Motorway speed limit could be cut from 70mph to 60mph to reduce emissions
- Thread starter chaparral
- Start date
The problem with that is, (as you've mentioned) so do many others, pushing up prices in aread with good transport links
So you end paying more to live in a smaller house somewhere you don't necessarily want to live, so really, either way you're paying more for public transport.
Personally if I'm buying a house I'm buying somewhere because it's where I want to live, not because it's near a station (i'll concede not such an issue when renting short term)
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Soldato
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Why not just have delimited motorways at certain times, i mean at 1 in the morning if theres no other cars surely its low risk of a crash?
That's probably what the health and safety police want people to think. Cars are getting lighter and brakes are getting better. My car will stop in a fraction of what the highway code suggests.
Idiotic, people who are for motorway speed limits are mentally impaired imho.
How can you think it's acceptable to make others adjust to your speed of moving/living/etc?
Motorways are by far the safest roads out there (unless the UK is something else than mainland Europe), and 60 mph feels like a bloody standstill, especially in a modern car.
Was in Poland again 2 weeks ago, and being able to cruise through Germany at 130+ mph was a godsend to compensate for al them road works, shaved a whole hour of my travel time and at least the drive was interesting instead of sleep-inducing...
I pretty much always drive speed limit + 50km/h when traffic allows it on motorways, they can stick their retarded limitations up their ***.
How can you think it's acceptable to make others adjust to your speed of moving/living/etc?
Motorways are by far the safest roads out there (unless the UK is something else than mainland Europe), and 60 mph feels like a bloody standstill, especially in a modern car.
Was in Poland again 2 weeks ago, and being able to cruise through Germany at 130+ mph was a godsend to compensate for al them road works, shaved a whole hour of my travel time and at least the drive was interesting instead of sleep-inducing...
I pretty much always drive speed limit + 50km/h when traffic allows it on motorways, they can stick their retarded limitations up their ***.
As for the environmental illusions, there are many better ways to reduce emissions that will not impair peoples freedom of movement. But it's cool to hate cars these days, left wing people love to hate cars.
Even slightly reducing our meat (especially beef) consumption, will have a a far more positive effect on the earth than imposing all kinds of stupid limitations on people.
Even slightly reducing our meat (especially beef) consumption, will have a a far more positive effect on the earth than imposing all kinds of stupid limitations on people.
Soldato
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brakes are getting better, but i dispute the idea that cars are getting lighter, quite the opposite all those electronic gadgets, aircon, turbo bits and emissions control components end up weighing quite a bit.
Tyre laws are not strict enough here that I'd want to be sharing a motorway with people legally allowed to go more than 70 anyway. Far too many people driving around on whatever cheapest teflon specials they can buy, mismatched tyres on the same axle, bald tyres and so on. That's ignoring the fact that far too many people don't properly maintain their cars.
That's your car, what about joe public with ebay brake pads, or completely worn out pads and ditch finders with no tread left? They'd probably be lucky to manage the highway code distance.
That is down to education and regulations being quite lax. They shouldn't even allow ditch finders to go on sale in the first place and most driving instructors are clueless about maintaining a car, so how can they teach it :/
The road safety wombles always focus on speed, but that is only one small factor. Someone going 70 in a good and well maintained car is far less of a risk than someone going 60 in a shed with dodgy tyres, brakes or steering.
The road safety wombles always focus on speed, but that is only one small factor. Someone going 70 in a good and well maintained car is far less of a risk than someone going 60 in a shed with dodgy tyres, brakes or steering.
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Talking about the highway code stopping distances for a moment.
We know the codes stopping distances are made up of a thinking distance and braking distance.
Several here agree that the "Braking" distances are wrong, and should be updated, but who here thinks that the "thinking" distances are wrong and should be updated ??
In the Highway code it says, "your thinking distance in feet = your speed in miles per hour".
If you do a little maths (won't here as don't want to bore people) that works out that your thinking time, at any speed is exactly the same, and works out at 0.68 of a second.
That is 0.68 of a second to;
{See and consciously acknowledge there’s a problem ahead, determine that to avoid the problem you will have to do something, deciding to brake, then actually physically moving your foot from the accelerator onto the brake pedal, and finally starting to push down on the brake pedal}
That is all the thinking time as the braking time cannot start until the brakes are actually starting to be applied.
Seriously 0.68 of a second to do all that ?
There have been several studies showing that for an average person, that entire "thinking time" is actually in reality, in real world situations, when no one is expecting an emergency situation to occur, and no one is prepared for it, that thinking time is nearer to between 1.5 and 2.5 seconds, so that immediately increases your "Thinking Distance" considerably.
Ok yes on many (certainly by no means all) modern cars the braking distance is somewhat shorter than stated in the highway code, but in reality in real world circumstances, the overall stopping distances are not that much shorter than in the highway code, when you increase the thinking distance correctly.
You have to remember that tests on Top Gear and Fifth Gear etc and magazines etc all have people/drivers who know exactly what is going to happen, who know exactly what they are going to have to do, and very often know exactly when they will have to do it, and are therefore very prepared to react fast, and act fast and therefore brake faster.
In real world that is never the case.
We know the codes stopping distances are made up of a thinking distance and braking distance.
Several here agree that the "Braking" distances are wrong, and should be updated, but who here thinks that the "thinking" distances are wrong and should be updated ??
In the Highway code it says, "your thinking distance in feet = your speed in miles per hour".
If you do a little maths (won't here as don't want to bore people) that works out that your thinking time, at any speed is exactly the same, and works out at 0.68 of a second.
