To think driving constantly at 40mph is dangerous?

[Beetlejuice3]

This has been something I’ve noticed on a good few occasions and interested if it’s quite a widespread thing.

I live out in the country so to visit the nearest city or relatives it’s usually a drive that includes mostly 60mph country roads with a few villages to pass through at 30mph.
There seems to be some (a fair amount) of drivers that only travel at 40mph no matter what? On the national speed limit roads they cause a lot of people to overtake (often 2 cars at a time I saw today), however going through the 30mph villages you can’t keep up with them! I would say I’m not the most confident driver and I don’t speed but I do travel at or around the speed limit unless there’s a reason not to. This travelling at 40 no matter what seems more dangerous to me, like I say, impatient drivers were overtaking 2 cars on corners etc. Not to mention travelling through villages with schools and pedestrians 10mph over the limit.

Is this a thing? Has anyone come across the 40mph club?

There's a wide, straight, national speed limit road I drive along at lower speed, especially at night. It's because the woods on either side are stuffed full of deer with a death wish, and hitting one of them at near 60mph does a fuck of a lot of damage to all involved!

I have come across drivers that do 30 in the 60 zone (fairly straight 2 lane not single track) and then speed up to the 40 limit through a village and then slow down to 30 again once through onto to 60 stretch. Unless you try to overtake them and then they speed up. I see them as dangerously unpredictable, lost or drunk and maintain a safe distance.

Ha, yes, i suppose some/most/all of them will be happily oblivious of their cortège.

A lot of drivers here slow down to 5mph when turning left, it used to drive me crackers, I quite enjoy predicting it now.

All the 60 limit windy single track lanes by me would disagree. Quiet roads aren't evaluated on whether they are safe to drive at 60 because of their width and windiness, it's the default unless there's another factor in play - eg traffic calming, accident hotspot, residential. On a quiet country road there aren't enough accidents to get it changed as most people drive sensibly. Still suicidal to do 60.

Good point on potholes, was down the pub yesterday, someone had just had 2 tyres wrecked after hitting a pot hole.

Roads are in a terrible state & getting worse, quite incredible we all put up with it.

Whilst there is nothing wrong with driving at 40mph in a road with the national speed limit, the behaviour the OP describes suggests someone who is possibly medically unfit to hold a licence.

Hence I wish there were tighter medical standards, and the plan to introduce compulsory eye tests at 70 onwards should be much earlier, possibly 50 or even for all drivers.

And some contribute by heavier vehicles than they need. At least 95% of those with an SUV have no need for example.

And worse at night, with those who only use dipped headlights and crawl along with reduced visibility

We have country roads up here that are 60 but there is no possible way to do 60 as they are twisty turny roads with blind sumits!! I do 40 on them, if someome wants to be a idiot and overtake me thats on them not me.

This 100%, in fact I failed my first driving test due to dithering about speed and doing 30 in a 60.

I followed someone yesterday, 35 mph on a very wide 60mph road, they were talking to their passenger and kept speeding up to 40 then slowing down again without breaking. They had a break light out on the back right and the top row of break light let's was also half out. I didn't overtake because it wasn't safe to do so due to oncoming traffic but it was appalling driving from them.

Gaaah! Brake. Brake. Brake. Brake. Brake. When you want to slow a vehicle down you brake. Not 'break' - which means to damage something such that it no longer functions properly. Brake. Brake. Brake.

Now I've got that off my chest - I totally agree OP. I live rurally and unispeeders are a scourge. Add in drivers that seem to think their car is as wide as a combine harvester as soon as they encounter a road that doesn't have a white line down the middle, and also drivers that think brushing the grass verge will cause their car to spontaneously combust, and getting around can be a frustrating experience.

😂😂😂😂

I feel your pain, on all counts

THIS. There are winding country roads where I live that are 60 mph but you literally cannot see what's happening right in front of you and the road randomly narrows to single file with no warnings. It would be so dangerous to travel 60 mph there. I asked my driving instructor friend about it and he said that until someone has literally died on that road the council wont reduce the speed limit down. He actually said he had complained to the council about a few country roads like this and thats what they told him.

