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85-90?

i spent the majority of my time on the motorway at 85 mph

same, like i say i always speed in limits other than 30

motorway/duel carriage way (Both with central reservation) are designed to go fast on...so go fast on them

Ross

Motorways were designed to carry no speed limit, and all corners on motorways were designed for safe cornering speeds of 120mph, based on 1960's handling.. in my opinion the 70 limit is ridiculous and it really pisses me off that we should keep such a major road traffic law purely out of tradition and because the government can't be bothered to get off their arses and raise it.. even if it were only up to 80mph it'd be a step in the right direction, for me that'd be a happy cruising speed..
Personally I tend to drive just under the limit of what a camera would do me for on a motorway, ie ~76-78mph. I stick to 70 on dual carriageways as I have no objection to that limit, there tend to be more dangerous road layouts and corners than on motorways, but the motorway limit really is ridiculous.

im sure theres naff all he can do?

I seem to remember that police cars have to have uniformed officers to pull you up?

but Wink on getting away with it

I don't know if that's right actually.. an unmarked police car can pull you up legally, and they carry non uniformed officers.. although maybe that's an exception or something..

120mph in a 1960s car? you're joking right?

(ah, you mean the ones on the main carriageway, without warning signs? ok )

well i suppose the law and emergency services are allowed to exceed the Joke (um, i mean, 70 limit ) so at least they should be able to round most "unmarked" corners safely at the ton in the wet on the motorway...

Personally i think the autobahn 150-odd mph is probably far too much for most people to cope with unaided, but 80 is well within the capabilities of pretty much anyone who doesnt freak when presented with a 3-lane divided highway, and is even a decent cruising speed in a 1L (though not really any faster!). Should be higher, but with that, it needs really to be more like the states and many parts of europe, where there might be a general idea of what speed most motorways / autoroutes/strada/bahns / freeways are set at, but it's still allocated on a case-by-case basis in real life. I've taken journeys in france and italy where the limit on the same road has gone between 130 (would be 150 in some cases now!), down thru 110, 100, 90, 80 even 70kmh and back up again depending on the road's location, prevailing traffic conditions, curves & junctions etc. Some of them seemed a little low, and the blanket max of 130k got exceeded by some margin in various places, but on the whole a fairly sensible arrangement.

Maybe an idea to start with switching to kilometres, and in general, converting each MPH limit to twice the existing number but in km/h? That would be closer to many people's general driving speeds

Highest limit on motorway perhaps 90mph/140-150kmh (with an unwritten understanding that you can get away with the ton but not really any higher - and over ~125/200kmh is a ban unless you can prove you were travelling safely) on the best sections but with many being lower, with ~80/125-130kmh being the most widespread, and 75-thru-55 (90-110/120kmh) for special cases, less well designed/constructed/maintained sections and tricky junctions.

Stick with around 60-70 for A-roads (keeping head-on collision speeds down) and 70-80 for dual carriageways, again depending on quality. That most dual carraigeways, with minimal fencing, semi-urban routes and decidedly rubbish junctions can be the same limit - with LOWER fines/penalty points! - compared to a full on motorway is just plain daft...

Thing is, with more sensibly set limits - and possibly, as an experiment, properly explained ones where it's lower than the max? a little hazard sign underneath the limit? - they'll get more respect and more people adhering to them, rather than thinking... "70? sod that... floor it!". Traffic moving at a more even pace and less frustration at the slow bugger in front of you, hopefully less bunching (hopefully...) and an actual improvement in road safety and economy with less hard acceleration/braking.

