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PostPosted: Sat Jun 22, 2013 11:44 
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Daily Mail wrote:
Government ditches plans to raise motorway speed limit to 80mph amid safety concerns and fears it will alienate women voters

Transport Secretary Patrick McLoughlin says the plan is 'not a priority'
It was launched with fanfare in 2011 amid claims it would boost economy
But polling shows significant numbers of women were against the move

By Damien Gayle PUBLISHED: 09:01, 22 June 2013 | UPDATED: 09:01, 22 June 2013

Plans to raise the motorway speed limit to 80mph have been consigned to the slow lane amid fears it may alienate women voters and increase risks on the road.

The policy was launched with a fanfare in 2011 by then transport secretary Philip Hammond, who claimed the 70mph limit had been 'discredited' and a rise to 80mph would boost the economy.

But Patrick McLoughlin, who now fills the Cabinet post, says the move is no longer a priority.
Cars whizz along the M25: A plan to increase the motorway speed limit to 80mph, first mooted just two years ago, has been ditched over fears it would increase risks on the road and alienate women voters

Cars whizz along the M25: A plan to increase the motorway speed limit to 80mph, first mooted just two years ago, has been ditched over fears it would increase risks on the road and alienate women voters

The decision will anger many drivers who, polling shows, mostly want higher speeds, but it has already been welcomed by road safety groups and environmental campaigners.

In an interview with The Times today, Mr McLoughlin said the plan had been ditched.

'Look, that's not a priority, to be absolutely honest,' he said. 'You would have to do trials in certain areas so it's not something that's a high priority.'

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A source close to the Transport Secretary told the newspaper: 'This is not going to happen with Patrick McLoughlin as Transport Secretary.

'Safety is paramount to him and his view of how to run the roads and he would not be confident about how you would do it.'
'Safety is paramount to him': Transport Secretary Patrick McLoughlin, who said the plan to increase the limit was 'not a priority'

'Safety is paramount to him': Transport Secretary Patrick McLoughlin, who said the plan to increase the limit was 'not a priority'

The Prime Minister's inner circle is said to fear that an increase in the speed limit could alienate women voters. Polls have shown a majority of drivers would support the move, but significant numbers of women were against it.

Mr Hammond had originally announced the plan at the 2011 Tory party conference, saying the 70mph limit had resulted in millions of motorists routinely breaking the law, undermining the principle of policing by consent.

He said: 'The limit was introduced way back in 1965 - when the typical family car was a Ford Anglia.'

He claimed a rise to 80mph would 'restore the legitimacy' of the system and benefit the economy by 'hundreds of millions of pounds'.

Former roads minister Mike Penning last May said he would set up trials for the higher speed limit on parts of the motorway network, and only last week Stephen Hammond, his successor, told a motoring forum the plan was still alive.

The RAC said it was disappointed with the decision to drop the speed limit increase. Motoring groups had argued that 80mph is a safe speed in a modern car, providing drivers leave enough room between vehicles.

But last year campaign groups estimated that raising the motorway speed limit to 80mph would cost society an extra £1billion a year, including £766million in fuel bills and more than £62million in health costs.

The groups, which include road safety charity Brake, the Campaign for Better Transport (CBT) and Greenpeace, also estimated that the higher limit would lead to 25 extra deaths and 100 serious injuries a year, as well as 2.2 million more tonnes of carbon emissions.

Professor Stephen Glaister, director of the RAC Foundation, said: 'The real stumbling block is likely to have been enforcement.

'Police already tend to give speeding drivers some leeway, so it was quite feasible that an 80 mph limit would have actually meant 90 mph in practice and that proved a step too far for ministers.'

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... z2WwNSZys1
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On Sky News in 2 hrs on this ... Wholeheartedly the biggest WRONG reason to cancel this trial.

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PostPosted: Sat Jun 22, 2013 15:37 
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80mph speed limit plan 'not dead', says minister
By Rosa Silverman 6:00AM BST 13 Jun 2013

Local trials of an 80 mph speed limit could take place, a transport minister has said.
80mph speed limit plan for motorways
The motorway speed limit could still be increased to 80mph, Stephen Hammond says. Photo: ALAMY

Stephen Hammond, the road safety minister, reiterated his support for a higher limit.
But other senior sources at the Department for Transport were more sceptical about the idea with Patrick McLoughlin known to nurture serious doubts about raising the limit.
Mr Hammond suggested Three trials of the higher speed limit are expected to be carried out in 2014, followed by its introduction nationwide if they are found to be successful.
He told Auto Express magazine the idea was “not dead”.
He said: “We are thinking about it. “We are thinking about how we could trial it rather than go to a consultation.
“It would be important to have a good evidence-based trial.”
The higher speed limit was unlikely to be introduced before next summer as it could take a year to put the regulatory format in place, he said.
“My message, though, is that it [80mph] has not been lost. Our philosophy is that we should have the right speed on the right road,” he said.
“Drivers will have noticed that we have made some significant changes to guidelines to local authorities about lower speeds in rural areas.
“We have also made it easier to introduce 20mph limits and zones.”

