Some reading this are perhaps too young to remember, but there actually was such a thing. More finely, such a thing was imposed on us by the government in the name of "saving gas" – although it quickly got re-branded as a "safety" edict. The NMSL was less formally known as Drive 55, which became the law in 1974 and stayed that way for about the next 20 years. It was ginned up by the federal government in response to surging oil prices, caused by shortages that were caused by the oil-exporting states reducing the supply of oil to punish the United States for – wait for it – backing the national socialist state that effectively controls the United States.

Then – as now.

Overnight – literally – highway speed limits went from 65, 70, 75 to 55. Just like that. In other words, driving your car at speeds that had previously been not only within the law became – just like that – illegal "speeding" and grounds for a mulcting, first by a cop and then (later) by the insurance mafia, which cited this "speeding" as evidence of "unsafe" driving and "adjusted" what you were (and still are) forced to pay the mafia.

The corruption engendered by the NMSL does not get enough coverage.

American highways were designed to emulate the German Autobahns, where there were no speed limits at all. But at least American Interstate highway drivers were granted the grace of being allowed to drive at speeds congruent with the design of the Interstates, which were specifically designed to make high speed travel – wait for it – safe. Then – just like that – previously legal and presumably safe speeds became illegal.

There is an important difference there.

Cops used to have a much smaller pool of people to mulct because most drivers didn't drive much faster than 75 on the highway when it was legal to do so – because that speed comports with a technical thing called the 85th percentile speed – which is just a way of saying the approximate speed most drivers on a given road will drive, if left to their own devices. Put even more simply, it is natural flow of traffic on a given road.

Meaning, most drivers aren't "reckless" – but they do want to drive at a speed that feels right for the road. The 85th percentile speed correlates, by the way, with the speed that is safest – in terms of the measured incidence of accidents on that road. It is only when drivers are forced to drive at speed below the 85th percentile speed (by under-posted speed limits and the threat of being "pulled over") that traffic bunches up, flows less smoothly and becomes more dangerous.