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

[AngeloMysterioso]

Is it just me? I’m pretty vigilant about sticking to the speed limit but more and more I’ve noticed recently that I’ll be doing 70 or just below on a dual carriageway or the motorway and someone will go flying past. God forbid I be driving at the limit on the outside lane, even if I’m going faster than everyone in the middle lane it’s only a matter of time before some knob is either flashing their headlights at me or driving up my arse (or both) while I wait for a big enough gap to move across so they can shoot off before doing the same to the next car in front.

It tends to be most often 4x4 drivers or Mercedes/BMW/Jaguar etc types. Maybe they just don’t think they should have to see the back of a 16 year old Fiesta!

It is generally lorries that hit people on the hard shoulder but I see very few people on the hard shoulder and they usually look like they have broken down, rather than going to the loo or whatever so I think they should be there.

How would making people do the speed limit damage the economy?

Seriously the people on this thread. Put them behind the wheel of an SUV and they really do think they can do no wrong. Another reason to ban the bloody things for anything other than use by farmers.

Yup. In almost a million miles it’s affected nobody negatively, including me

You don't know that.

If people on this thread make the argument that people driving more slowly "makes" them frustrated and have an accident, then you can also make the opposite argument that people driving too fast "makes" other people nervous and drive too fast and have accidents.

Silly argument? Well so is the other one.

By all means speed at 2am on an empty motorway, but don't try to justify it. It's wrong to break traffic laws. We all do it (even the ones who claim they don't - I can guarantee you do) but own it!

There's absolutely no excuse for driving flat out everywhere... However, based on my usually weekend trips to/from the Cotswolds either via the M4 / A417 or M40, the people paying the least attention, which is equally dangerous, to what's going on around them are people in 1.2 Corsas, Fiat 500 or Ford Focus (And I'll add any Uber, or small slightly underpowered SUV / people carrier like the VW T-Roc and Qashqai to the list) trundling along in the centre lane oblivious, or ignorant, to everything going on around them, but diving out into the outer lane when they suddenly realise there's another lorry in the centre lane - generally indicating as they manoeuvre

I followed a T Roc at 66 mph for 8 miles along the A417 last night as it trundled past lorries. Fine, except it didn't once move over. I'm sure they thought they were going 70... The longest stretch between lorries was over 2 minutes, but there were numerous opportunities of 30 seconds or more where pulling in and back out was not only possible but would have been courteous. I think the driver was deliberately being a rolling roadblock, but also I am not sure they understood how many cars could have passed in the time because their only reference point is a slightly underpowered SUV that they don't ever take over 3k rpm. I didn't join those that undertook, but when 3 or 4 cars undertake you with masses of space to spare every few minutes, surely you'd question your lane positioning?

The reason there is a speed limit on motorways is because people are too stupid to adapt their driving to the conditions.

Unless you actually believe that you are "safe" at 70 mph but "dangerous" at 71 mph. Or why 80 mph is "safe" in France yet "dangerous" in the UK.

A lot of people lack the ability to assess and understand risk and to actually think for themselves.

That's why we have speed limits. Not because you magically transition from being safe to dangerous in the space of 1 mph. In reality the world is a lot greyer than this sort of black and white thinking.

Or why 80 mph is "safe" in France yet "dangerous" in the UK.

The French seem to have significantly more rta fatalities than the UK, but perhaps that's for other reasons.

IMO the main problem with speed limits is too many people do indeed not adapt to conditions, and see them as a target rather than a limit.

It is an issue. For example I think under certain circumstances driving at 80+ mph on the motorway is fine.

But driving at 30 mph round housing estates in my area is bad news. There are lots of parked cars and blind corners. Visibility is restricted and often their are kids on bikes with zero road sense. Driving at 30 mph under these conditions is crazy and I rarely get within 5mph of the limit.

This doesn't alter the fact though that having a hard limit above which and below which is regarded as safe and dangerous by the public (and argued by many) is nonsensical from a logical perspective. By this logic you could claim travelling at 70.0001 mph was breaking the limit and technically dangerous whereas 69.9999 mph isn't.

There is to me is a whole industry these days set up around this sort of simplistic thinking and encouragement of it.

"Speed Kills" well therefore any speed will kill and any journey going anywhere will kill you.

"Excessive Speed Kills" now you start to get into the realms of thought. What is excessive ? What makes some circumstances more dangerous than others ?

