Most of the pollution on the road comes from lorries and busses. Largely foreign lorries, which aren't paying any tax :/
UK Speed Limits
- Thread starter Illgresi
- Start date
Most of the pollution on the road comes from lorries and busses. Largely foreign lorries, which aren't paying any tax :/
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Most of the pollution on UK roads is from foreign lorries? How did you arrive at that conclusion?
Man of Honour
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Do our lorries pay a vehicle tax when they leave this Country and go over to Europe?
The speed limits are generally fine, I can't see any good reason to raise them to 80mph.
Miles upon miles of 50mph roadworks where there's nobody working grind my gears, as do local councils resurfacing an existing NSL road and dropping the speed limit to 40/50mph once they've made it safer!
Miles upon miles of 50mph roadworks where there's nobody working grind my gears, as do local councils resurfacing an existing NSL road and dropping the speed limit to 40/50mph once they've made it safer!
No, but they will pay heavily in tolls, to be fair
tl;dr Don't bother, that was way longer than I thought it would be
Been away doing the usual festive stuff, so I'm happy to see that this thread turned into a lively debate.
There are a few points I'd like to address, but I can't be bothered finding, and quoting them. Firstly however, I must point out that most of my driving experience is on Scottish roads, which with the exception of the M8, are generally nowhere near as busy as the English roads.
Having read and ingested the points in this thread, I've now changed my mind, and I don't believe there should be a carte blanche increase of the NSL to 80 m/hr.
My belief is that speed itself does not cause accidents, in the same way that current doesn't cause people to die from electric shocks. A rate of something is not the final cause of a bad outcome, it is merely a factor that changes the final impact. More important are two factors; the individual's ability to control their vehicle at a given speed, the speed differential between related vehicles.
It's becoming increasingly clear to me that the rules of the road could be improved. Removing the current rules of 'overtaking lanes', and replacing these with lanes of speed restriction seems to make the most sense to me.
For example, on a three lane motorway (always assuming NSL), the inner lane would be 50-60 m/hr, the middle lane would be 60-70 m/hr, and the outer lane would be 80 m/hr. Thus it would be illegal to drive in any specific lane above, or below the speed limit. This is much how the roads work already (at least up here), and would keep the flow of traffic moving. It would also practically remove the scourge of undertaking. I feel most people would pick the speed they are comfortable at, drive in that lane, and if they wanted to drive faster than the speed limit...they often wouldn't have the chance.
In addendum:
Some people have expressed their pet peeves, here's mine:
I understand some HGV's are limited to 50 m/hr, what I don't understand is why another HGV has to overtake the first at 51 m/hr, moreso initiating this arduous procedure when they clearly saw me coming along at 70 or 70+. I'm convinced it's an in joke between lorry drivers. I reckon they pair up and overtake each other at moments of most disruption to other drivers. They're clearly frustrated, and we can solve this situation twofold; by implementing my lane discipline outline above (essentially making it illegal for lorries to overtake unless they can hit 60 m/hr), secondly we should make service stations a protected area for prostitution.
The other point is about the prevalence of nonsense 50 m/hr regions. I agree to an extent, but I can only think of one (hilariously) inappropriate region on the roads I regularly drive. More often, I find that speed restrictions start too early, and finish too late. It's almost as if the powers that be decide they want a stretch of road (however correctly) to be a 50, and then think "we'll stick another mile on either side, can't hurt".
The example I'm referring to, is driving south on the M80 the speed limit drops to 50 m/hr half way between junctions 3 and 2, for reasons I cannot fathom; a 2.5 mile stretch. The M80 then connects to the M8, which at this point is 50 m/hr (correctly imo) as the traffic density is high even out of rush hour, and there's a high junction density also. At junction 'The 24', it's up to 70 m/hr; not NSL...explicitly 70.
Then at junction the speed limit drops to 60 m/hr, it would seem they're worried that cars driving at 70 m/hr will spontaneously fly off the motorway and explode into a 737. Most extraordinarily, we then have a stretch of 50 m/hr from junction 28 to 29, somewhat less than mile. Why!?!
Been away doing the usual festive stuff, so I'm happy to see that this thread turned into a lively debate.
There are a few points I'd like to address, but I can't be bothered finding, and quoting them. Firstly however, I must point out that most of my driving experience is on Scottish roads, which with the exception of the M8, are generally nowhere near as busy as the English roads.
Having read and ingested the points in this thread, I've now changed my mind, and I don't believe there should be a carte blanche increase of the NSL to 80 m/hr.
My belief is that speed itself does not cause accidents, in the same way that current doesn't cause people to die from electric shocks. A rate of something is not the final cause of a bad outcome, it is merely a factor that changes the final impact. More important are two factors; the individual's ability to control their vehicle at a given speed, the speed differential between related vehicles.
It's becoming increasingly clear to me that the rules of the road could be improved. Removing the current rules of 'overtaking lanes', and replacing these with lanes of speed restriction seems to make the most sense to me.
For example, on a three lane motorway (always assuming NSL), the inner lane would be 50-60 m/hr, the middle lane would be 60-70 m/hr, and the outer lane would be 80 m/hr. Thus it would be illegal to drive in any specific lane above, or below the speed limit. This is much how the roads work already (at least up here), and would keep the flow of traffic moving. It would also practically remove the scourge of undertaking. I feel most people would pick the speed they are comfortable at, drive in that lane, and if they wanted to drive faster than the speed limit...they often wouldn't have the chance.
In addendum:
Some people have expressed their pet peeves, here's mine:
I understand some HGV's are limited to 50 m/hr, what I don't understand is why another HGV has to overtake the first at 51 m/hr, moreso initiating this arduous procedure when they clearly saw me coming along at 70 or 70+. I'm convinced it's an in joke between lorry drivers. I reckon they pair up and overtake each other at moments of most disruption to other drivers. They're clearly frustrated, and we can solve this situation twofold; by implementing my lane discipline outline above (essentially making it illegal for lorries to overtake unless they can hit 60 m/hr), secondly we should make service stations a protected area for prostitution.
The other point is about the prevalence of nonsense 50 m/hr regions. I agree to an extent, but I can only think of one (hilariously) inappropriate region on the roads I regularly drive. More often, I find that speed restrictions start too early, and finish too late. It's almost as if the powers that be decide they want a stretch of road (however correctly) to be a 50, and then think "we'll stick another mile on either side, can't hurt".
The example I'm referring to, is driving south on the M80 the speed limit drops to 50 m/hr half way between junctions 3 and 2, for reasons I cannot fathom; a 2.5 mile stretch. The M80 then connects to the M8, which at this point is 50 m/hr (correctly imo) as the traffic density is high even out of rush hour, and there's a high junction density also. At junction 'The 24', it's up to 70 m/hr; not NSL...explicitly 70.
Then at junction the speed limit drops to 60 m/hr, it would seem they're worried that cars driving at 70 m/hr will spontaneously fly off the motorway and explode into a 737. Most extraordinarily, we then have a stretch of 50 m/hr from junction 28 to 29, somewhat less than mile. Why!?!