Safe Speed Forums

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/ ... limit.html

40% of women is about 20% of the population and account for probably less than 1% of the total motorway mileage driven.

What happened to the motorist friendly government then?

As for speed cameras they seem to be sprouting like mushrooms on the M6 and M42 in the Midlands.

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My views do not represent Safespeed but those of a driver who has driven for 39 yrs, in all conditions, at all times of the day & night on every type of road and covered well over a million miles, so knows a bit about what makes for safety on the road,what is really dangerous and needs to be observed when driving and quite frankly, the speedo is way down on my list of things to observe to negotiate Britain's roads safely, but I don't expect some fool who sits behind a desk all day to appreciate that.

Not increasing the amount of crashes on our motorways IS motorist friendly.

How exactly?

mb

Exactly, so why are they not reducing crashes by raising the limit...see what i did there?

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My views do not represent Safespeed but those of a driver who has driven for 39 yrs, in all conditions, at all times of the day & night on every type of road and covered well over a million miles, so knows a bit about what makes for safety on the road,what is really dangerous and needs to be observed when driving and quite frankly, the speedo is way down on my list of things to observe to negotiate Britain's roads safely, but I don't expect some fool who sits behind a desk all day to appreciate that.

"Ending the war on the motorist" has just proved to be a sick joke. If anything they've stepped it up - just look at the rollout of area-wide 20 limits including main roads

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"Show me someone who says that they have never exceeded a speed limit, and I'll show you a liar, or a menace." (Austin Williams - Director, Transport Research Group)

Any views expressed in this post are personal opinions and may not represent the views of Safe Speed

Strange excuse really, after all, not following through will 'alienate' a larger percentage of voters.

"Campaigners said bringing in the 80mph mark would mean that the “de facto” limit would be 90mph"

Well that is rather the point of raising the limit to 80mph, so people driving at the common motorway speed range of 75 - 85 do not have to keep staring at their speedometers and checking every bridge for camera vans.

"while Germany has no restriction at all."

Except for the variable speed limits on the Autobahn leading south from Munich that I used a few weeks ago, I suspect there may be more of them too...

I wonder if they bought this article from the Daily Mail?

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Driving fast is for a particular time and place, I can do it I just only do it occasionally because I am a gentleman.
- James May

Most common cause of delays of motorways is weight of traffic and crashes.

Higher speeds, more crashes, more delays at the time most people are travelling.

How exactly?

mb

...and before you reply, the most common cause of delays on motorways are (unnecessary) roadworks, where lanes are closed, speed limits are reduced and physical (e.g. camera) enforcement is implemented.

Often these unnecessary roadworks cause RTCs, causing even more delays (at least when the police are not completely closing motorways because a "dodgy geezer" is in a services petrol station) .

So, reduced speed limits are most definitely NOT motorist friendly!

mb

I saw it in The Times, where it went straight on to say that the government were anxious to preserve revenues accumulated from speeeeeeding fines. Oh well, at least they were honest about that bit.

Boomer. Funny you should mention it, so let me tell you a tale.

Last October I had my first bump in 10 years. Going through the M62 roadworks theft cameras (specs) and passing an exit slip road. Some bloke cuts in in front of the car in front of me to take the exit, causing him to lock the brakes and start going down the road sideways in a cloud of smoke. I managed to stop in time. The driver behind me woke up and pulled into the middle lane to avoid rear-ending me. The driver behind him woke up too late and ran into the back of me. Fortunately no injuries and minor damage. He was in his mid 50's and it was his first accident EVER. All down to the theft cameras forcing drivers to spend too much time gazing at their speedos whilst driving too slow for the conditions - result, semi-sleep at the wheel.

I am often reminded about the thread Paul Smith started shortly before his death which was about arousal. Sadly the thread was short lived due to an excess of "oo-er missuss, titter ye not comments". I think Paul was really onto something there. A wise man once told me "Attention creates Interest, Interest creates Attention".

Some of the worst culprits for excessive speed are women drivers....

Lack of courtesy , tailgaiting , ignorance of vehicle controls and width of vehicle to name a few others( no offence to a certain Admin member though ) . But I do find that if I'm waiting at a junction ,90% of time ,it'll be a woman who lets me out . On the other hand, I've been a passenger in my daughter's car ( she's also a biker and drives more like a man than i LIKE) it's then that I see the other side of the coin,where men treat women drivers in the same breath .

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lets bring sanity back to speed limits.
Drivers are like donkeys -they respond best to a carrot, not a stick .Road safety experts are like Asses - best kept covered up ,or sat on

Are you saying all roadworks are unnecessary, or just the unnecessary ones? :/

Lot's of evidence to show peak flow on motorways is achieved at 50mph.

Is that real life evidence or from the weepy book of road facts?

I was travelling a motorway for about 6 miles, over two different sections, doing 50MPH (hard shoulder works but no work men about) on Friday night, with all three lanes open and would you believe it, when it reverted back to seventy, all three lanes that were choked up with nose to tail traffic suddenly became two free flowing lanes with a few people overtaking in the third lane and lots of nice open space between each car.....I could have been dreaming, I suppose but I hope not because I was the one driving.

