Just saw an article on yahoo news about it.
uk.news.yahoo.com/afp/20080729/tpl-spain-energy-oi...l
Any views?
Edited by Pugugly on 29/07/2008 at 22:19
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I've just seen it as well on the BTYahoo home page. Blimey ! How long before our lame brained politicians decide it's a good idea to go and copy the Spanish!!!
Edited by Webmaster on 29/07/2008 at 23:54
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Well you could look at it that they are the test dummies and we can watch and see what happens. It would certainly stop me going long distance without alot of thought!
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If they did that here I think i'd fly on longer UK journeys and hire a car at the other end, i honestly wouldn't be able to cope with the tedium
why aren't there any Motorail trains anymore, so you can bung your car on and do a sleeper?
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why aren't there any Motorail trains anymore so you can bung your car on and do a sleeper?
'Cause nobody used them!!
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'Cause nobody used them!!
is that right? I can't remember.
I'm sure there'd be a demand nowadays IF THE PRICE WAS RIGHT.
It would be more fuel efficient, there'd be road congestion bonuses and maybe even safety pluses due to less tired long distance drivers on the roads.
I regularly do a trip from N. London to the Scottish Highlands, instead of an overnighter that i do now, which is well tiring, an overnighter on the train in a decent cabin, breakfast through the Highlands , then an offload after breakfast would do me fine.
Anywhere from the South to Scotland would be worth it. Anywhere North or well East in the UK to Devon/Cornwall or South Wales would be worth it, why not?
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>> why aren't there any Motorail trains anymore so you can bung your car on and >> do a sleeper? >> 'Cause nobody used them!!
Cause they were so dammed expensive !
I looked at the motorail option to the Cote D'Azur, and it was so dear, you could have several stoppovers in really nice hotels and still have tons of change !
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They have done it here before, in the mid-seventies. We never did get the old NSL back.
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The loss of tax income from the change would compound the current regime's bankrupcy. They are staring into several black holes as we speak.
Edited by Pugugly on 29/07/2008 at 22:56
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They have done it here before in the mid-seventies. We never did get the old NSL back.
The unrestricted NSL was done away with in the early sixties on safety grounds. The reduction to 50 mph in 1973 was in response to the oil crisis of the time and it reverted to seventy as soon as it was resolved.
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The reduction to 50 mph in 1973 was in response to the oil crisis of the time and it reverted to seventy as soon as it was resolved.
You sure about that?
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I was dubious - my recollection was that there was a 70mph general limit
Anyway good old Auntie has the answer.
British drivers must adhere to reduced speed limits from midnight tonight as the government tries to save fuel.
Speed limits on motorways will remain 70mph (112kph), but on dual carriageways they will become 60mph (96kph), and on all other roads 50mph (80kph).
(I must point out that this comes from a 1974 report !)
Edited by Pugugly on 29/07/2008 at 23:55
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By the way oil down to $122.00 tonight.
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There was a different translation in the local Spanish press review:
"Speed limits on Spanish roads are to be reduced by 20% on access to large cities and on busy by-pass roads as part of a new plan to save energy which has been presented by the Minister for Industry Miguel Sebastián today.", i.e., 100 kph instead of 120 kph
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P.S: Of more interest was the 57% increase in the number of fixed "safety" cameras to be installed
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OK, hands up ...... who thinks that we can carry on the way we are doing and that fossil fuels will last forever???
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OK hands up ...... who thinks that we can carry on the way we are doing and that fossil fuels will last forever???
When it does it won't be the end of the world. By that time something else will have come along to replace it.
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Speed limits on motorways will remain 70mph (112kph) but on dual carriageways they will become 60mph (96kph) and on all other roads 50mph (80kph). (I must point out that this comes from a 1974 report !)
I swear the majority of motorists still think this applies!! :(
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Screwloose writes -You sure about that?
The 70mph limit was introduced in December 1965 by the then transport minister Tom Fraser following a spate of motorway accidents in fog. It was a temporary measure to begin with but was made permanent in 1967 by Barbera Castle.
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Robin
It wasn't the imposition of the original NSL in the '60s that I originally referred to; [although I recall Aston had more than a small part in that...] it was the fact that it didn't revert back to 70 after the "fuel-saving" limit was abolished - we got a crafty 10mph drop in the single-carriageway limit sneaked through.
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The way this sentence of the article reads, the 80 km/hour limit also applies in cities, so it's not all bad news.
"The speed limit will be reduced by 20 percent in line with rules already in place in Barcelona, Spain's second-largest city, where it is set at 80 kilometres (50 miles) an hour."
Edited by L'escargot on 30/07/2008 at 08:14
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Today's newpaper:
"However the Minister for the Interior, Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba has said lower speeds on the roads will only be introduced after an ?agreed study?. The Interior Minister said that driving at 90kms/ hour did save 30% fuel compared to travelling at 120kms/ hour but any lower speed limits could only be introduced after a study was carried out. Rubalcaba also noted that correct tyre pressures could save 4% on fuel bills and claimed that driving with the windows open was 10% more expensive"
"agreed study" = two years minimum
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A couple of years ago I did quite a lot of miles in Switzerland, which has a 50mph (80kph) speed limit on normal roads.
I didn't notice that progress was particularly slower than in France, with its 90kph (56mph) limit, or that it took noticeably longer to get anywhere.
In fact, I found driving more relaxing because road users there seem to accept the rate of progress as it is and the harassment you get in France all the time from the brainless 'sit right on your back bumper, then overtake at any cost' brigade was entirely absent. You see a lot more up-market fast cars in Switzerland than in most of the rest of Europe, too!
Certainly in Switzerland I didn't see those roadside shrines to (presumably overtaking) accident victims that always seem to appear in the middle of dead straight stretches in France. Mind you, the Swiss probably don't allow that sort of sentimentality.
