Public likes 55-mile limit, but increasingly ignores it

Despite mounting pressure on Congress to repeal the national 55-mile-an-hour speed limit, the public - including people living in all regions of the country - is overwhelmingly in favor of retaining the limit.

A Gallup survey shows 76 percent favor keeping the 55 m.p.h. limit and 21 percent would like it abolished, indicating that public opinion has been notably stable since the law was enacted in 1974. The survey also showed that noncompliance with the speed limit is growing, despite a 1978 federal statute that said a state could lose 5 percent of its federal funds for highway construction and repair if half its motorists were found violating the speed law.