How do we most effectively pursuade an entire nation to embrace a giant paradigm shift and finally embark, with unbridled gusto, upon the costly and hugely disrupting wholesale switch to electric vehicles? What juicy carrot would hang so seductively before the salivating mouths of Americans, that a veritable sea change would wash across the entire breadth of the nation, like an unstoppable tsunami - first hitting the progressive coastal metropols, and then proceeding, little deterred, into the very heart of the land?
The answer is quite simple: speed. Can you think of a single thing more addictive to car crazed Americans than the promise of unrestrained speed?!?! Why not! Why not use this most powerful of baits to hook Americans on the thrill and allure of converting to electric?
California has had remarkable success in using its HOV decal program to spur the sales of SULEV (Super Ultra Low Emission Vehicle) cars, like the Toyota Prius, by allowing single-occupant qualifying gas/electric hybrid vehicles to use high-occupancy vehicle lanes (carpool or diamond lanes) during rush hour traffic. Now, if owning an electric ZEV (Zero Emission Vehicle), such as the super cool Tesla Roadster, qualified you - under my proposed EASE (Electric Automobile Speeding Exemption) program - to drive without any speed limit applying to you, just think how many busy, always-on-the-go, never-there-soon-enough professionals would be clambering over one another to get their impatient little hands on one of those electric speed monsters!
Perhaps not too many young Americans today realize that the stubbornly low speed limits that still persist in some states are actually the distasteful legacy of an energy crisis that occurred when they were so young as to not remember, or possibly even before their time on this Earth. Indeed, it was the 1973 oil crisis that gave birth to the National Maximum Speed Law, which was signed into law by Richard Nixon and which effectively imposed a nationwide speed limit of a very, very sad 55 mph.
After the repeal of the federal limits in 1995, some states, such as Oregon, have had a hard time trying to claw their way back to the good old days of reasonable speed. While there is definitely a safety consideration behind speed limit regulations, there has been a tremendous and overpowering influence historically of fuel economy. But these same fuel economy concerns just don't have the same degree of gravity when you're dealing with electric vehicles, where the electrical energy used could be produced from readily available renewable sources, such as wind and solar.
About three quarters of the length of the German autobahn network has no limit on speed! Typical driving and traffic conditions on the unrestricted sections of the autobahn result in an average driving speed of just over 90mph, with some drivers at some times of the day or in certain open sections of the autobahn attaining speeds of 150mph and above! Despite this seeming invitation to road mayhem and catastrophic traffic accident rates, many rigorous studies have found the unrestricted sections of the autobahn to be statistically as safe as the speed restricted areas. Regardless, city roads with more complex traffic rules, more traffic lights, and more frenetic driving patterns, turn out to be significantly more dangerous than the autobahn.
So, the question is: in a nation that seems these days to be averse to making decisions based upon good science, can we look past our narrow and punitive mindset and our unfounded emotional reaction to the idea of driving without speed limits on freeways, and choose to use a speeding exemption as a powerful incetivizing tool in moving the nation towards energy security and making a responsible contribution to the problem of global warming?
It's high time that those who make the virtuous commitment to our environment and energy independence were rewarded with the right to commute with E.A.S.E.