Speed limit cuts move a step closer

Rich_L said:
What about the economic implications of denying a sizeable proportion (the retarded drivers) the ability to travel to employment and suchlike.
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Offset it against the money saved from gimps crashing and claiming 'compo' :p

Driving is not a god given right, if you are unable to do it to a reasonable standard then you'll have to either improve your skills or plan your life without a car. Plenty of people still manage to get to work using public transport or car sharing etc. It sucks compared to the freedom of your own transport, but that should drive some incentive to get a licence.
 
Rich_L said:
So the people that obey the speed limit now, will still obey the lower speed limits, and the people that don't obey the speed limits now, will continue to break the speed limits.

I guess the only difference will be that people doing 70-odd in what were 60 zones will be doing 20mph over now so more points and fines to hand out :p
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NathanE said:
Exactly. It's like changing the National Lottery to have one less number... of course more people will score the jackpot.
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. . . and get banned, making the roads both safer and less congested for the rest of us - RESULT!
 
Hatter The Mad said:
Well who are you going to vote for? Tories and Lib Dems both back the suggestions in the house. I can't see Green Party not supporting them either.

Anyway, I agree with cutting the 60mph on single carriage rural roads. Young boy racers see it as a target to be achieved, not a limit. I've seen and heard of so many fatal crashes on such roads around where I lived in Yorkshire. Rural roads aren't in best shape and normally involve a lot of bends, hidden dips, bumps and hide water and ice very well. No one needs to do 60 on them, so make it illegal to do so and hopefully save the lives of some idiots (hmm..)

The 20mph limit, apart from outside schools and parks etc is stupid.
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Gawd, my 55 year old driving instructor said the exact same thing when i was learning to drive (7 years ago).
 
I read a funny take on speed vans which I thought I would share with you, from our god Jeremy Clarkson. I know the guy Colin Carritt and it's based on the road passed my local town, I agree with Clarkson, it's a dual carriageway with no reason to be 50!! Hardly anyone speeds on the 50 section, so they wack a van there to catch people out? I have never seen an accident happen on this road.

In a recent column I suggested that the A44, a lovely road that connects my house with Oxford, should not have a 50mph speed limit. I argued that most people could see no reason for it and spent most of their time on the wrong side of the road overtaking the Rover-driving minority who will obey any law no matter how stupid and pointless it might be.

Inevitably, my views were reported in the Oxford Mail, along with those of Colin Carritt, who’s mayor of Woodstock, one of the small towns through which the A44 passes.

Carritt, a former county highways engineer and therefore a man who knows what he’s talking about, reckons I’m a big bag of nonsense. But sadly, while making his point, I’m afraid old Col makes a bit of a booboo.

He says: “The accident record on the A44 is not dissimilar to other roads in the area. It is not an accident blackspot.”

Well Mr Carritt, if it is not an accident blackspot, could you please explain why there are three fixed speed cameras along its length and one mobile site? Because, you see, the Department for Transport is very specific on this. They say that a road must be an accident blackspot before cameras can be installed.

Actually I don’t mind the Gatsos. They’re in villages and make sense, but the mobile site, on an open piece of road, has only recently been installed. And now the local mayor is saying there’s no reason for it. Good. I expect it to be removed this instant. And if it isn’t, I shall pull over and ask the civil servant who operates it why not. If he has no sensible answer, I may have to arrest him and confiscate his van.

I love it when this happens — when authority figures desperately trying to defend the indefensible come a cropper. We see it with climate-change scaremongers who are trying to argue — preposterously — that the only way to prevent the end of the world is to give Gordon Brown five pounds.

Unfortunately, in the big scheme of things, a lone voice discovering that one mobile speed camera is in the wrong place is nothing but a gnat bite on the elephant hide of lunacy that is being used to suffocate Britain’s motorists under a blanket of rules and fines.

It’s such an all-enveloping blanket in fact that, for the first time ever, last week I actually began to feel that soon there will be nowhere left for people who like cars to have some fun. And that’s a shame, because I was driving a Ferrari 599.
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http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/driving/jeremy_clarkson/article1264025.ece
 
I don't think the plan is the change the NSL to be 50mph for single carridgeways. It is to leave the NSL as it is but to change the limit on "most" single carridgeways to 50mph. This will require a lot of new signs.
 
I drive by my own rule that NSL is open to interpretation ;)

Otherwise, 30=30, 40=40 etc. etc.

I remember someone telling me about a show they saw a while ago where this Impreza was getting chased by a police car down some country roads. The Impreza blasted past them when they were in a lay by then disappeared. The driver of the police car was a young guy and the passaenger was someone a bit more experienced but they couldn't keep up, it was off into the distance. The old timer just said, turn off here mate you aren't going to catch him. I think they summed up that chasing him was a bad idea and that he was in full control of the car despite his lightning pace.

Not the kind of reaction I would have expected, but a good example that there are people out there who can take advantage of their cars potential and use it wisely over the posted limits. Whether there is any truth to this tale about the show I don't know but it did sound familiar to something I've seen before I think.
 
20, 30 and 40 limits where there is a limit for a reason, I stick to these like glue. NSL is open to interpretation and so is the motorway limit in my opinion, I mean circumstances, car, conditions all take a part in how I drive. Motorway at 2am, fully rested with no cars and dry roads..... is 70 really the appropriate speed? Empty dry backroads with clear visibility in a Subaru at 6am, some parts 50 would be far too slow in my opinion. However, the better drivers will establish that going sticking to 60 when the back road has surface water and other cars around, might not be the appropriate speed.

The problem is the driver, not the speed.
 
suarve said:
Gawd, my 55 year old driving instructor said the exact same thing when i was learning to drive (7 years ago).
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and from the other side of the fence, my instructor used to yell at me if i wasnt doing 60mph on NSL roads..... so yes, i see it as a target not a limit ;)
 
Here in The Netherlands the limit on single carriageways has been 80kmh (50mph) for a long time now with some small roads being 60kmh (40mph) and in a lot of towns 30kmh (20mph) zones are coming more and more.

And tbh I am fine with those limits as they are high enough on most roads, the one I hate the most is the 60mph limit on dual carriageways in Holland which is just awful, there are times at night when I drive on a 3 lane motorway with no visible cars in front or behind me and I am not allowed to go faster than 60mph :mad:
 
The Govt will also be proposing the installation of many more specs cameras to ensure these new speed limits are adhered to so it won't be a question of choosing to stick to these new limits on many roads.

it's making the driving of a performance car/bike in this country a foolhardy choice for the future.
 
hothatchnut said:
The Govt will also be proposing the installation of many more specs cameras to ensure these new speed limits are adhered to so it won't be a question of choosing to stick to these new limits on many roads.

it's making the driving of a performance car/bike in this country a foolhardy choice for the future.
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I can just imagine cameras up everywhere and people spending more time looking at their speedo than anything else.

I don't pass any speed cameras very often but I feel under so much pressure o nthe rare occasion I do that I get stressed about spending too long looking at the speedo (despite me being at or below the posted speed quite easily) or the road that I'm gonna ruin my clean license & insurance or kill some stupid kid that runs out in front of me or something. I can't seem them as anything more than a catalyst for people concentrating on the wrong thing and a way to pull in some £££. Espeically where specs is concerned. If they had them in 30 zones I reckon people getting knocked over could increase.
 
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