(also stricter bans on trucks overtaking etc - have to be progressing a certain reasonably increased speed compared to the vehicle in front to make an attempt at passing, maybe get all truck speed limiters VERY finely adjusted, using GPS, or just abolished... perhaps even differing speed limits and MINIMUM speed limits per lane in particularly busy or trunk-freight routes... why is the M6 Toll so great, so quick, and so safe? Very few trucks, so you can have 3 lanes of traffic at 75, 80 and 85.. ... funny how the motorway doesnt have a minimum speed limit for "clear/flat road" conditions, so any tosspot can trot down there at 40mph, legally)

there's so much work could be done on this whole thing but the usual response seems to be "slap a limit on it 10mph lower than what's expected and garnish it heavily with cameras". time to get the red flags out and give them to a man to walk in front of you...

i think they probably leave the limit at 70 because currently so many people ignore it and drive well above 80 towards 90 and 100 that you gotta think the same thing would happen if the the limit was 10 higher at 80mph.

people would ignore it and drive at over 90 towards 100 and 110 like it was normal.


i'll be the first to call old speed limits and things like breaking distance in the highway code, set again in the 50s.


the days of taking e-type jags and shelby cobras up the m1 at 140+ mph are over cos the roads are too full


whatever they do, we're gonna want to go faster and feel annoyed when they make money from us doing so. they're boned cos we're always going to hate them. we're boned cos we'll always be easy pray to them.

you shuda took the chase!

I don't know if that's true.. if the speed limit were set at anything approaching a half reasonable speed, people would probably stick to it more.. I think a lot of people out there are people like me who would happily stick to an 80-90mph limit but tend to drive a bit over the 70 limit simply to keep the flow of traffic moving.. of course, there'll always be the idiots in BMW's (-always- BMW's.. every single BMW on the motorway seems to be going in excess of 90, regardless of the conditions..) who believe that doing a daily commute gives them the right to fly along at insane speeds travelling up peoples' backsides until they pull over for them, but they're not going to travel any faster simply because the limit's been raised, they're just going to go as fast as they physically can anyway..

Difference is it'll be a lot less comfortable to break a 90mph speed limit, as you'll be a lot closer to what the average person can easily handle. hence why it should only be on decent roads, in the dry (variable limits ahoy with THAT one), with free flowing traffic. One for the 2-lane section of the M42 it is not. Perhaps with tighter enforcement, seeing as the stakes are higher.

People may feel compelled to break the new one as much as they did the old, but perhaps not. After all, it won't just be closer to the driver's limits but that of the cars as well. Just as the 1-litre can indeed peak at 91mph after a good long run-up, but isnt exactly capable of sustaining that speed in all but ideal conditions, 90-95 is about your limit for comfortable cruising in the midrange family car, with midrange engine, that most folks will have. Past the ton you will almost certainly have to either keep it floored a lot of the time or drop out of top gear, if not both, to maintain that speed with any certainty. This may be a hoot in an ancient 1-litre, but how many folk (aside from the beemer brigade - 155mph is, after all, usually governed by the six-thousand-and-some rev limiter...) will regularly want to give their machines such a pasting?

Besides, you'd soon see the effect of it in your fuel bill.
(the rising tide of TDis might wipe both arguments off the slate however)

I would like to put forward the well worn example of Montana in the USA which abolished a much-ignored 65mph limit in favour of a derestricted "reasonable and prudent" policy (if a policeman thought you were driving recklessly fast for the conditions/your vehicle/yourself, no matter your actual speed, he could still pull you - but have to make a case for it in traffic court) ... average speeds (in excess of 65 already ) actually dropped, as did the accident rate. People felt less obliged to join in the with true speeders (and with a 90 or even 80 limit, it may as well be "derestricted" for some folk) and just stuck to the inside lane doing whatever cruising speed was comfortable (eg 65 is actually quite nice if you're just chilling), making the odd quicker and more careful overtaking pass, whereas those who had to be somewhere in a hurry went 85, 90, whatever, but with a mind towards not overdoing it. Plus they concentrated more on the real driving aspect and less on the dashboard readout.

Then some safety lobby got up in arms or something and they brought it back down to the highest they could get away with - 75 - and again average speeds and accidents have gone up.

Which is a strangely similar story to the autobahn... (isnt the rule there... as quick as you wish.. so long as you are still in complete control?)

dont rule out the effect that a greater (if grudging!) respect for a properly-set speed limit might do.

Particularly if it's well signposted. I can't imagine how much better our A-roads might be if the white circle with the black line was torn down and burnt, to be replaced with lots of little "60"s... average speeds would go up by at least a third - and the accident rate reduce in kind as far far less frustrated people (inc. those currently believing such roads are 70s) attempt dumb overtaking moves!

