80mph Motorways

[CogitoErgoSometimes]

Brilliant. Although it would be a fairly minor adjustment, I'll be very pleased if, after the consultation, UK motorway maximum speed is brought in line with the standard 130kph that applies all over continental Europe.

[WhereTheWildThingsWere]

Astonishing how everyone else has ignored her posts.

'Oooooooh we can go faster'

[CogitoErgoSometimes]

Maybe because Ragged's view doesn't make a lot of sense. Anyone that travels on motorways regularly will tell you that 80mph is pretty standard on straight, emptyish sections already. Raising the limit to 80mph would not automatically result in more people travelling at 90mph - there's no evidence of that. As for fuel consumption, there's nothing mandatory about travelling at 80mph any more than there is about 70mph. You can travel slower if you wish to conserve fuel or don't feel in control of your vehicle at high speed (although maybe motorway driving isn't for you if that's the case). And there is no evidence that there would be more accidents or more pollution because 80mph is the effective standard today.

All this proposal does is bring the law into line with the practice. There would be very little extra cost because there aren't even speed limit signs to be changed. And if someone switches all the cameras on and bothers to enforce the new limit properly, it could even end up being a net earner.

[mumblechum1]

What Cogito said.

[CogitoErgoSometimes]

[mumblechum1]

So, where's my tenner???

[niceguy2]

Re: the argument about fuel economy.

Personally I've found my desire to save money has slowed my driving down more than an antiquated speed limit.

[GwendolineMaryLacey]

Yes what cogito said. I also didn't realise we had to respond to absolutely every post. Sorry

[Pissfarterleech]

Great news.,

The danger on motorways doesn't come from outside lane speeders, it comes from people driving too close or inappropriately in wet weather and people not using lanes correctly.

Please, do NOT sit in the middle lane if the inside is empty. Move over. Likewise, fuck off out of the far lane if you want to do 65 .
If people ( yes, I't talking to you DH) want to belt down the outside lane at a steady ton, let'em. It's no skin off your nose, just pull over like you're supposed to. Sititng there doggedly is dangerous, you piss people off and they'll start doing silly things like undertaking. Just move, it's better all round.

Thank you.

[WhereTheWildThingsWere]

There is no evidence, because it hasn't been tried. I know it varies from county to county but the general speeding tolerence is the limit + 10% + 2mph. If the limit is increased to 80mph, people will feel relatively safe (from the law) to do 90.

On the motorway if you crash at 70mph you stand a reasonable chance of survival, at 90mph you are most likely dead.

Plus the increase in emissions once you go over 70 is shocking.

We have to travel to Cornwall from the Midlands on a fairly regular basis, on the last jouney I drove istead of dp and stuck to the speed limit, we used £30 less fuel, yet the jouney only took (based on a average journey) about 25 extra minutes.

[Pissfarterleech]

Do people stick to the speed limit on motorways?

I'm more surprised people do than don't. How can you keep up with the flow of traffic? Do you ( hopes) stick to the inside lane the whole time?

[JarethTheGoblinKing]

I don't actually think changing the speed limit will make any different at all tbh.

What would make a difference is policing the roads better and stopping tailgating and other kinds of aggressive driving (as a means to making the roads safer and easing the flow of traffic)

[Blu]

I think people not observing stopping distances is more dangerous than driving at 80mph.

I am sick to death of driving at a speed which anticipates the new law while some twat drives right on my tail. And, yes, that sometimes happens in the middle lane, because I'm damned if I'm going to slow down and move in between two lorries (which also drive bumper to bumper) going at 60mph up a hill just to enable twat-pants behind to break the speed limit even more.

It isn't good to coast along down the middle lane when the first lane is free, but if you get impatient with them and drive too close or aggressively or competitively, you are part of the problem.

[CogitoErgoSometimes]

"There is no evidence, because it hasn't been tried"

Yes it has been tried. In most continental European countries the limit is somewhere around 120 - 130kph (75-80mph). In Germany there's no limit and the place is hardly littered with bodies.

Truth is that, in the UK, you'd struggle on a normal day to find a section of motorway without roadworks or some temporary speed restriction. Accidents are not often caused by cars going in a straight line at high speed but, as others have said, driving too close to the car in front, being distracted by in-car gadgets, lane-hogging, failing to use mirrors, not taking weather conditions into account and other stupid stuff.

