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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

To think that 40 in a 60 is too slow

209 replies

TwittyMcTwitterson · 18/02/2014 21:41

Ok, so you're driving on a country road. The speed limit is 60. It has officially been deemed as safe to drive at 60. So why do so many people tootle along at 40 or less??? That's 2/3rds of the safe speed for that road and the limit safe for a lot of residential areas. If you do my feel safe driving at that speed then don't use the road! I'm fed up of getting caught behind Sunday drivers!!! Shock

OP posts:
Bettterandnow · 18/02/2014 22:29

OP i was recently tuned into a London radio station driving along a quiet road towards the M25 twice i heard an advert or whatever they are called which was very chilling - it was the voice of a dad who was rushing because time was short they ended with the better safe than sorry saying. It was very chilling.

However any driver choses to drive i wish you all a safe journey and the same to anyone you pass slower or faster.

TwittyMcTwitterson · 18/02/2014 22:30

Don't get me started on middle lane hoggers!!!! Grin

I'm at work for seven. There's so few drivers on rural roads at this time I shouldn't have to leave earlier Hmm

OP posts:
TwittyMcTwitterson · 18/02/2014 22:33

Futthe... This road has one 90 degree bend on it. We call it the death bend. Same thing... Once a week there's a guy who's gone straight on Shock

Goes without saying that corner is a slow one Grin

OP posts:
MrsKoala · 18/02/2014 22:35

This comes up fairly regularly on MN and i am always surprised at how many people say it's a limit not a target. I have been learning to drive for 18 years, have failed numerous times, had lessons in different regions of the country with many instructors. One of the things they all have taught consistently is that IF THE CONDITIONS ARE SAFE (ie good visibility and weather) that you should aim to drive at the speed limit. So in fact it is a target in good conditions.

My very first test i failed for hesitation, the examiner told me i drove on average at 27 mph in 30 zones and he failed me for it (among a few other minors - but that was the 3 minors i got).

I was last learning in MK and i was always told off for driving under the speed limit - even if just a few mph. But it all just seemed so unnecessarily fast (this is the main reason why i can't drive btw). I would defo be someone who drove far too slow.

ConfusedPixie · 18/02/2014 22:35

YABVU and a massive fool to think that you should drive at 60 on country roads. Country roads haven't all been deemed safe to drive at 60, it would just be a pita for them to make them all the appropriate speed limits so they make them all national. Why I don't know, as very few I've driven are safe to drive at sixty.

My commute is all country roads, I wouldn't drive any of them over 50/55 and that's because I know the roads, I know where the turns are, etc. If you don't know the road then going over 45 is mad, you hit a wrong corner at that speed and you're fucked.

Part of my commute is Ditchling Beacon. It's a national speed limit road so a 60 stretch, yet the entire thing is a loop de loop at a very steep angle. It is not appropriate to drive 60 on it (tbh, 30 is pushing it as it's all blind corners).

I don't like people who drive slowly for the sake of it, much like I don't like those who drive fast for the sake of it either. Speed limits are maximums, not targets, and you should always go at the speed appropriate to the road and it's conditions.

If you are running late, leave earlier.

I'll also say that last year my sister had an accident in which her car flipped and went through a fence on a 60 road bend. She was doing 45/50 which is what I would do on that same bend but her little car couldn't handle it and flipped. It was only in the past three months that the speed limit on that stretch changed to 40 because somebody died at the end of last year doing the same thing. I think that the police told my sister that a certain amount of accidents have to occur, of which a certain amount have to be fatalities, before the local authority start even looking into speed limit changes.

SelectAUserName · 18/02/2014 22:35

MrsOakenshield I agree. Whenever there is a thread like this there is always a chorus of "it's a limit not a target" from people who seem to take pride in never, ever driving at the speed limit on any road in the known universe, without any acknowledgement that there will be conditions when it is absolutely safe to do so and by not doing so they are potentially the biggest hazard on that road at that time.

The trick is to drive appropriately to the conditions. Sometimes it is "appropriate" to drive to the speed limit, when the conditions are conducive to doing so. Sometimes it isn't appropriate, so you don't. Judgement is the key.

TwittyMcTwitterson · 18/02/2014 22:35

Bettter, arrive alive is what I say. I'm no risk taker. I'll say again I drive a Picasso. It barely goes to 70 n it never goes above that Smile

OP posts:
MrsCosmopilite · 18/02/2014 22:35

I was driving on a country road last week. The road was wet, the light was awful, and there were potholes about every 100 yards in various places. The limit was 60, but it was safer in the circumstances to do just below 50 to allow for hills, blind corners and general conditions.

I thought I'd read that there was a push to make narrower country roads 40 or thereabouts because of the number of collisions, but that may be something local, rather than national.

