If you could change UK speed limits..

[miniyazz]

I honestly cannot remember the last time I saw somebody doing 40 on the motorway. It seems daft to legislate against something that isnt really a problem.

I once drove down the M6 at around 45mph

It was about 11pm at night between a Sunday and a Bank Holiday, I'd not planned ahead and didn't have much fuel, and the fuel light came on somewhere about 10 miles north of Manchester. Since I had to get to Shrewsbury and the road was pretty deserted I went on a mega-fuel-saving run.

Annoyingly, when I got to Shrewsbury and filled up the next day I apparently had nearly 10L petrol left in the tank. How big is the reserve on a petrol Avensis?

 

[PhillyDee]

I would have timed limits. No need to have a 20 zone outside a school at 3am. Thats fine as a 30mph most of the time (except an hour each way of school hours say). Increase maximum limits on the motorway to 90mph through the night in the outside lane only.

 

[Glaucus]

Motorway and the stupid 40/50 zones on massive ex-NSL roads.

Would make it law so lorrys and speed restricted vehicles can only use 1st lane. Then raise speed limit to 80 on other two lanes.

Other than that, most speed limits are above what you can do with congestion anyway.

 

[JaWalks]

I would like to see variable speed limits based on cars performance.

 

[snowdog]

Note that I'm commenting on speed limits everywhere, not just the UK, it should be this Europe wide imho:

Schools and other "Pedestrian" areas - 20 mph ( though some of these ''zones'' are often in place nowhere near people living over here, old 30 zones messed up with speedbumps and other anti car **** and made 20... )
Road with Street Lamps (Speed Unmarked/built up area) - 30 mph, 40 mph at night like in Poland.
Single Carriage - 70 mph ( I mean these types of roads: http://maps.google.nl/?ll=53.009321...d=I6Cdpv1UvpiJC1LNvp-csw&cbp=12,14.27,,0,5.32)
Dual lane Carriage - 80 mph ( I assume grade separated 2x2lanes or more, but without hard shoulders and rubbish deceleration/merging lanes etc)
Motorway - No limit, only locally, any limit makes 0 sense at night imho in many many places)
Countryside - 50 mph ( these types of roads, narrower single carriegeways: http://maps.google.nl/?ll=51.985899...d=u_iJMawzABQe7ovzif8Ycw&cbp=12,43.42,,0,7.02 (used to be a 50 mph road, ruined with speedbumps and ''painted'' cycle lanes into a 40 mph road)


Obviously with local speed limits in danger spots, and probably about half the half the narrow ''countryside'' roads like these: http://maps.google.nl/?ll=51.957344...=cUdgDEejSKv4RXcCFPXnZQ&cbp=12,47.48,,0,-1.52

So a tad higher than they are now .

Motorway and outside built up areas limits annoy me most especially at night.

What are these "limits" you speak of?

Fiscal recommended limits .


Holland is raising its NSL on motorways from 120 kph to 130 (80 mph) on 40% of its motorways in Sep .
Italy is experimenting with 150km/h in some places ( 93mph)
Poland recently went from 130 to 140 km/h limit.

Wish more countries would have the right idea.
There was a 160km/h limit experiment in Austria, unfortunately stopped. Also known for Greenpeace's and other eco morons their ''safety cars'' blocking the left lane at 130 km/h.

Ideally I'd see variable speed limits during daytime and no limit at night on motorways.

 

[Conanius]

It isn't an easy 1 size fits all solution in my eyes.

I think that speed limits need to be in many cases variable ... for example:

20mph is perfectly acceptable outside a school between 07:30 and 09:30 and then 14:30 and 16:30. In reality, during those times there will be parked cars on both sides of the road, Children and parents crossing between those cars, and people double parking for children to jump in. In short, you might even struggle to safely do 20mph. But, outside of those times 30mph is fine... maybe you could even be bold and say 40mpg between 22:00 and 05:00 ?

As others have also suggested, I'd like to better understand the rationale behind all my local NSL roads becoming 50mph and in some cases, 40mph. Nothing has changed, and the road can easily safely accommodate 60mph. A great example being this road here
http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?hl=en...oid=beuBKOzF6Zzqj14NAdl6xA&cbp=12,100.33,,0,0 Its a road with barriers either side, wide lanes, and is a raised section of carriageway with no houses anywhere near it. Madness.

Motorways and dual carriageways are where I'd like to see traffic rules changing before speed limits to reduce closing speed issues. Something like no Buses/Coaches/Lorries allowed out of lane 1 between the hours of 0600 and 2100 so as to ensure the vehicles in lanes 2 and 3 can sustain a cruising speed (I find 70 can be difficult in busy sections when they do the 5 mile overtake) That could mean you could do 80mph during those times 'easily' and importantly, without having to brake all the time.