If you really want to reduce emissions you'd stick to 50mph on the A-roads and wouldn't use a motorway at all.

[WhereTheWildThingsWere]

I know, but having driven on the continent do you not think they drive a lot less twattily than we do here?

Here - Speed limit 70, average driver does 80 already, nutters do between 90-110.

Germany ( have only driven in Germany and Holland, Holland MW speed limit is lower) - Everyone does seem to actually do about 80.

I think in the UK we have a (terrible) driving style that is all our own, their are far to many Mr Toads on the road and I'm not sore you can compare what happens in other countries to would would happen here, poop poop..........

Totally agree more accidents are caused by agressive driving, but I think more will be caused and there will be more fatalities by people thinking they have a right to go even quicker.

Personally I do try to reduce my own emissions and do try to use the car as little as possible, but that is a whole other argument.

[GrimmaTheNome]

The timing of this - with fuel prices as they are, and concern about emisssions - is odd. But I wouldn't greatly object to an enforced 80 limit. Especially if lower limits elsewhere were better enforced.

[Pissfarterleech]

Wherethewildthingsare you have clearly never driven through Rome or Paris

[notcitrus]

Chance would be a fine thing - I've been on the M25, M1 up to Leicester and M3 recently, and never managed to get above 50, thanks to roadworks and congestion and people slamming brakes on causing really annoying stop-start conditions.

Having a lower limit for the rain sounds good, though. In the past I've driven down the same bit of M1 at 90+ and at 10 mph, the latter in freezing fog and couldn't see to go any faster, and the number of cars zooming past at 50 and then crashing was terrifying!

[ragged]

SoutheastAstra: most here must drive at 100 on some stretches of motorway
Cogito: 80mph is the effective standard today....
WtWtA: average driver does 80 already
nocitrus: recently... never managed to get above 50

So which is it? You can't get hardly above 50 so it's an irrelevant change, OR, everybody is already doing 100mph whenever possible in which case... oh well, it's an irrelevant change. :(

Let's go Autobahn style, no limits whatsoever.

DH thinks 80mph limit would lead to increased driver stress & road rage incidents, because people who don't want to go 80 will still drive at 60-70 (fine). But the ones expecting to do 80 will get very shirty about being boxed in, being held up, not being able to exercise their "right" to travel at 80.

Oh, but I suppose my suggestion that road rage is a common British problem also "doesn't make much sense". :(

[CogitoErgoSometimes]

Do you actually drive Ragged... or, like your opinions, do you leave that to 'DH'?

[mumblechum1]

The people who want to drive at 60 mph can drive in the slow lane. That's what it's for. It's idiots hogging the middle lane at 60 who cause a lot of the problems imo

[GwendolineMaryLacey]

I'm amazed that anyone thinks UK drivers have a worse attribute to driving than places on the continent. I drive into London every day. I've also driven in Paris. It's no contest which one scared the shit out of me. London drivers are supremely law-observant in comparison to Parisian drivers. But like everything let's assume the British are worse, eh? Road rage is absolutely not confined to these shores, believe me.

[CogitoErgoSometimes]

Quite GML... Parisien driving is an extreme sport!! I regularly drive on nothern European motorways, however, (with the 130kph limit) and there is very little difference between driving behaviour there and here. If you're in the outside lane when you shouldn't be, they sit close behind indicating left... their version of 'the flash'.

[nooka]

I raise you New York drivers. Why they are not all dead is a bit of a puzzle - we saw some really scary tail gating and a lot of shunting accidents when we lived there.

Googling around a bit there seems to be a number of studies that suggest that raising speed limits when average speed is already in the range of the new limit does not increase the overall speed of the traffic by a very significant amount or cause a rise in accidents.

[nooka]

Oh and driving on the Autobahn didn't seem vastly different than any other motorway when we visited Germany recently. There seemed to be lots of local speed restrictions and the volume of traffic was too great for any serious speeding.

[CogitoErgoSometimes]

Straw Poll.... for those that regularly drive on motorways and go around 80mph do you do so because

a) It's 10%-ish above the speed limit?
b) It feels a comfortable speed to drive at/natural cruising speed for your car?
c) You'd actually like to drive much faster but don't want to risk a ticket?
d) Other....