To wonder how so many people are comfortable breaking the speed limit?

In reality, lower speeds can actually increase accidents because drivers end up being "bunched up" closer together

No. Two cars travelling at 60mph with a gap of 10 metres between them will remain at 10 metres apart if they both change their speed to 55mph. No bunching up.

People love to trot out this ‘slow drivers cause accidents’ nonsense because I think it makes them feel powerful in some way.

It’s perfectly obvious that if you have a collision at 50mph there is more chance of injury/fatality than at 45mph. If you need a special diagram for that then you’re not really qualified to be having this discussion, let alone to be driving.

Surely it's obvious that at slower speeds, cars are on the road for a longer period of time, so congestion is worsened.

This isn’t true either. That’s why they reduce the speed on motorways when there’s a large volume of traffic; slow and steady eases congestion.

Driving faster causes more accidents and more serious accidents.

Your ideas about what currently happens on roads are irrelevant because for every person adjusting their speed down you’ve got a handful of impatient idiots acting impulsively.

I suspect that rather than extending the network of cameras they have their eyes on other methods that will come to pass.

For example speed limiters in cars. I think the EU has just made optional limiters mandatory to be fitted. Then there will be road tolls and car tracking by gps to replace road tax and fuel duty which is fast on the way out.

We will end up with cars without accelerators that drive themselves and Big Brother eyes everywhere.

Good news is that this probably won't happen for at least another 30 years.

"Today I learned ..." thank you 😀

Having done an SAC [passim] everything the instructors prophesied (i.e that was planned) has come to pass. Or is coming to pass. The biggest impact being 20mph zones - there's a 4km run near me. 20mph all the way.

There are.

Like on the M1, up to about Milton Keynes I think.

M25 has a lot of them all the way round.

So does the M42.

I doubt whether they are cheap to install though.

But aren't they massive money makers for the government ? That's what everyone says when they go up in town.

I wonder why there aren't average speed cameras on the regular stretches of motorway, like they often have in the roadworks ?

The twats doing 40 in a 60 here would likely increase accidents if they did 35. Or 45 on the motorway.

No, if everyone else was also driving that bit slower. The relative velocities would be the same but the absolute velocities would be lower. This would reduce the stopping distances and forces involved - ye canna break the laws of physics.

@BernardBlacksBreakfastWine

If everyone drove exactly the same as they do now, but took everything down by 5mph, the net result would be fewer accidents and fewer fatalities.

Look forward to seeing the statistics/research which proves that.

In reality, lower speeds can actually increase accidents because drivers end up being "bunched up" closer together, with the resultant reduced forward visibility. There's a reason there are more accidents when traffic is slowed/queuing due to roadworks or accidents.

In our village, the speed limit was reduced from 50 to 40 and then a few years later down to 30. There are more accidents than ever because instead of a steady stream of traffic with gaps, there's now a "queue" of 30 mph cars making it hard for people to cross or for drivers to pull out of side roads as there are no gaps anymore.

Surely it's obvious that at slower speeds, cars are on the road for a longer period of time, so congestion is worsened.

Anyway, a car hitting a brick wall at 75 will probably kill the driver in just the same way the driver would be a goner at 70!

How someone drives on an empty motorway is pretty much completely irrelevant to what the thread is about anyway.

The net result.

Every individual case won’t be a win.

I’m afraid there’s no hope for you if you don’t know that speed kills.

See if you can find some patience from somewhere. You’re not so important that you can’t wait a few more seconds, despite what you seem to think.

This is the case I’m resting (quoting myself here):

There’s also a weird sort of boasting going on (see @CantHoldMeDown ) where we’re supposed to be impressed by how fast and clever people are behind the wheel, even though we have literally no evidence of this. It’s all very childish.

No one’s buying this idea of you as some sort of super-driver to whom laws don’t apply!

What it comes down to is that people like to speed. I mean, I do it myself on occasion. But of course it’s not a good idea in general. And of course OP isn’t unreasonable to want to operate within the speed limit.

But people like to justify themselves on here. So they go on about how it’s ok for them to speed, because they’re not ordinary idiots like the rest of us. It’s laughable.

If everyone drove exactly the same as they do now, but took everything down by 5mph, the net result would be fewer accidents and fewer fatalities.

Now watch the special people argue with that.

What people are saying is that it's not the job of other drivers to "police" the idiots.

I'm pretty sure there's just been one poster saying her dad did something like that.

The OP and others aren't. But it's a nice red herring for the apologists for speeding.

Are they? There was no suggestion from OP that she was trying to police anyone. She was describing safely overtaking in accordance with the Highway Code.

Other people subsequently accused her of doing this, that and the other so that they’d have a reason to tell her she’s unreasonable.

So write to your MP about it if you want change at societal level. There's literally nothing else people can do at an individual level.

Yes, it’s a good idea to do that at an individual level. That doesn’t mean at a societal level we should accept that they feel entitled to behave that way. There are pages of “why were you travelling at the speed limit in the fast lane?” When then answer is she was behaving legally (as I was) and shouldn’t be out at risk when doing so.

@CantHoldMeDown I'm assuming you are a police officer?

No one is excusing idiots who tail gate and drive at unsafe speeds.

What people are saying is that it's not the job of other drivers to "police" the idiots.

Best and safest way is to keep out of their way.

I wondered why some of this made me feel so uncomfortable, and then I realised, there's more than a touch of victim blaming going on here.

The number one aim when on the road must be for it not to kill you, and so yes, it's sensible not to aggravate the idiots. But that seems to have turned into almost an obligation to stay out of the idiot's way so they can get on with their important business of being idiots. Why isn't the obligation on the idiots not to be idiots? Their frustration shouldn't be a problem for law-abiding citizens to solve.

We rightly don't excuse a rapist because he couldn't resist his rapey urges.

A thief who can't resist nicking valuables left in plain sight isn't excused.

So why do we blame a car driving at a legally accepted speed, when an idiot can't wait, get frustrated and does a dangerous manoeuvre?

If they get frustrated to the extent they perform dangerous manoeuvres then they shouldn't be on the road.

The OP was travelling at or near the speed limit, performing a perfectly legal manoeuvre. No one should be putting pressure on her so they can get past and break the law. If that frustrates somebody enough that they're flashing lights and driving aggressively, get the hell of our roads until you manage to better control yourself.