In my experience the most suicidal overtaking in all Europe is in Spain and Portugal, so I guess a reduced speed limit in Spain might actually make matters worse.
It would be a shame, though, if fund-raising scameras take the place of Spain's excellent automatic traffic lights, that inexorable change to red and stop you completely if you enter a built-up area at more than the speed limit.
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Reducing the speed "outside cities" is no bad thing but I am not sure from the article if the plan is to impose blanket limits on motorways and DCWs too. A lot of "urban" motorways and DCWs have the full 120/75 limit right up to the city limits; others (approaching Zaragoza, for example) suddenly drop down to 50/30 from miles away in an unpopulated rural area.
With driving, just like smoking, there is always the trade-off of raising revenue versus reducing victims/pollution and the Spanish government, like any other, will undoubtedly make sure they don't lose money on this!
Interesting snippet from today's news: Athletic Club Bilbao, the only Primera Division team with "clean" shirts, have just signed a deal to allow commercial sponsorship on their shirts for the first time in 110 years. The sponsor is none other than Petronor, one of the three petrochemical giants. Not that Petronor would want to see increased sales by encouraging more car use, of course. It's the "brand switching" argument - like cigarettes :-)
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Thats the point though, in this country it is commonly accepted that the rate of progress is determined by who is in the biggest hurry and driving aggressively to indicate one's desire to hurry is considered fair game. Its whether you should but whether you can.
The best scheme ive seen are the average speed cameras which dont involve the sudden braking ( unless certain drivers are too thick to understand the concept )
and seem to create a less competitive driving enviroment. The A14 between Huntingdon and Cambridge has this and it does work rather well as if you sit around 70, very few people come flying up behind you and people are generally more patient.
I think we may see a higher mental breakdown rate on the BR if the limit were cut to 50 here though, many cant even cope with 70! :-)
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Thats the point though in this country it is commonly accepted that the rate of progress is determined by who is in the biggest hurry and driving aggressively to >> indicate one's desire to hurry is considered fair game.
I can't say that I agree stu. The 'commonly accepted rate of progress' in my eyes is often dictated by the mimser at the front who wilfully impedes everyone else who'd like to travel faster.
In reality there ought to be room for all points of view...but that would mean an acceptance by those who wish to travel at a more sedate pace, helping out those that don't. In this country it is seemingly an accepted practice to 'keep people in their place' behind you... and that causes frustration.
On the roads in the Scottish Higlands there are great big signs saying 'allow overtaking' etc and there is acknowledgement that slower traffic should facilitate the progress of faster traffic.
Where in England would that happen? You're more likely to get someone actively trying to prevent you getting past and then giving you a load of main beam when you do.
I don't like aggressive driving or speed where it's dangerous and would wholeheartedly disassociate myself with it.
As ever, it's a happy medium that's needed, isn't it.
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Amen.
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If I remember correctly the 70mph motorway limit was introduced by Barbera Castle in 1967. It was in fact introduced in the same bill as the breathalyser and so the claimed accident statistics were automaticly complete rubbish. There were reductions OK, but were they due to the speed limit or the breatalyser? That was a motorway limit and not a national speed limit. Things stayed that way untill 1973 when the fuel saveing limit was introduced as a national limit and this morphed into todays NSL.
The Republic of Ireland introduced a national 55mph limit in 1968 if I remember correctly. I do remember for certian that I was pulled by a Garda sergeant on the firs day of it.
Northern Ireland did not get any form of national limit in the '60s. A story I heard many years later was that the then home secretary in Northern Ireland would not sign the breatalyser bill, which presumably embodied the speed limit legislation, as he was an alcoholic.
I can't really remember much about it before 1967 as I was locked in an Irish boarding school until easter of that year and we were severly restricet as to our reading matter, only our textbooks, the books provided in the libraries and the newspapers provided. No radio or television of course.
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If I remember correctly the 70mph motorway limit was introduced by Barbera Castle in 1967.
A common mis-conception.
As I posted somewhere above the 70 limit was introduced in 1965 by the then Minister of Transport, Tom Fraser as an experimental attempt to cut accidents. Barbara Castle made it permenant in 1967, but she is wrongly thought of as it's originator.
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As I posted somewhere above the 70 limit was introduced in 1965 by the then Minister of Transport Tom Fraser as an experimental attempt to cut accidents. Barbara Castle made it permenant in 1967 but she is wrongly thought of as it's originator.
IIRC Noel Gordon (of Crossroads fame) did a TV segment in the early 1960's shown driving her Rolls all the way up the M1 at some very high speed? I think that raised concerns.
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I can't say that I agree stu. The 'commonly accepted rate of progress' in my eyes is often dictated by the mimser at the front who wilfully impedes everyone else who'd like to travel faster. In reality there ought to be room for all points of view...but that would mean an acceptance by those who wish to travel at a more sedate pace helping out those that don't. In this country it is seemingly an accepted practice to 'keep people in their place' behind you... and that causes frustration.
You're more likely to get someone actively trying toprevent you getting past and then giving you a load of main beam when you do.
Westpig, have you got some kind of persecution complex? You've posted more than a few times about other drivers 'wilfully impeding' you and being flashed at. I drive a lot on the A-roads of the Mids and North and usually at the limit (conditions allowing), doing a fair amount of overtaking. I sit a reasonable distance back, wait for a suitable opportunity and then down-change and 'floor it'. I honestly can't remember the last time I was flashed and I don't see other drivers getting flashed (other than as a clearance signal to truck/trailer drivers). Someone driving slower than you is not wilfully impeding you, they may just lack the confidence/ability/desire to go any faster. Or are you suggesting that they move road position to block your overtake?
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