Motorway speed limit could be raised to 80mph

Seems like a good idea, unlike some of the other suggestions in this thread (which are still good) this one's a cheap, simple solution that will win them brownie points.

I don't believe the vast majority of the general public believe the 'Speed kills' mentality, much like now people are questioning 'global warming', or climate change or bio diversity or whatever it is now.
 
rigourous enforcement of lane discipline would be a good start.

I'd rather see more enforcement/better education of lane discipline and braking distances to be honest. No point having the speed limit at 80 when it will be ruined by someone doing 65MPH in lane one, 67MPH in lane two then 70MPH in lane three.

Then again if the speed limit was raised, it might encourage people to get a move on when they go to overtake, rather than performing the situation above and causing a rolling roadblock for a mile or two.

Edit: Beaten by a hair!

This would be much more productive than an 80 speed limit in the first instance, but I think they should do both.

Agreed with all of these points.
 
99.9% of drivers won't pay a blind bit of attention to the m-way limit being raised to 80. They don't now so there's little chance they will even if it came into being.

Yup.

Will have very little affect on 'productivity'. Still, can't complain!

Beats Labours attempts to change it to 40mph!
 
I would have no problem with that, I generally do 80-90 anyway when conditions allow.

Maybe they should just "decriminalise" it if you will, so if conditions are good and traffic is flowing nicely you can cruise along at a decent pace, but if you are spotted driving innapropriatley, then you would be in trouble.

The biggest issue on Mways is lane discipline (not moving left when people probably should), and general awareness and lack of progressive driving- thats what causes most hold ups, the need for heavy braking and, I dare say most accidents...

If you are looking ahead and undersanding whats happening and identifying what manovers the trafic ahead are likely to want to do, its very rare you even need to brake, you can just ease off a bit. The more congested it is, the harder it is to make these predictions.

That though, is very hard to control, its much easier to control speed en masse, but as im sure most will agree, speed in itself is not the main issue, its driver behaviour.
 
Does he not realise the majority of people drive at 80 on the motorway already? Hope he isn't expecting too big a productivity increase :p

Exactly!

Will be good though as 10%+2 (what I normally do) is currently 79MPH... but with the speed-limit being 80MHP it will rise to 90MPH :cool:.

Problem is anything above 85MPH and my Saxo is rather not-nice to drive!
 
Problem is anything above 85MPH and my Saxo is rather not-nice to drive!
This has to be taken into account. Whenever I see someone in a Micra or 107/C1/Aygo fly past me at 85 I kinda feel like that's a little dangerous. Even in my old car (a 1.3 petrol) doing more than 80 felt like the dash was going to rattle lose and smack me in the face.

On the other handle, my lovely derv handles 80+ fine. :P
 
This has to be taken into account. Whenever I see someone in a Micra or 107/C1/Aygo fly past me at 85 I kinda feel like that's a little dangerous. Even in my old car (a 1.3 petrol) doing more than 80 felt like the dash was going to rattle lose and smack me in the face.

On the other handle, my lovely derv handles 80+ fine. :P

I've had my Saxo at an indicated 100*... felt too unsafe to push it any further. Heck normal cruising of 80 is about 3,800RPM and making a racket! Fortunately mine being a VTR it has wider wheels than the 1.0 base models, but even so it has its limit on what's safe!



* 100 kangaroos per year, on a private road of-course.
 
And so automatically other EU countries don't have complete berks on the roads? Give-over, there are equal numbers of idiots on the continent but they manage just fine, so there is no reason as to why it would be a bad thing here in reality.

That was tongue in cheek... I still think that given the way the balance of people drive increasing the speed limit is not a good idea, a lot of people are way too irresponsible for 70mph let alone 90.
 
This won't happen and doesn't need to either. It would go against the grain of emissions/economy focused motoring that is so politically popular nowadays.
 
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