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!

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.

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

@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!

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.

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

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

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.

"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.

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.

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.

When electric cars meet self driving cars and we remove the "it's all about me" barrier to progress (the faster horses paradigm) then it will all be fairly academic. That was how I called it 10 years ago, and I stand by it.

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.

Unless you are one of the afore mentioned tailgaters you will not be hanging 10m behind the driver in front of you while doing 60mph, would drop back and allow a greater breaking distance. At slower speeds people feel more confident being closer to the car infront.

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

Not really. I often commute down the A3 in London which is a 50mph dual carriageway. When vehicles in both lanes are travelling at 50 the flow of traffic is pretty smooth. It takes just one person to drop to 40-45 for a bottleneck to form and vehicles having to converge on one lane to overtake the slow driver. It is most definitely an added risk.

Aaarghh! But if everyone was going that bit slower, there would be no bottleneck!

You can’t use current situations to try to disprove my entirely hypothetical situation. Yes, a slow outlier will cause a problem now because they’re an outlier.

Look, if you filmed a major junction on a motorway and then slowed the footage down by 10%, you could watch all the cars move slower but still interact in exactly the same way with the same level of congestion. That’s the scenario I’m talking about. It hasn’t happened, so your experiences on the A3 are entirely irrelevant!

But if all the traffic were moving in the same way but slower, people would have slightly more reaction time and less severe collisions.

Off to see if I can find a thread where people are arguing black is white; might be easier to engage with.

Off to see if I can find a thread where people are arguing black is white; might be easier to engage with.

They all got killed on a zebra crossing.

Why do you bring "a mine" into the conversation, you are just digging a hole for yourself.

Perhaps an advanced driving test should be obligatory before you can drive a car with more than a given amount of power. A bit like how motorcycle licences work. It would also stop young men being given cars with more power than they have the maturity to handle.

As I said in my OP- when I’m in the outside lane it’s because I’m going faster than the cars in the middle lane.

You're assuming Mumsnetters are able to comprehend Written English. There is very little evidence for that.

Everyone knows the outside lane on a motorway is the crime lane. No-one in the crime lane has time for the 70mph speed restriction.

There might be more minor bumps in low speed areas, but far fewer fatalities.

Congestion is worse with higher speeds because vehicles have longer gaps between them. That's why variable speed limits are used on motorways to bring everyone down to 50 when it is congested - it results in a smoother traffic flow without the start-stopping.

Perhaps an advanced driving test should be obligatory before you can drive a car with more than a given amount of power. A bit like how motorcycle licences work. It would also stop young men being given cars with more power than they have the maturity to handle.

Good idea.

Wouldda, couldda, shouldda...

@taxguru is absolutely right here.

Defensive driving is what 'advanced driving' is called where I live. It is the only safe way to drive.

Policing other people speed is not on.

Other people's bad driving is going to happen regardless of training and laws.

Your role on the highways and byways is to drive safely, and if that means letting eejits belt past everything including you at 90mph, then that is what you need to do. Trying to slow them down is not safe. Tipping your brakes is not safe. Forcing them to change lanes is not safe.

Get home safely, put the kettle on, and relax. Human bar or two of "Let it go".

You'd probably fail your advanced driving test if you changed lanes causing them to brake (depends on severity) or change lanes themselves and definitely fail if you tried to enforce them to drive legally, i.e. brake tested them or stayed in the overtaking lane ahead of them for longer than necessary to complete your immediate overtake.

this isn't what OP did from what I understand.

Same happens to me sometimes, overtaking a slower car and someone comes speeding up behind and either gets really close or flashes even though there is no room to pull in until I get past the car I'm overtaking. Just to be clear this doesn't involve pulling in front of a car, the lane could be completely empty when the manoeuvre is made.