Get your head out of a book and experience the real world sometime, weepy.

Actually, it's funny that you claim, it's fifty because I read somewhere that the best speed is 40MPH, you anti car brigade need to get your BS facts straight.

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My views do not represent Safespeed but those of a driver who has driven for 39 yrs, in all conditions, at all times of the day & night on every type of road and covered well over a million miles, so knows a bit about what makes for safety on the road,what is really dangerous and needs to be observed when driving and quite frankly, the speedo is way down on my list of things to observe to negotiate Britain's roads safely, but I don't expect some fool who sits behind a desk all day to appreciate that.

Anti car? I own a car and drive lots and lots graball.

Ignoring for the moment the difference between peak flow at maximum capacity and individual journey times where the cap is speed enforcement not traffic density.

This would seem fairly logical, almost all vehicles will be able to maintain 50mph so in ideal conditions the flow will be laminar, i.e. all particles flowing at the same speed without turbulence. Where the individual particles have changing velocities due to interactions between them then this could be thought of as turbulent flow which is going to be less efficient.

This speed may well need to be lower to account for heavy vehicles going up hills.

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Driving fast is for a particular time and place, I can do it I just only do it occasionally because I am a gentleman.
- James May

This only applies under a very narrow range of conditions where traffic is still flowing but approaching saturation point - and is recognised by variable speed limit systems. But most of the motorway network by mileage is virtually never that busy, and even those sections that are only experience it for a few hours a day.

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"Show me someone who says that they have never exceeded a speed limit, and I'll show you a liar, or a menace." (Austin Williams - Director, Transport Research Group)

Any views expressed in this post are personal opinions and may not represent the views of Safe Speed

Come on then Weepy- lets have FACTS then . Grabs has been on the roads for 39 years with well over 1milliom miles . I've held a uk licence for 47 years and my total is possibly closer to 2.5million . With 3.5 years overseas included in that ,covering well over 150k on all sorts of roads in all sorts of vehicles . And possibly another 20k on a foreign rail network in various rail trolleys, where on road and rail you meet all sorts of animals. I can't speak for grabs ,but I sort of maxed out on NCB about 20 years ago. points - yes I've had three for speeding .Wrong time ,right place ,but as Peter says, "Show me a man...............".
I'd suggest that you look at FACTS .When HGV started to get restricted to 56, concentration fell and accidents rose . On country roads , limits fell and with no education, standards dropped , and so did the ability to "read" the road. How can some automated robot calibrated to detect SPEED above some arbitrary standard give advice.
I'd suggest you put up or head back under the bridge on your trike to bath your feet in tha stream . ( Who pinched the troll on a trike smilie?)

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lets bring sanity back to speed limits.
Drivers are like donkeys -they respond best to a carrot, not a stick .Road safety experts are like Asses - best kept covered up ,or sat on

Going back to the original topic, on this occasion I think the Top Gear presenters may well have got it right:

If you recall the News item a few weeks back, the opinion was that if the limit were to be increased to 80mph, it would then become rigidly enforced. The problem being that 80mph is 15mph slower than almost everyone drives on motorways.

So by leaving it at 70mph and continuing to not generally enforce it, people are still pretty much free to do 95mph. Assuming the road is clear of course.

Ok, the Top Gear news item was tongue-in-cheek, however there's a point to it. At a rough estimate, based on mine (and others') experience, the 70mph limit on the motorway is not enforced on around 95% of the network. Which means that as long as you're not otherwise driving dangerously, you're unlikely to get pulled over for doing 95mph along a lightly trafficked stretch of motorway. (You might attract attention if you go flying past an unmarked car at >130mph though!)

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Some say his first name really is "The"... and that his left eye is, in fact, a testis. All we know is... he's called The Stig!

So if certain elemts of the population object - WHY .We constantly get told the limit is not a target. Some ladies are ore than capable of higher speed than that. I used to know one lass that I later found out pursuit drivers held inthec greatest of esteem . So if they don't want to do 80, they don't have to .
But JC likes to get controvelsal . he's first and foremost a showman ,and I suspect that's for the caera statement. Anyone see him on the Nuerenburgwith Sabine?
I suspect leaving it at 70 was political ,and ladies are an excuse . raise it to 80, get the speed kills counties out on motorways and little would go to HMG. The fees would go to put bums on SAC corses ad keep SCP staff na job ,but HMG gets the flak ,and so close to an election . Thanks to the utterings of IDS (I could live obnn £53 JSS ) and his saying well off pensiners should forfeit benefits ,thats two large elaments with LONG memories who might not let him ,or his mate in .Then theres courting of motorists - no fuel tax rises.

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lets bring sanity back to speed limits.
Drivers are like donkeys -they respond best to a carrot, not a stick .Road safety experts are like Asses - best kept covered up ,or sat on