If they make me by a hybrid, I'm going to drive twice as much as I need to

I've already been on what amounts to a hiatus, and I figure that will continue through the bar exam at the end of July. In the mean time however, I still plan on posting every time I get the chance- and I have the chance this afternoon, where this little story about lowering the speed limit caught my eye. Here's a taste of just why we need the government to lower speed limits in order to restrict oil usage:

By '84 attitudes had changed. Like petulant children, having come down hard from a candy-driven sugar high and ready for a new buzz, Americans started consuming petroleum in the transportation sector again at an unprecedented rate. The rationalizing child's argument that "since she has a dollar and the candies are only a penny a piece, she should be entitled to eat 100 pieces" is exactly the same argument by which Americans collectively justified their gasoline consumption.

Here's my big problem when it comes to all of these measures, whether it's reducing speed limits or forcing auto companies to improve gas mileage: They are indirect and imprecise solutions to what is supposedly a catastrophe waiting to happen. Either there is a crisis or there isn't- if there isn't, then why can't we let the market function freely. And if there is a crisis, then why use such indirect measures. You can mandate a speed limit and mandate mileage, but that won't stop me from driving a hybrid an extra 400 miles a day for no reason. If there's a real crisis, we should do what was done in World War II and ration- of course, there isn't a real crisis and such a move would be politically unfeasible precisely because there is no crisis. Stupid, stupid, stupid.