Buzz
From looking at their speedometers, you'd assume that many modern cars could easily reach 160 miles per hour. But unless you're a NASCAR professional, you’ve probably never gotten anywhere close to that speed. Let's talk about speeding tickets: In the U.S., no highway legally allows speeds beyond 85 mph. So, why do car manufacturers design vehicles that can go twice that fast?
The quick answer is, they don’t. As this video shows:
Former Nissan executive Larry Dominique explains, “Eighty percent of cars on the road are not designed for and will not exceed 110 miles per hour,” no matter what the speedometer suggests. Additionally, tires generally can't tolerate being pushed past 130 miles per hour for extended periods.
So why does your family sedan or minivan’s speedometer claim speeds that it can’t possibly reach?
There’s a bit of sales strategy at play here. To potential buyers looking for a new car, higher top speeds may suggest more powerful engines. From a marketing standpoint, speedometers that exaggerate the vehicle's potential make perfect sense. But does this deceptive tactic come with consequences? Worried that inflated numbers might encourage dangerous driving, Joan Claybrook, head of the National Highway Safety Administration, led a campaign in 1979 to enforce a new rule that speedometers couldn’t display speeds over 85 mph (although this rule was revoked two years later).
If you look at some older speedometers, you might notice that the number 55 is circled. This marks a time when, during the 1974 OPEC crisis, President Richard Nixon imposed a nationwide speed limit of 55 mph, hoping it would boost fuel efficiency. This policy, known as the Emergency Energy Conservation Act, was modified in the following years and wasn’t fully rescinded until 1995.