Definitely would not be doing 40 on a slip road to join a major road, or on an A-road/motorway unless there was an absolute reason (fog, snow, speed limit restriction) to do so.

ConfusedPixie · 18/02/2014 22:36

MrsKoala: I was told that too, though I was also told that the exception was country roads, this was by two different instructors in two completely different counties.

TalkinPeace · 18/02/2014 22:36

the speed limit on single carriageway roads is always 60mph or below
www.gov.uk/speed-limits
there is no single carriageway road with a 70mph limit

why would people be driving slowly?
all sorts of reasons

they do not know the road
they are tired
they have a spare tyre on
they have had an accident in the past so want to be able to stop in the distance visible

HavantGuard · 18/02/2014 22:37

There are routes around here that are the main way from one town to another and are single lane for miles. You often get stuck behind some idiot doing 40. The traffic builds up behind them. Then some ends up overtaking dangerously out of frustration. They may be a 'country road' to you but they do the job of a dual carriageway around here and if you can't drive at an appropriate speed you shouldn't be on them.

TwittyMcTwitterson · 18/02/2014 22:39

I'm not suggesting the whole road is 60, corners and all but as a general the safe straight bits are 50+ ish.

Yes judgement is key.

OP posts:
JupiterGentlefly · 18/02/2014 22:39

I get most upset when I get tailgated when I do not know the road.

teacherwith2kids · 18/02/2014 22:40

My old comute was all country roads. I was extremely familioar with it. There werer sections that I drove at 60 ()or a little more, when late), sections at 50, sections at 40 and one multiple set of curves that I always took at 30-35 ... as did all the locals. I was occasionally tailgated and parped by other drivers. At least 3 of those I subsequently saw in ditches / fields / hedges / wrapped round a tree....

ThoughtFox · 18/02/2014 22:42

I agree with all the rest - yes, a nice straight road is fine, but there are a few round our way where you are much safer going at 30 than at 60. Particularly a killer which has a 90-degree bend on a bridge, so that if you were to miss the bend, you would shoot off the bridge and put your car into the brook beyond.

teacherwith2kids · 18/02/2014 22:42

(I was also taught that e.g. slowing down very sharply for bends, and accelerating very fast to reach the speed limit for short straight sections, was bad driving. It is certainly uneconomical, and as someone who used to commute 60+ miles a day, that mattered to me)

Osmiornica · 18/02/2014 22:43

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

ConfusedPixie · 18/02/2014 22:43

"Definitely would not be doing 40 on a slip road to join a major road"

That's my bugbear. MY last commute had a very short slip road onto the A27 and it was a blind one, you'd have a relatively short distance to get onto the road after first visibility. At least once a week I'd be stuck behind somebody doing less than 40 down it Angry You can't pull onto the A27 at 40mph at 8am, it's fucking suicidal and dangerous for those stuck behind you too.

teacherwith2kids · 18/02/2014 22:45

The other point, of course is that you KNOW that the bend coming up is NOT a lethal 90 degree job, because you've been round it a million times.

The driver in front of you may not have driven the road before, and from where he is, it LOOKS exactly like a lethal 90 degree one because the road is narrow and twisty and his view ahead is obscured by hedges. So he HAS to procees reasonably on the basis of his senses aone - which means driving slower than the person very familiar with the road might be able to. He doesn't have the knowledge that you do that enables huim to take the risk of going faster.

ConfusedPixie · 18/02/2014 22:46

"The speed limit is 60. It has officially been deemed as safe to drive at 60. So why do so many people tootle along at 40 or less??? That's 2/3rds of the safe speed for that road" That's exactly what you said. A lot of the roads are not safe at 60, even the straighter bits. These roads are maintained less often, they are not in as good quality as main roads, they are used by tractors, pedestrians, cyclists, dog walker, hikers, etc. There are very very few country roads that are actually safe at 60, god knows why we don't lower the speed limit on them.

Osmiornica · 18/02/2014 22:46

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

HauntedNoddyCar · 18/02/2014 22:56

My first test I failed on undue caution and improper use of gears.

SelectAUserName · 18/02/2014 22:59

Osmiornica, you can disbelieve it as much as you like, but my driving instructor stepdaughter would confirm it is the case! If you repeatedly drive below the speed limit when there is no justification for doing so, even by a few mph each time, you will fail your test.

Bunbaker · 18/02/2014 23:01

"I'm sorry, but I just don't believe anyone could fail a test just because they were driving at 27mph in a 30 zone."

Maybe not at 27 mph, but you would if you were driving at 20 mph in good driving conditions with no hold ups.

NigellasDealer · 18/02/2014 23:01

anyway all the tiny lanes round here are NSL but it would be suicide to do so, suicide i tell you. or murder.