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?

On our perfectly decent A road, that the shity council, have put a 50 limit on doing 40 and breaking in stupid places is VVUR.

Past my house, which is on an unlimited single track road, it's clearly perfectly reasonable to go slowly. Doesn't stop some people wanting to meet their end under an enormous tractor.

I saw a great crash recently - a fast driver went around a bend but on the other side was a queue of traffic due to lights. He couldn't stop in time but luckily for the driver at the end of the queue, the fast (but not breaking the speed limit driver) was able to mount a grass verge and crash through a large pub sign. It was quite spectacular to witness. It seems that no-one was hurt. Good job there were no pedestrians.

If the road and conditions are appropriate, then yes, you should be driving at or around the speed limit.

I live in a touristy area, no motorway, small stretch of dual carriageway, mostly A and B roads - some roads are safe for 60, some aren't

It takes forever to get anywhere in the summer as it's full of holiday makers trundling along at 30 as "well, we're on holiday". Well, I'm not!

To clarify, you can do 60 pretty much the whole length of this particular bit of road.

To say it's got sweeping bends might have been a bit misleading. I guess I'm trying to describe how it appears straight but actually there are very few places where visibility is good enough for overtaking.

Really hard to explain. It's straight and long but a bit bendy. But definitely doable at 60.

YABU

As somebody said up thread there might have been something wrong with the car for all you know. Although I do share your frustration, especially with tractors who can't go any faster even if they wanted to I know that my frustration is MY problem and any rash overtaking decisions I make are also 100% my fault.

I'm really quite shocked by the number of people implying that if a driver at 60 smashes into the back of a slow driver out if sight around a corner it's the slow drivers fault. You can't see what's around a corner, it could be a horse, a team of cyclists, and accident. It is terrible driving to not be able to see at least as far as your own braking distance and worrying that so many of you are on the road.

subtext if there are few places where overtaking is possible, then going 60 is not safe. Sweeping bends may still be hiding cyclists around them that you won't see. And horses. And pedestrians. And a whole other hgost of other road users who are much more vulnerable than you in a car. If you cannot see your side of the road fully and be able to stop in the distance that you can see, then you are going too bloody fast.

What frustrates me are people who cannot moderate their speed. I drive on lots of National speed limit roads, I will drive whatever speed is safe. If it's an open road I will go 60, if unknown or too windey I will go slower. It's people who just drive 40, whether it's a clear road not that is annoying. There are plenty of roads where 60 is safe, but loads of people who appear unable to drive at that speed.

I'm still not getting why it is such a problem.

As others have said 10 miles at 40 miles per hour is 15 minutes.
10 miles at 60 miles per hour is 10 minutes. I can see that a 20 mile stretch at 40 would be annoying, but how often does that honestly happen?

I drive a 4 mile stretch of very straight 60 mile per hour road every day. Usually it takes me 4 minutes. If I drive at 40 it takes 6 minutes. I might get delayed by somebody deliberately driving at 40 once a fortnight.

On any given day I am far more likely to be delayed for two minutes by too many people inconsiderately deciding to drive at a time of day when surely they must know that they should be leaving the roads clear for me or somebody taking a while to cross a zebra crossing. At this point all the cars will bunch up whatever speed they have been driving at.

Yes YABU because you are proposing a sort of blanket rule that people shouldn't drive 20mph below the speed limit.

Sometimes it's dangerous and stupid to do that and sometimes it isn't. It depends on the road and the conditions. There's a 60mph road I use every day which is so windy that no-one could actually do 60mph on it. It's not 60mph because it's safe to do that, it's 60mph because no-ones bothered to change it - someone else made the point that it's just default, not actually advice.

If you let Slowcoach boil your piss and then you take risks and there is an accident it's your fault. TBH you sound like the younger and more foolish among my gender. YANBU.

• YABU sod it!

Getting frustrated about being delayed by 1 minute over a 2 mile stretch is just plain odd.