If someone wishes to overtake me on that road and put their life at risk then that's up to them but if a car happens to be coming in the opposite direction they will likely die (and then finally it can be moved down to a more sensible limit)

I have noticed this for years and its drives me mad. It shows a complete lack of awareness of the road conditions. Sometimes in a 60 it’s only safe to do 30 and sometimes in a 30 it’s only safe to do 20 - but people just drive along at 40 without any due care and attention. People don’t read the road.

NSL roads do not mean "it's fine to go at 60mph here" the sign means "the authorities have not assessed this road to determine a safe speed, use your own judgement within the legal limit of 60mph, taking the road and weather conditions into account". There are a very large number of NSL roads where you would have to be criminally insane to go above 25mph in the depths of rural areas. If the width is lower or there are regular bends and you can't see a long distance ahead then you shouldn't be going at 60mph. The premise of your OP @Beetlejuice3 is deeply flawed because frankly if any road is safe to go at 60mph on, then it will be safe for someone wishing to go at 60mph to overtake someone going at 40mph. Any "dangerous overtaking" is only going to be happening on roads where there isn't sufficient visibility ahead and therefore clearly 60mph is not an appropriate speed.

Blaming the slower driver for the dangerous actions of impatient road ragers is victim blaming somewhat

Yes OP I live rurally and yes there are winding country roads that you need to adjust your speed but there are plenty straight roads. The amount of people going way below the limit, slamming brakes on at cars coming the other direction etc and 9/10 it’s an elderly driver (no I am not ageist before anyone comes at me), the area I live in is disproportionately elderly though

I see these drivers a lot on my way home from the local town. 40mph the whole way.

There are of course stretches where over 40 would be inappropriate but not the whole way!

They remind me of when I very first learned to drive and was still scared of changing gear so I’d try and get away without doing it for as long as possible! Obviously my instructor drummed that out of me eventually

And to the posters getting cross about ‘reckless overtaking’ - the pint is that it isn’t reckless. The roads have stretches of good visibility and are straight - so overtaking shouldn’t be necessary.

Possibly not the same but I live in a city and find many drivers are far too fast rather than too slow. It might be frustrating but I see the acts of those overtaking them recklessly to be more of a risk. Missing the point but I'm more concerned about the number who fly through red lights or seem to have forgotten how indicators work. If they don't have the patience to stop at lights or to overtake safely, and choose instead to endanger other people's lives, then they shouldn't be on the road at all.

Yes it’s a well known phenomenon. I used to
live in a similar place, 60mph road with several villages dotted along it where the speed limit went down to 30.

I’d regularly have people up my backside (ooo err!) when I was doing 30 in a 30 zone and they were trying to do 40. Yet once it got to the 60mph section they were a speck in my rear view mirror as I accelerated to 60 and they stayed at 40.

I’ve had to slow down my driving recently because I’m frequently travelling to unknown areas for work. The reason for slowing down is to be able to spot and avoid potholes, which have increased in size and quantity.

Obviously doing 40 in a 30 limit area is wrong.
While I don’t think the people doing 40 in a 60 area can be held responsible for someone else’s road rage and potentially unsafe overtaking, I do still think it’s a dick move. They are forcing everyone behind them to drive at way below a limit that has been legally deemed safe and set at that level to allow drivers to make progress. If everyone goes too slow, it can cause tailbacks and build ups of traffic in the areas where you do have to slow down. So that instead of one or two cars driving through a small village at one time, lots of cars arrive because they have been stuck behind Driving Miss Daisy pootling along at 38mph. That surely increases the risk of accidents.
Plus, those drivers are probably overall less confident/safe than one who adjusts their speed to take account of all factors and isn’t afraid to put their foot down and move with purpose when it’s safe to do so. Those will be the drivers that also can’t keep pace with the traffic on the motorway or dual carriageway.

YANBU.

There are plenty of drivers who basically just pick a speed and stick to it, rather than actually making an assessment of both the actual speed limit, and the road conditions. They'll happily fuck about at 40mph on a clear 60mph stretch with no regard for the huge queue of people behind them, and then stick at 40mph through a 20mph zone past a school.

And they'll be sat there in their own little radio 2 bubble thinking that they are safest drivers in the world.

Ah yes, Captain 40mph. So many of them round here, they absolutely drive me nuts.

They'll tailgate you all the way through a 30mph village and zoom past as though you're the problem, then toddle along after you've left the village completely oblivious to the 20-car tailback they're causing with their stupidity.

speed limits are limits not targets.