That is 0.68 of a second to;
{See and consciously acknowledge there’s a problem ahead, determine that to avoid the problem you will have to do something, deciding to brake, then actually physically moving your foot from the accelerator onto the brake pedal, and finally starting to push down on the brake pedal}
That is all the thinking time as the braking time cannot start until the brakes are actually starting to be applied.
Seriously 0.68 of a second to do all that ?
There have been several studies showing that for an average person, that entire "thinking time" is actually in reality, in real world situations, when no one is expecting an emergency situation to occur, and no one is prepared for it, that thinking time is nearer to between 1.5 and 2.5 seconds, so that immediately increases your "Thinking Distance" considerably.
Ok yes on many (certainly by no means all) modern cars the braking distance is somewhat shorter than stated in the highway code, but in reality in real world circumstances, the overall stopping distances are not that much shorter than in the highway code, when you increase the thinking distance correctly.
You have to remember that tests on Top Gear and Fifth Gear etc and magazines etc all have people/drivers who know exactly what is going to happen, who know exactly what they are going to have to do, and very often know exactly when they will have to do it, and are therefore very prepared to react fast, and act fast and therefore brake faster.
In real world that is never the case.
Soldato
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i think the premise here is that you already have an alert driver paying attention to the road. in which case i'd agree for many would sound about right.
thing is, many drivers aren't doing this, how many people on the morning commute they've been on for years are going to be giving the road their undivided attention?
That's fine, just don't complain that public transport is poor if you decide to do so, and/or that government clampdowns/taxes on drivers are unfair.
It's your choice, you decided to live somewhere with poor transport links and subsequently rely on a car. That's the point I'm making. Life is about compromise (especially when it comes to work), you can't have everything.
What car do you drive? I'm assuming it's not a 1.0 fiesta? Or a Ford transit? Or one of most of the top 10 selling cars in the UK - of which at least half of them I wouldn't contemplate doing 100 in!
As car enthusiasts you may be happy doing 130 in a nice high spec saloon car that idled along at 100, but it's not quite the same in the average car, which is probably revving its guts out and shaking at that speed.
It's all about the lowest common denominator, not the fastest and most powerful.
Exactly. Cars are getting significantly larger and heavier than they used to be. The increasing technology doesn't help thinking distances either. The reaction time of 65 year old granny Dee is going to be pretty similar to what it was 50 years ago.
It's not so much a matter of choice, as simply the reality that unless you work "normal" hours (e.g. between 8am and 6pm), "somewhere with poor transport links" is the majority of the country outside of London, and if you do work those hours, you pay a massive premium for the "privilege".
I live in the outskirts of Birmingham, the second biggest city in the country, so hardly in the middle of nowhere, and while the trains from the local station the centre are fast and an ok price during the day (assuming they are on time (very rarely) or running at all (cancelled a few times a month) - not something you can really rely on, especially if you have other commitments, e.g. kids to pick up from school), after ~8.00pm, they become hourly and stop at ~11pm... That's not exactly ideal for someone doing bar/restaurant/cinema/takeaway/late night supermarket/etc work.
A bus to do the same journey takes over an hour... You could probably walk it in less time!
And that's just the issues with commuting and assuming you never want to travel anywhere else.
If we want to go visit family in Carlisle for a long weekend (which we do every couple of months), it's almost £250 for the 3 of us on the train, vs £60 in petrol... That difference almost pays for my annual insurance in 1 trip!
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Exactly, we have all seen them, doing their hair or makeup in the mirror, remember that youtube video of the woman eating her cereal while driving, even just listening to an interesting debate on the radio, or listening to your favourite track that you have just turned up the volume for and are singing along too, let alone a fairly normal task of talking on hands free phone about your upcoming business meeting and thinking about what you need to do when you get into the office to prep for it.
All of those and a hundred other things more could be going on, and all are distractions and will, without doubt, slow down your reaction times immensely.
Plus it may not even be you that you have to worry about, how about the person following you along the road, doing any of the above ?
You see an issue ahead and you are alert and stamping on your brakes sharply, they are half way up your exhaust pipe before they have even noticed what is going on let alone worried about actually thinking about braking.
As said it is always the lowest common denominator you have to legislate for.
You're creating the same fallacy that others earlier is the thread did.
No one is saying scrap your car and only use public transport. Conversely what I'm saying (as you'll be able to read in one of my earlier replies) is that public transport is fine for a lot more journeys than you think and that if you actually consider public transport when moving you'll have an even better chance of having acceptable public transport links.
The realty is for most people access to public transport is way down the list/not even considered when buying/renting a house and/or many people don't even consider it a legitimate option because they would rather sit in their car in a traffic jam than share what they perceive as an area full of smelly and ill people.
Yes I take a bus/train to work most days, because I purposely moved to a place I could. I could have moved elsewhere in the city but it would have been much harder to take public transport. I don't take it every day however, because some times I want to go somewhere I need to get to by car after work, or I need to take/collect something big. I make a sensible choice not to ur public transport those days.
Which goes back to one of the big points I made. Too many people make all these exceptions and obstacles as to why they never use public transport when in reality, for a lot of people, they are a minority of the time.
No one is saying you have to take ONLY one form of transport. Just because you take the bus on Tuesday and thursday doesn't mean you can't take the car on Monday or bike in on Friday.
What we need in general is less cars in the road, doing less miles. A combination of more people taking public transport more often, more people ride/lift sharing and more people cycling and walking rather than driving would help significantly. Then when we actually need to use a private car there is more space and less traffic to use it. And the whole thing reduces pollution.
Yes, public transport can always get better, but what also needs to change drastically is the UK attitude to public transport. Without that change even an exemplary public transport system won't help.