As you zip down the highway at 70 mph, remember that your lead foot will cost you at the pump in these days of $4-a-gallon gas.
Some lawmakers in Congress have certainly considered the consequences of your driving habits. And they want you to slow down.
Record-high gas prices have triggered talk that it may be time to lower the speed limit on federal highways to 55 or 60 mph.
"I think that's a great way to save fuel," said U.S. Rep. Heath Shuler, D-Waynesville, N.C. "I think it would be the right thing to do."
U.S. Sen. John Warner, R-Va., raised the possibility of reducing the speed limit to 55 or 60 mph early last month. He asked Energy Secretary Samuel W. Bodman to study whether a lower speed limit would reduce gas prices at the pump and report back on how much fuel it would save.
In the House, U.S. Rep. Jackie Speier, D-Calif., has filed legislation that would impose a national speed limit of 60 mph on highways in urban centers and 65 mph in less populated areas. A hearing on the bill hasn't yet been set.
The push for a lower speed limit harkens back to 1974, when the country was facing another energy crisis and Congress and President Richard Nixon reduced the limit to 55 mph in response to the Arab oil embargo.
Wear your own damned sweater
