that American drivers had to put up with this. These days, most interstate highways in the United States have a speed limit between 70 and 80 mph, which, in my view, is a reasonably sensible speed.