The plan to increase the motorway speed limit by 10mph from its current level of 70mph was first put forward under the Labour government.

It was then pursued enthusiastically by Philip Hammond who, as Tory transport secretary, launched the plan officially in 2011.
He claimed it would reduce congestion and boost the economy by “hundreds of millions of pounds”.
But road safety campaigners and environmental groups have opposed the move.
Brake, the road safety group, warned it would result in more deaths and serious injuries on motorways.
Some six per cent of road deaths currently occur as a result of incidents on England’s motorways, according to a recent report by the Road Safety Foundation.

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PostPosted: Sat Jun 22, 2013 20:54 
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Quote:
Brake, the road safety group, warned it would result in more deaths and serious injuries on motorways.
Some six per cent of road deaths currently occur as a result of incidents on England’s motorways, according to a recent report by the Road Safety Foundation.


how do they know that? have they been reading weepy's guide to road safety stats?

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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.


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PostPosted: Sat Jun 22, 2013 23:34 
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Some six per cent of road deaths currently occur as a result of incidents on England’s motorways, according to a recent report by the Road Safety Foundation.


Yep so they are obviously very dangerous roads (NOT), let's reduce them to lower speed levels, such as the speed limits of the 94% of dangerous roads.

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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.


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PostPosted: Sun Jun 23, 2013 08:02 
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The justification about women's objections is plain stupid and prejudiced but I'm actually not bothered that they have decided to do nothing about this. I would rather have the lightly policed 70mph limit as now rather than a rigidly (automatically?) enforced limit of 80mph.

BTW, isn't BRAKE mainly composed of women?

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PostPosted: Sun Jun 23, 2013 08:43 
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malcolmw wrote:
The justification about women's objections is plain stupid and prejudiced but I'm actually not bothered that they have decided to do nothing about this. I would rather have the lightly policed 70mph limit as now rather than a rigidly (automatically?) enforced limit of 80mph.

Yes, if the 80 limit involved camera enforcement I'd rather not have it. I would say the maximum speed most people would be happy to drive at on a SPECS-enforced 80-limit motorway would be considerably lower than that on a camera-free 70-limit motorway. A classic case of being careful what you wish for.

malcolmw wrote:
BTW, isn't BRAKE mainly composed of women?

Non-driving women as well.

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PostPosted: Sun Jun 23, 2013 11:24 
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Yes, I'm in favour of an 80MPH limit but not enforced by specs cameras, that would lead to the sort of bunching that you get in roadworks and I can see a lot more accidents because of it. At least with the present system there is a good range of speeds which allows for better free flow (so long as we don't get stuck in one of weepy's 50MPH "fast flow" networks).

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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.


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PostPosted: Sun Jun 23, 2013 13:16 
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graball wrote:
Yes, I'm in favour of an 80MPH limit but not enforced by specs cameras, that would lead to the sort of bunching that you get in roadworks and I can see a lot more accidents because of it. At least with the present system there is a good range of speeds which allows for better free flow (so long as we don't get stuck in one of weepy's 50MPH "fast flow" networks).


Who are these 'experts' that declared 80mph 'must' have more enforcement? How did they arrive at that conclusion? Sounds like a load of horse doo doo to me!

Is it not true that M6 toll was surveyed some time ago and traffic doing 90 mph plus was discovered to be common place. Believe M74 was similar. Extra enforcement was sanctioned based ONLY on the frequency of limit transgression and not on any raise in accidents.

70mph is a joke, anyone observing the behaviour of traffic onUK motorways and across other nations can see it based on EVIDENCE.

I agree that clutter and chaos in SPECS 50's is a clear indicator of how misguided these 'experts' are and how easy it is to mislead the public with made up 'facts'....

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PostPosted: Sun Jun 23, 2013 13:40 
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Quote:
I agree that clutter and chaos in SPECS 50's is a clear indicator of how misguided these 'experts' are and how easy it is to mislead the public with made up 'facts'....


A lot of this "ideal speed for maximum flow" crap is done by computer programmes. I.ve seen the sort of basic programme that demonstrates it. It assumes everyone travels at the same speed, joins motorways at the same pace, with no gaps and everyone on the motorway keeps an ideal distance.
The real world aint like that and a computer can be made to do as you tell it, if you want to prove water flows uphill a computer will prove it for you.

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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.


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PostPosted: Tue Jun 25, 2013 21:42 
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graball wrote:
(so long as we don't get stuck in one of weepy's 50MPH "fast flow" networks).

BTW- Where is Weepy- or is he stuck in one of his slow go networks ,wher cyclists take over the world .

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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


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