So you’d be ok for me to have my dog poop in your front garden every day?
Why do people think it acceptable to break the Speed Limit.
- Thread starter Gepetto
- Start date
So you’d be ok for me to have my dog poop in your front garden every day?
Underboss
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- 20 Oct 2002
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- Oxfordshire / Bucks
last Sunday lunchtime I can behind TWO numpties
both doing 30-35 in a 60 speed limit zone, perfectly good weather to do 60 !
The main thing that's missing is that blanket speed limits exist by definition the worst drivers and vehicles. Therefore, a lot of people are happy to break them.
A similar example, is that in many countries, jay walking is illegal, but many people do it. Why?
Also if it is known, that jay walking is slightly higher risk than crossing at designated crossings, why do people in the UK do it regardless of the law?
The reality is that laws, and speed limits, should be designed in a way that doesn't result complete disregard for it. An amazing stat is that in free-flowing traffic, over 84% of cars break the 20mph speed limits.
People also naturally drive to the conditions. Notice how below people don't drive automatically at the speed limit in free flowing traffic. For NSL roads which are only 10mph below motorway speeds, people almost never break the speed limit.
A similar example, is that in many countries, jay walking is illegal, but many people do it. Why?
Also if it is known, that jay walking is slightly higher risk than crossing at designated crossings, why do people in the UK do it regardless of the law?
The reality is that laws, and speed limits, should be designed in a way that doesn't result complete disregard for it. An amazing stat is that in free-flowing traffic, over 84% of cars break the 20mph speed limits.
People also naturally drive to the conditions. Notice how below people don't drive automatically at the speed limit in free flowing traffic. For NSL roads which are only 10mph below motorway speeds, people almost never break the speed limit.
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It's an iterative process authorities see what the level of adherence to newish 20mph limits are, and whether additional enforcement is needed;
the Welsh ones were initially on a trial with no fines - which everyone knew.
Equally Scandy countries (norway no?) have fines in proportion with your income so less abuse.
the Welsh ones were initially on a trial with no fines - which everyone knew.
Equally Scandy countries (norway no?) have fines in proportion with your income so less abuse.
Not sure I get the connection? A cyclist or a car going through a red light when nobody is coming doesn’t affect me or anyone else in any way, your dog pooping in my garden would cause a nasty smell and require me to go to the effort to clean it up.
It's because of the bad drivers that speed limits should be adhered to by everyone. Good drivers still get caught up in an accidents which they don't cause, and if they're doing 30mph rather than 20 it more than doubles the amount of kinetic energy involved.
What law are you referring to? There's no such thing in the UK.
That's a very cliched argument, and completely falls apart if you ask drivers whether it should apply to cyclists and red lights.
I haven't actually, although I would like to. I do know that Germany has around 8000 miles of unrestricted Autobahn and that the safety record is better than that of the M25. I do not know how busy the unrestricted sections of the Autobahns actually are, and whether you would be less likely to encounter Mrs Miggins bimbling along in the middle lane at 60mph. I'd love to try it one day and simply see what my car is actually capable of with me at the wheel, although I'm not young anymore and the car is a lot more capable than me. I'd also love to drive the Nurbugring.
I did take note of Geekman's post on the speeds he was driving alongside others, but as his location is given as Monterey, I figured he wasn't driving in this country.
I'm actually less critical of 5mph over the limit on a 60 or 70 mph NSL road than I am of 5mph on a 30 mph road. Generally speaking you should have more visibility and stopping distance, and yes, I have looked down and seen that I am slightly exceeding the speed limit at times. I do mean less than 10% over. I used to exceed the speed limit regularly as a sales rep, but I now understand the trauma speeding can cause. I had to consciously force myself to drive at, or just below, the limit, until it became natural.
We don't have many 20mph limits in Essex (as yet) and I don't actually agree with them, as when I'm driving in towns in Scotland I find myself watching the speedo more than I should, and that it takes me a little while to recalibrate my brain to drive automatically at 20. The 20 limits (to me) have been put in to counter the drivers that do not stick to 30 in a 30. If everybody did, then there would be less of a need for lower limits.
That particular case was in south Texas although I've done higher speeds than that in the UK before. There's certainly less opportunities to drive over 100MPH in the UK though as roads are more congested.
This post is just rage bait surely ? done deliberately to wind people up ?
Since we're playing that game, I love to speed. Speed limits are just an informal advisory of what the local council / government think should be the speed limit. Most people pay no attention to the posted limit (unless they're of very little brain and have been brainwashed by government speed awareness corses) and instead generally form up into an average flow of traffic around what people feel is safe, unless average speed cameras are involved.
Quite often this can be more than the posted limit, but can easily fall below that. during adverse weather, even on sections of motorway that don't have adaptive speed limits, you'll see people slow down of their own account because visibility drops and it doesn't feel safe.
The only thing that's dangerous is people who drive at a speed drastically out of sync with the flow of traffic, and that counts for people either above it or below it - see idiots doing 30mph on 60 limit roads and idiots doing 90 + on the outside lane of the motorway racing up to the back of other drivers and flashing their headlights aggressively to get people to move out of the way.
My preferred motorway speed is an indicated 78mph which in my car equates to 75mph real GPS speed - slow enough I don't have to slow for speed cameras and suitably fast enough that i'm going with the flow of the outside lane where I prefer to sit out of the way of the trucks in the middle and inside lanes.
Since we're playing that game, I love to speed. Speed limits are just an informal advisory of what the local council / government think should be the speed limit. Most people pay no attention to the posted limit (unless they're of very little brain and have been brainwashed by government speed awareness corses) and instead generally form up into an average flow of traffic around what people feel is safe, unless average speed cameras are involved.