It IS a slow drivers fault if there is an accident: if they are just THERE when people zoom round a bend and crash into them, well they are asking for it, aren't they? The FORCE people to overtake in a risky manner, they cause frustration and that causes people to make bad decisions and CRASH. See? All their fault.

Likewise if women nag, they cause husbands to get furious and bash them, - asking for it...asking for a fairer share of the family money causes frustration and it's not surprising they get slapped.... See? All their fault.

I also think the examples cited of people being pulled over or criticised for driving below the speed limit are more likely to have been because they looked as though they were driving erratically, incompetently or drunk.

I have never heard of anybody being pulled over for driving at 40 in a 60.

There is nothing dangerous about driving 20 miles below the speed limit. It is others reactions to this which is potentially dangerous.

What about if you're carrying a sick passenger so you can't go fast, or just bringing someone back from hospital who has just had an op and can't cope with 60 on a windy country road?

Or a piece of furniture that needs to be treated reasonably kindly?

There are loads of reasons why people might not be going fast as you'd like them to. Sometimes you just have to be patient, however irritating that is.

My DM drives at 40mph in 60 zones, however if it is a country road it would be dangerous for her to drive faster. But she sees no issue in continuing at 40mph in 30 or even 20 zones. She is a definite candidate for retaking a test at 70 years old or even 60 if truth be told.

People should have to retake their test every 10 years to stop the wildly different driving between people who passed a year ago and people who passed 40 years ago.

My driving instructor mentioned driving too slowly causes unnecessary incovinience; but tbh she was far more interested in impressing on me that the limit is the limit, not the target, and the need to always adequately assess the safety of the speed you are driving at.

OP! YABU. It's not 'really dangerous'. I can't conceive how it can be worse than a bit frustrating to other road users. Please, someone, enlighten all us over cautious types how it's dangerous, without invoking the unreasonable road rage driver who overtakes/tailgates unsafely.

Oh and the person who talked about physics and bunching - a queue does not a hazard make. This is the UK!! We live to queue! This is a tiny country with so many people and cars on it that queues are everywhere! If queues were a hazard this country would be screwed.

Don't know without seeing the road/traffic/conditions.

Nationsl speed limit on country roads doesn't make it safe to drive at 60 throughout, just that it would be an administrative nightmare to apply a limit to every back road

I can point you in the direction of plenty of roads where the national speed limit applies but you'd be wrapped around a signpost in a ditch if you tried driving at 60 or anything like for vast portions of the route.

At the end of the village where my mum lives, the road narrows down to about seven feet and becomes a sea of potholes, then goes through an unsignposted ford, woggles around the very last cottage, then meanders for about a mile up onto Salisbury plain where it peters out beside a field barn.

At the start of this section there is the last signpost pole, with 'National Speedlimit Applies' on the top - and 'Unsuitable for Motor Vehicles' underneath it!

I wondered whether the police pulled 20mph drivers over because they wondered about drink driving.
Or kerb crawling!

I wish people wouldn't say " it's only a minute difference" like we are impatient fools.
It's not just the person stuck behind but everyone else that builds up behind that person and the other people that can't pull out. Not to mention that you then encounter the 20 mile an hour cyclist and tractor at some point. Which are now impassable because 40 mile an hour person won't overtake.

Don't underestimate how many people can be put out by 2 miles (1 minute) of poor driving.

Many people could be affected revealall, but put out? By a minute's difference? The delay would be the same for all. I think aggressive impatient drivers who haven't left sufficient time for their journey are really dangerous. How about you?

Yeah, as someone previously said, here in the states you get pulled over for driving 20mph under.

If you can't drive, are too afraid to drive, have mental issues that make it difficult to drive, stay off the roads. Those reasons do make it dangerous. If you have anxiety you're not going to make the best driving decisions if an emergency arises because you'll likely be panicking and not thinking straight. If a medical condition is impairing your driving, once again you're a danger on the road. Driving slower doesn't fix that.

It's not dangerous in and of itself. But if you're not a good driver at 60mph, you're not going to be a good driver at 40mph.

At the very least have the decency to pull over so everyone can pass you.

its a limit not a target