It doesn't speed dial like most other phones do (assign a number, press/hold that number) but you can add shortcuts with phone numbers to your screen. Long press the screen, select 'direct dial' and choose the number/person. Then just touch that newly created icon and off you go. It's not as easy but that's the way to do it.
You can also try voice dial although I could never get it to work. Voice searches work exceptionally well but voice dial sucks.
Blue tooth voice/direct/hands free dialing is also not an option, I ended up installing 'voice dial hf' ($4) from the market and it works perfectly! I actually use it most of the time, even when I'm not in the car and BT is not hooked up.