ABSTRACT
Before there was a nationwide mandated minimum drinking age, there was the nationwide mandated speed limit. It was set at 55 miles per hour, which seemed even at the time an absurdly low number and gave rise to a popular rock song by Sammy Hagar that declared, simply if with gusto, “I Can’t Drive 55.” The National Maximum Speed Limit instructed the US Secretary of Transportation to “withhold approval of all Federal-aid highway construction projects if a State fails to establish a maximum 55-mile-per-hour speed limit or to certify that it is enforcing the limit.” The national 55 mandate seemed too many an outrageous and, once the ostensible fuel shortage passed, unnecessary intrusion into what had always been a concern of the states, not the national government. The Comptroller General, in his report on the achievability of the 55 mph mandate, noted that some state officials cited “additional paperwork and increased monitoring efforts and costs” due to 55.
