Would you change the Motorway speed limit?
- Thread starter mr tommo
- Start date
I not sure if this is rubbish but i heard that the original limit was set at 70mph because that was the top speed of the fastest cars at the time. Maybe we need a 200mph limit today
The original limit was set/ rushed through because a racing team (Jaguar IIRC) was using the then new brand-new M1 as a test track at night.
The limit was put in place for a trial period, I think 6 months before a review was supposed to happen. Naturally this didn't, & 70mph is stuck with us.
-Leezer-
140mph may be a little excessive imo.
But at night time when the motorways are clear, 100mph is fine imo.
Day time should be officially increased to 80mph.
I think their should be some sort of minimum speed type affair for each lane, a real slow, middle and fast lane, slow for slowies, middle soley for overtakers and fast for 80-100mph. Of course that would never work, so I think it's fine how it is, maybe an increase to 85 would be win.
Perhaps designate the lanes:
Left: 60mph (for lorries and old people)
Middle: 70mph (usual people)
Right: 80mph (higher performance cars)
Logistically it would never happen lol, you'd confuse the poor ickle wickle speed cameras
lanes are not speed dependant for a reason. You are supposed to keep left at ALL times unless overtaking.
Its so annoying to be bombing along a quiet motorway at 80mph in the 1st lane, only to have to move across all 3 lanes to overtake some idiot in lane 2. Then you move back into lane one and he starts flashing you?
I not sure if this is rubbish but i heard that the original limit was set at 70mph because that was the top speed of the fastest cars at the time. Maybe we need a 200mph limit today
The AC Cobra Coupé made the national headlines in 1963 for doing a claimed (extremely optimistic) 185 mph on a motorway. The 70 mph limit arrived in 1967.
Ban the truckers! Send their loads by train or boat (or air). Awaits for RJ45/SCANIA Man
Truckers only earn from trucking due to EVERYTHING going, at some point in its life, by road. Be it Bricks, Food,PC Parts, you name it, it goes by truck.
Roughly (read can't be arsed to check) we have about 350,000HGV's on the UK's roads, a fair percentage of those are artics which can gross @ 44t.
Halving the weight limit to 20t will simply increase by a large margin, the number of trucks on the road (a 20 tonner is no faster than a 44tonner) - we need to be increasing the size & weight limits for artics, which are less harmful to the enviroment & cheaper to run, alas, such road trains are deemed unsuitable for the U.K.
Two trailers, one truck.
http://www.stanrobinson.com/pagesall.asp?usrrlg=8_Company_Innovation
The move back to rail is slowly starting - Stobart run a rail freight service from Daventry to Grangemouth - that said, it will take a VERY long time to in any way noticably reduce the numbers of HGV's on the roads.
http://www.eddiestobart.co.uk/News/News_Article.php?id=58
The issue is our wonderful Gov't not spending the money generated on HGV road tax - upto £1850 for an artic - on repairing the roads!
http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/Motoring/OwningAVehicle/HowToTaxYourVehicle/DG_10012715
trucks more than pay for any damage they cause, alas the funds get diverted elsewhere.
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You should listen to the traffic reports at 4am. Just as many accidents as during the day, if not more. 140mph & 4am not a good combo imo.
Agreed ! , perhaps a drop to 60 in bad weather?. I had to go that low the other day with the flooded roads and high winds
There is no actual law preventing overtaking on the left. The police don't always look too kindly on it and may try to get you for due care and attention but the case law shows that if there is enough room to safely undertake, ie. with a proper stopping distance allowed before you end up pulling out on anyone (which isn't even an issue if it's one car on an otherwise empty motorway) then the person who should be done for due care and attention is the MLM, not the undertaker.
Obviously if you undertake the middle lane person then immediately pull out in front of them because there is a truck in L1, or if you're weaving into the middle lane from L3 to undertake someone who is leaving too large a stopping distance for your tastes then they'll get you for due care and attention or worse.
As for the truck vs rail thing, what makes you think that rail freight is any more reliable than passenger rail? The in thing for supermarkets right now is the "just in time" delivery system where they don't keep huge amounts of inventory in stock (apparently this costs money, personally I think it costs the same but makes the books look worse, but then I'm not an accountant or a warehouse manager so I wouldn't really know).
In any case, the goods have to arrive within a very narrow delivery window, drivers are penalised for being early as well as being late which is why you always see Tesco lorries parked up blocking the street 5 minutes away from Tesco. Their stock system assumes the lorry will be doing 50mph to account for delays, so many drivers actually do 50mph to avoid the early arrival penalties causing the "elephant racing" long overtakes we're oh so familiar with (though to be fair, slight variances in the 56mph speed limiter are the causes of the worst of these)
You can criticise this system if you want. I'm certainly not fond of it, but can you imagine trying to make it work via rail? First whiff of snow or falling leaves and all the supermarket shelves would become empty. Even if they managed to invent some magical train designed to cope with Autumn and Winter, once it reached the depot you'd still need to load it onto trucks for the last leg of the journey unless you plan on building railway lines to every supermarket in the country, not to mention every business park, factory and every house that ever mail orders stuff from OcUK and the like.
if i overtook someone on the inside @ 80mph while they drift along at 60mph, i would probably loose my liscence due to dangerous driving charge.
Now when the motorways are congested i will sit in the inside lane undertaking everyone because "lane 2 and 3 are the fast lanes" even though lane 1 is empty and moving faster....
they did that round here, with average speed cameras too. it has not made anything smoother at all
In Germany, I was doing 125mph in the 1st lane since there was no traffic about and I came up behind an old lady doing 50mph. I had very little time to see her and if I'd hit her, it would've been like hitting a brick wall at 75mph.
It would've been far safer if I'd just stayed in the 3rd lane even though I wasn't overtaking anyone.
To be honest, if a motorway is completely clear in the middle of the night/morning, I will sit in the middle lane usually at around 80-90. Purely because it gives me more space IF something was to go wrong. As soon as I see a car from behind I move into the inside lane immediately.
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My car can easily sit at 80-90 mph on the motorway without any problem whatsoever.
Citroen C1 - 70mph
BMW Z4 - 80-85mph
I know that it would be extremely hard to police but it would be excellent IMO
my car could easily sit at 120mph+ all day long on most motorway corners but it doesnt make it safe.putting peoples cars into speed categories is stupid and would never work,mainly becuase peopel would rebel if somebody elses car was legally allowed to go faster than theirs.
i personally think 79mph to be inline with other european countries like france.the main problem arrises from speeding.most drivers sit at 80-85 in our 70mph speed limit so if you put the limit upto,say 80mph then people will probably start driving at 90-95mph which is too fast for general road use.thats the main reason our limit has stayed at 70mph
No, it would have been safer if you weren't driving so fast.