Get people to actually think about what they are doing and consider the consequences. Teach them how to analyse situations. Teach them to be better drivers and anticipate situations. Not just use black and white thinking and non specific soundbites to imply that they can be safe without thinking provided they adhere to some very limited rule set.

For example I think under certain circumstances driving at 80+ mph on the motorway is fine. But that has no relevance. It is clear from this thread that people think all sorts of things, but in the end the law is that matters.

And there have to be speed limits even if we teach people to be better drivers. They have to be pitched somewhere.

what

@GasPanic

Get people to actually think about what they are doing and consider the consequences. Teach them how to analyse situations. Teach them to be better drivers and anticipate situations. Not just use black and white thinking and non specific soundbites to imply that they can be safe without thinking provided they adhere to some very limited rule set.

I agree that's what we need to happen. But it's how we achieve it that's the problem. Lots of people don't have "analytical" brains so will always struggle.

The theory test hazard perception simulations are a start I suppose, but they're not particularly good and it's pretty easy to watch all the practice ones and just remember which are the hazards and when to press the button. Some of them are also anamolous in that the "same" hazard in different simulations are "marked" in different ways. Eg in one, you have to "click" when you see the cyclist, but in another, there's also a cyclist, but that's not the hazard they want you to click on - it's something different! So it all becomes a test of memory rather than genuine observation/analysis as there's not a limitless number of different simulations they can use.

As we've seen mentioned up thread and on other "non driver" threads, some people claim they can't accurately judge relative speeds and distances, so can't properly evaluate when a car coming up behind them will actually reach them. That's pretty basic requirement of driving and it's worrying if we have drivers who can't estimate how quickly a car behind will reach them. Similarly, those drivers will struggle with other aspects, such as how quickly a car coming the other way will reach a junction, how much time they have to pull out at a junction or roundabout when there are vehicles approaching etc.

I think the best we'd ever manage is a more thorough driving test, instead of it being 30-45 minutes of driving, make it a lot longer and covering a lot more. Alongside that, use AI for the theory test to create a much larger library of simulations for hazard perception and also a greater/better range of multiple choice questions to include more "logic/reasoning" rather than simply memorising facts.

Get people to actually think about what they are doing and consider the consequences. Teach them how to analyse situations. Teach them to be better drivers and anticipate situations.

Well, in an ideal world, sure.
But that's not where we live, is it. People dont all think all the time, don't make accurate risk assessments, don't correctly assess their own skill as a driver, many don't understand the laws of physics.

Speed limits aren't a complete solution to bad driving, far from it. But they help a bit. Anti tailgating enforcement and technology would be useful.

This. If the posters who wrote many of the replies pay as much attention when driving as they do when reading then it explains the poor standards we see on the roads today.

I've long since come to the conclusion that when people sit behind a steering wheel, they lose 50 points from their IQ and gain a personality disorder. There's no other way to explain the pointlessly aggressive behaviour.

I can't wait for ISA to become the norm.

<70 isn't inherently safe and 70+ isn't inherently dangerous.

The way you're talking is as if anyone exceeding 70 is raging maniac who's going to kill someone at any moment, whereas you're the epitome of a safe driver because you never exceed the limit.

Driving to the conditions - both traffic and environment - is safer than blindly following the arbitrary numbers on a post.

Driving to the conditions - both traffic and environment - is safer than blindly following the arbitrary numbers on a post.

Of course.

And doing so within the defined limits is nearly always going to be safer than deciding it's ok for you to exceed them. There may occasionally be circumstances where a burst of speed will avert an accident and you shouldn't be checking your speedo rather than keeping your eyes on what's going on, but that's very much the exception.

The arbitrary numbers on a post just happen to be the law! We cannot choose to ignore them!

I've come to the conclusion that cars should be fitted with gps speed restricters that prevent all speeding. It's interesting how many people imply in their posts that it's okay to speed in the "fast" lane provided you are overtaking...

Nonsense. The basis of every speed awareness course is the statistical data showing how the risk of death increases rapidly in an accident once over 40mph.

You need to be careful with GPS speed limiters.

That said, aren't all new cars now being fitted with limiters ? Not sure if they are required to be on at all times.

Or insurance actuarial tables ...

The irony that you’re constantly reporting other people for poor driving whilst readily admitting to breaking the law all the time because it doesn’t apply to you…

Just imagine if every single driver stuck to 70 religiously on the motorway 😇 wouldn't the whole world be a happier place 😀 . Then we could all drive in any lane and no one would ever be unhappy ever again.