To think driving 20 miles under the speed limit is really dangerous?

[Subtext]

There's a long stretch of B road near my parents' place where the speed limit is 60 mph.

I can't tell you how many times I've been stuck behind someone pootling along at 40mph. It happened again today and this time the person I was stuck behind was indicating right for the whole length of the two mile stretch. Ie shit driver.

It's so annoying. And apart from anything else it's really dangerous to drive too slowly. Really boils my piss.

AIBU to think if the speed limit is 60 you should more or less attempt to drive at 60?

I find this irritating too but I do the sums -

2 miles @ 60 mph = 2 mins
2 miles @ 40 mph = 3 mins

and try not to exaggerate the difference it makes to my driving time.

Wabbity aren't you meant to brake when taking a corner?

Depends entirely on how fast you're travelling as you approach the bend, your analysis of the limit point, road conditions, traffic etc.

A road I use almost daily is a 60mph B road. It is reasonably straight but at least twice a week a deer jumps out from the undergrowth onto the road.

No way am I doing 60 along that road.

"You would be pulled over here (US) for driving at 20mph below the limit." Yeah but you don't have windy roads in the states, do you?

Here, as another poster said, many sections of road have no speed limit (other than national speed limit) because they simply have not been classified. It may or may not be safe to drive at 60.

There's a road near me that most drivers will drive at 50-60mph. Then you get the 38mph drivers causing a backlog. They usually speed up to 43mph when they reach the 40 zone. Very few HGVs use the road, it's wide enough to pass bikes, and you Have time to slow down for a tractor. It's not a good road for overtaking, and it is frustrating to get stuck behind them, and hard to maintain a safe distance.

I have been pulled over by the police for driving at 19mph in a 30 (with raised junctions) it was a grim night, and I'd only had the car 5 days and was still getting used to it. So yes the police can find slow driving to be unreasonable behaviour.

A country road might have a speed limit of 60 mph but it's up to the driver to drive at a safe speed. Having a 60 limit does not mean you have to drive at that speed. If the country road is a winding road for several miles and rather on the narrow side, 60 mph is out and it's more varying between 30 and 40 while you try to be aware of traffic coming the other way or tractors or cattle/sheep in the road.

It's a limit not a challenge!!!

The key is in the word "limit"

What pisses me off more is inappropriate speed limits. Low limits when adjoining roads have faster limits yet less hazards/visibility. It's no wonder many ignore and drive to the speed they feel is appropriate.

the 40mph brigade are annoying, but equally so are "locals" who drive up my arse if I'm doing less than 59mph because they "know the roads".

Surely however well you know the roads, it's common sense to want to be able to stop in the distance you can see, so if the road is bendy, you need to allow for that.

I don't have a huge issue with someone pootling along at 40 on a stretch of road where it would be safe to do 60. I don't like it, and it does make me worry what else they are struggling with as a driver, but I just hang back.

What does bother me much more is people who do 40 in the middle lane on the motorway, because they are incapable of changing lanes appropriately.

mollypup YOU are obviously not a safe driver if you do not understand that 60 isn't a target and that you should assess road conditions instead of blindly driving at 60 because it's the limit.

I have said this on many of these types of threads. Part of my commute is Ditchling Beacon.

Ditchling Beacon is a 60mph. It is a very obvious example of 60mph roads not being 60mph because they are safe to be so but because it's the bog standard limit. You cannot drive up or down Ditchling Beacon safely beyond 30mph. Some parts of it are better at very low speeds. 60 is the default speed for unassessed roads, not the appropriate speed for unassessed roads.

wight If you are going around a corner and having to slam on your brakes because of something around it, you are going too fast around that corner.

Greencurlyteeth.
Although the ideal is to go down a motorway slip.road matching your speed to the motorway traffic, the broken line between the slip road and the motorway actually is a give way line, so traffic joining the motorway should slow down and even stop if that is appropriate.
And fwiw putting their indicator on and just barging out is wrong

Conference I remember that too when stuck behind a tourist driver going a bit slowly on the straighter parts of the B-roads near me. For the sake opf a few minutes, why the hell would you get arsey about it?

"The point is you would still be stuck behind a vehicle doing 40mph"

Yes, no argument there. But as I explained in my posts, there are valid reasons why it is less safe for a car to be doing 20 mph below its speed limit than it is for an HGV to be doing dead on its speed limit, even if those speeds are the same.

The simple way to deal with these people is to get a fast car, drop a couple of cogs and leave them to their dawdling. I'm also amazed how scared people seem to be of overtaking these days, maybe it's a skill that doesn't seem to be taught? They'll just sit there even behind tractors when there's a perfectly safe overtaking opportunity.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/a2002063-To-think-that-40-in-a-60-is-too-slow?

^^ One of the previous threads about it.

Yabu. Some 60 roads are not safe to drive at 60.

As I said on that thread:

"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."

I love Ditchling Beacon.

You would be mental to do 60mph on that road - though I think some of the cyclists going downhill exceed that!

it makes not much difference for 2 miles but if yu are doing the 140 miles between here and inverness and you stick to 40 or less it takes well over 4 hours drive mostly close to speed limit and it takes 3hours 20 it can't all be done at 60 as not safe by driving at 60 when safe you average about 40mph over the journey by aiming at 40 you end up at an average of 30 or less it actually adds an hour to journey time if you get stuck behind slow moving vehicle who ignore the approx 100 signs saying please use passing places/ laybys to permit overtaking, this is a tourist route when not raining the scenery is beautiful but it is also the only main road up west coast of scotland A82 so most are commuters if you see 5-10 cars behind you , ytou should just pull over and let them past then continue as they are probably more familiar with the road it's just good manners

I believe in France the law says you must pull in if more than 5 vehicles behind you when you can not drive at limit it obviously does not apply to queues in rush hour but on country roads
OP was talking about 20mph less not someone doing 57 instead of 60

Charm I know! They're fucking insane! I cringe when I see them going down as I'm coming up usually stuck behind a few, mad sods! as they go so bloody fast, and that 2nd to last (I think?) corner at the bottom, just before the lime cottage place, is a hidden killer going downhill.

I love Ditchling road though, it's a lovely road to cruise along. I still wouldn't go 60 down it though!

Teacup again, without actually being there, we cannot assess what the road or it's conditions were like so we cannot say whether OP is being reasonable to be annoyed. However, on the whole, it is unreasonable to state that 60 roads are safe to drive at 60o on. Some people are happy to shoot down roads at fuck knows what speed, I'd rather be safe and arrive safe than risk it. 60mph is not deemed a safe speed for all national speed limit roads, it's just the default.

So, over a long journey... who cares if it takes an extra 40 - 60 minutes?

It's a journey, it's supposed to be as interesting as the arriving.

And I drive a sports car and am quite happy to drop it down a cog or two and blatt past, if the road conditions allow. But I usually can't be arsed. I quite like tootling and looking at the scenary.

I live off what seems to be a good road for driving. But it is used as a rat run between 2 motorways, so eejits in big exec cars abound. It also has some weird corners and cambers and every week there are cars in unusual poses in hedgerows and gardens - once there was a car perked perfectly on a driveway, but it was upside down. The straight bits have more accidents, often fatal, than the bends. The road has all sorts of signs, regularly updated and honest '6 accidents in 5 months' ' 2 fatalities in the last month' signs. Yet still the lemmings, young and old, throw themselves into oblivion.

So no, I really don't care of someone is doing 40 when the road is apparently a 60mph zone.

That's advice for learners. When you are learning you don't react as quickly. Experienced drivers read the road more efficiently so don't need to go as slowly.