PS Carrot --- if only they WERE i'd have far less trouble with beemers as i could just move over whenever one tailgated, then ride their slipstream for a bit (mmm, slipstream -- i've just been reading on how you can pedal up to about 55mph with the right gearing on your bike, if you tuck in behind a gently accelerating truck )... annoying thing is that the most contact i tend to have with them is either they're getting in the flippin way, or carrying out some dangerous low-to-medium speed manoeuver..

interesting points tahrey


the system of proving you and your car could handle whatever speed you where doing is totally open to random results either way.

a particulary bored cop made to do traffic duty on a friday night when he wants to be out with his mates in the pub may decide that 60 on a motorway was too fast for whoever they pull over and then they make a very compelling argument as to why.

i'm a little un easy of that system

A bored cop on the motorway would already be well within his rights to pull someone over for a speed within the speed limit, if he deemed it unsafe.. and providing there are guidelines in place for the police to work to so the decision doesn't rest entirely on their shoulders, I think it's a good idea. In my opinion the main problem with this country's legal system is that everything rests on the exact wording of the law, not it's spirit, hence all the issues with legal loopholes.. a step like this is, apart from anything else, a step in the right direction to moving away from this mentality..

I reckon they should at least trial a higher speed limit on the M6 toll. Last time I was on there I saw about 10 cars and had a motorway all to myself most of the time (it was early am). A 70 limit is ridiculous on a motorway when you can't see another car in front or behind you.

thats part of my point - the m6 toll may as well be a 25mph limit for all the notice thats taken of the 70 there. the lack of truly slow traffic (i've seen a grand total of maybe 5 trucks, in contrast to the m42 being SOLID truck, no caravans or very slow drivers either) means a proper high speed situation can exist fairly safely.

that said it does create an environment unsuitable for super-efficient cruising -- last time i did 65-70mph along there (at around 10pm..) i was nearly killed by traffic coming up behind not realising to pull out round me... and that was in the left lane! would have been worse (much lower closing speed, maybe 10 vs 30+mph - but far more often) if twere more heavily populated.

it does get so empty there of a night (soon after it opened - i was working nearby when the finishing garnish was put on it - i paid my one quid to have a little trundle at about 4am).... in the daytimes it was hammered, but when i went, basically i was able to treat the straight flat bits like a car park... idle along in 3rd admiring the smoothness of the surface with the door open... park up in the middle lane, get out and boogie to the radio (keeping an eye on the rear of course), do doughnuts, seeing how fast it'll go in reverse (travelling the "right" way)...... big sine waves from hard shoulder to outside and back. And still if anyone had come haring up from behind at 120 on those sections we would have clocked on to each other with more than a mile's distance between - plenty of avoiding / braking time. if there was a camera there nabbing folk for anything over 79 at night (or at any time..), i dont think it would last any time at all before it either burnt out, or WAS burnt out.

the m6 toll is mint

the few times i drove down south in hire cars last summer i used the toll road and was happily pelting down it at well over 100 and i was being over taken by almost everything i saw going the same way as me

That was damn lucky M@Turner!

Wish I was that lucky when I was caught speeding that time I overtook a Police car at 91.2mph...and no it wasn't an unmarked one...don't ask!

If it's on the motorway, i think that most traffic cops are pretty good. I've overtaken cop cars doing 85 ish on uncongested motorways out of peak times and they haven't batted an eyelid..

But when you get weavers and tailgaiters in heavy traffic, you can be doing under 70 and it'll still be dangerous.. That's when they tend to enforce the limit rigourously..

The way i figure it, as long as you don't take the p*** with when you do it, you should be fine at 80-85 when the road is quiet...

Saying that, topping out my GTi at 3 in the morning on the inside lane of the M1 and being overtaken was a little scarey....

it is funny when your doing 85 ish mph and a copper over takes you and you didnt even see it coming

you have that small moment where you go "s**t that guy was behind me while i was doing 85"

as the cop blitzes off into the distance