Outside of those hours.... Those vehicles could use lanes 1 and 2, and the speed limit could be increased to say 100? However, the issue then is to allow such a large increase in speed I would insist on motorways being part of the driving test, and the police given more powers to charge people with careless driving if the conditions didn't allow 100mph. Raining? speed limit reduced to 80-70-60-50 ... whatever is appropriate. I'd also like to see chevrons across the entire motorway network, and 3-6 points if you are caught not leaving a gap. You can't increase the speed limit and then have some idiot an inch of your bumper.

If that was TLDR.... you can look to change them, but it isn't that simple.

 

[miniyazz]

I would have timed limits. No need to have a 20 zone outside a school at 3am. Thats fine as a 30mph most of the time (except an hour each way of school hours say). Increase maximum limits on the motorway to 90mph through the night in the outside lane only.

Motorway and the stupid 40/50 zones on massive ex-NSL roads.

Would make it law so lorrys and speed restricted vehicles can only use 1st lane. Then raise speed limit to 80 on other two lanes.

Other than that, most speed limits are above what you can do with congestion anyway.

Are you guys trying to make the middle/outside lane hog problem worse?
I can't think of a better way of forcing someone who wants to do 75mph into the outside lane, meaning they can't go into the middle lane without breaking the law yet there's a big pile of cars wanting to do 80/90 in the outside lane behind them..

 

[Glaucus]

It's called policing, we need some on the roads. Road hogs should be dealt with.

Also 75 wouldnt be illegal just that speed limited vehicles can't overtake, that causes the majority of congestion on motorways. One lorry trying to overtake another, with a speed difference of 0.5mph.

 

[task]

It would be nice if they reversed all the changes from NSL to 50mph they've made on some of the B roads around Derbyshire.

 

[mattyprice4004]

I also had to drive home from an OcUK Oxfordshire Meet at 40mph when my alternator died, if I went above about 1800rpm my electrics went mental.

Good fuel economy though...

 

[Django x2]

banning lorries and tractors between 7am and 9am and 4pm and 6pm would do me a treat

 

[Culinia]

.. What would you change them too?

Just interested in opinions.

The main "road sections" I can think off are:

Schools and other "Pedestrian" areas -
Road with Street Lamps (Speed Unmarked) -
Single Carriage -
Dual Carriage -
Motorway -
Countryside -

Let me know if I've missed any and I'll update the list.

Schools and other pedestrian areas - 25
Road with Street Lamps - 25
Single Carriage - 55
Dual Carriage - 65
Motorway - 75
Countryside - 55

I think we need a distinction between a dual carriageway and a high quality dual carriageway (like the Irish) within the road system rather than grouping them all as 'A' roads as some are better more than others, and I would put them at 75 like motorway as well since the ones I am thinking of, are built to near motorway standard (none of this let's stick a roundabout in the middle of the dual carriageway).

I like the American style since I think most people go around +5mph most of the time anyway, this style simply offsets it and makes the standard speed constant most of the time.

 

[Pixel]

The current speeds are fine (to me, anyway) the main problem is people who don't know how to read signage, so they go 40 everywhere.

The biggest issue is the NSL sign (white circle with a black line through it) as no-one around here seems to know what it's for. They see a 50mph section of road, slow down for it, then stay at 50 even when they've passed the NSL sign ending that limited section.

The solution would be to change the NSL sign to clearly indicate what the max speed is for each type of vehicle, but it might look a bit messy.

 

[miniyazz]

It's called policing, we need some on the roads. Road hogs should be dealt with.

Also 75 wouldnt be illegal just that speed limited vehicles can't overtake, that causes the majority of congestion on motorways. One lorry trying to overtake another, with a speed difference of 0.5mph.

My comment was more aimed at the suggestion of the outer lane being a much higher speed limit than the inner couple of lanes, where you want to go faster than the inner lane speed limit but not as fast as the outer lane speed limit and are therefore stuck holding traffic up.
No speed limited vehicles overtaking is fine in principle but then there are always cars driving at 50-55mph for some reason, and not all speed limited vehicles are limited at 56mph.
Plus with the outer two lanes 80mph and the inner lane 70mph, same problem as my first point - you get middle lane hogs because they're going too fast for the slow lane but too slow for the fast lane.

 

[Glaucus]

Inside lane for slow traffic, outer two lanes 80limit. Hoggers, need to be prosucuted. Most things are limited to 56, some limited to 70, in which case they overtake and then pull back over. Or even 80in all three lanes. The most important things is to ban lorries having 10mile long drag races. Bans work extremely well on easing congestion.