Quite often this can be more than the posted limit, but can easily fall below that. during adverse weather, even on sections of motorway that don't have adaptive speed limits, you'll see people slow down of their own account because visibility drops and it doesn't feel safe.
The only thing that's dangerous is people who drive at a speed drastically out of sync with the flow of traffic, and that counts for people either above it or below it - see idiots doing 30mph on 60 limit roads and idiots doing 90 + on the outside lane of the motorway racing up to the back of other drivers and flashing their headlights aggressively to get people to move out of the way.
My preferred motorway speed is an indicated 78mph which in my car equates to 75mph real GPS speed - slow enough I don't have to slow for speed cameras and suitably fast enough that i'm going with the flow of the outside lane where I prefer to sit out of the way of the trucks in the middle and inside lanes.
I feel I should reply to your initial couple of lines, in that it does seem to have caused some rage, in particular with people seeking justification for their unlawful behaviour. Witness the poster that suggested the Government shouldn't bother with speed limits and just let everyone drive as they want, as speed limits are all about collecting money for the Policeman's Ball.
But no, it's not a deliberate wind-up, insofar as I do want people to keep to the speed limits. We all know the Counties have thresholds at which they will enforce speeds, you see it every day in the Police press releases all over Essex. I don't want drivers to be caught out at 10% over the limit, but I don't want to see 40mph in a 30 zone.
Although you've stated you love to speed, your following response is sensible and actually very common. The uncommon behaviour that you have also set out is what I'd like to see stop.
The driving too slow needs education, training and common-sense, but the Police will not be able to monitor that, unless they physically come across it, which is unlikely in these days of funding cuts, and the driving too fast is probably more dangerous.
Yours is a well thought out, and sensible post steeped in common-sense, which is unfortunately lacking in a few individuals that either don't care, need to be that one car space ahead, are in a hurry, or suffering from the opinion that they are the only one that matters.
I'm seeking that pie-in-the-sky unfortunately. I think it used to be called mutual respect.
The fallacy is in linking speed limits to 'safety'..
Lots of perfectly safe roads with excellent safety track records are now 20mph in Wales, it's borderline mentally painful to have to travel at 20mph when the road layout/conditions dictate 30-40 is perfectly 'safe' (and previously was 40 in most places)..
The more they mess with this, the more people are going to start ignoring limits when they are more applicable.
I generally stick to speed limits for the vast majority of the time, and drive to the conditions of the road, so I have nothing to justify, but can see that using 'speed limits' as a black and white safe/unsafe indication is exceedingly belligerent.
Lots of perfectly safe roads with excellent safety track records are now 20mph in Wales, it's borderline mentally painful to have to travel at 20mph when the road layout/conditions dictate 30-40 is perfectly 'safe' (and previously was 40 in most places)..
The more they mess with this, the more people are going to start ignoring limits when they are more applicable.
I generally stick to speed limits for the vast majority of the time, and drive to the conditions of the road, so I have nothing to justify, but can see that using 'speed limits' as a black and white safe/unsafe indication is exceedingly belligerent.
Curious one I noticed on a dual-carriageway near me which has dropped from NSL 70 to 60. Before I'd guess about 40% of people were exceeding the speed limit by more than margin of error, now it is 60 almost everyone sticks to it - probably 5-10% who don't and most of those are lunatics who are doing excessively over the speed limit.
If it wasn't for two stupid cross-roads along the length of it, it would be perfectly safe to drive at 80-85 or so - due to one of those cross-roads being the regular site of fatal accidents they've dropped the limit though IMO it needs more than that to fix the problem as those accidents have happened more due to bad driving than speed alone - though the reduced limit does increase the chances of people avoiding those accidents and help to reduce the chances of serious injury when they do happen albeit in more than 2/3rds of those accidents one of the vehicles involved has been doing significantly in excess of the speed limit.
Although I'm happy enough to do 60 along there I dislike the change because there are far too many people who whether the limit was 60 or 70 sit dawdling around just below 60 with their attention elsewhere or just poor driving habits who in the past you could just get to 70 legally and get well clear, it also now takes up to 14x longer to pass a lorry and sitting alongside a lorry for any longer than you have to is one thing you don't want to be doing. Also means if you sit at 60 you get a lot more people who'll sit there far too close behind you - while 70 doesn't entirely stop that happening there are a lot more people who'll do that who don't go faster than about 60 or so.
I spent a week in Wales travelling along the coast from St Davids to Porthmadog and cant say any of the 20mph limits bothered me in the slightest. What really annoyed me was making chunks of the M4 50mph for no reason whatsoever
Same in London. There are roads on my commute that are painful at 20 and some 30s that really should be 20... It barely makes sense from a safety POV. Oh, what's this? An unlit single track which can barely be called a road - 60 will be fine!
Soldato
- Joined
- 22 Aug 2005
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- Clydebank
usually 50mph motorways are so because of sound pollution and noise
I'm not that bothered by 50 MPH stretches of motorway i.e. the variable limits on the M25 - but it does seem easier to switch off when you've got regimented traffic mostly* sitting at 50 MPH compared to the normal pattern at 70 MPH.
* Especially around parts of the M25 you always get the rich foreign kids in the Porsche daddy paid for doing 100MPH weaving in and out of traffic :s
Thanks, you piqued my interest so I Googled it and the Welsh Gov state the reason is for air quality in local areas https://www.gov.wales/50mph-speed-limits-reduce-pollution