If the new 50 limit is railroaded through in the same way as all other nu-labour proposals, how long will it be before the motorway limit is down to 60, urban down to 20 . And then the motorway down to 50, urban down to 10 etc
Give it 10 years of this attitude and we'll have grass growing on the roads as the average speed will be so slow ;-)
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Slower limits also equals: more congestion and higher pollution (compared to 50-60 steady driving).
I doubt it will make much, if any difference to accident statistics either.
Anybody who even remotely enjoys driving should sign this petition now and scare the government into burying this nonsense straight away...
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I have signed the petition now, and thinking about all this has really made my blood boil. I am still funing about "Relax drive at 55", ironic eh?
You shouldn't "relax" at any speed surely? I liked the posts about roundabouts etc, people do switch off when they "relax" whether at 55 or 75. I tell you one thing, we won't be able to relax when we're constantly looking at our speedos because we're in an average speed check area..... and a shiny penny to the first mimsing do-gooding "there's no child abusers in my road, I know because we lynched them" type who says "But if you always stayed under the limit you wouldn't have to worry". I drive carefully and properly, and often speed is not the most contributory factor to that. This proposal sucks: and it's cynical pretence at protecting people is it's worst aspect.
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You shouldn't "relax" at any speed surely?
Depends what you mean by relax, stevied... Extreme tension at the wheel is far more dangerous. The correct posture is 'relaxed, vigilant and mentally active', surely?
Of course if relaxed is taken to mean hypnotised and slack-jawed, one can only agree. But to press on when it makes you nervous (therefore potentially jerky and unpredictable), or to tailgate meaning you may have to react very quickly and precisely to avoid a crash, is obviously silly. Drive at speeds and distances that keep you comfortable and, er, relaxed.
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I very much like having slower cars as it requires more than a delicate squeeze on the throttle to break the limit. So many of todays cars have lost the sense of speed through excellent refinement and easily accessible performance.
Its no wonder people do often find themselves over the limit as there are few visual clues aside from the speedo.
Not knowing how fast you go isnt a good thing, but its understandable.
My dad was telling how in the 60s he had Mini Coopers as his company cars and he drove the wheels off them, but in reality, he could never get into real trouble as the cars felt very fast at 50 so you were only to aware if you were nudging 80!
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I very much like having slower cars as it requires more than a delicate squeeze on the throttle to break the limit.
Yes, I have always enjoyed gutless but competent motors that needed my leaden clog to help them keep the Surrey commuters in their place... these days though I quite like exercising restraint, and would be quite happy with 400bhp if I could afford it.
On the thread subject, I asked my wife - a careful and law-abiding driver - what she thought of the blanket 50 proposal. She asked where it would apply and I said on all single carriageway A roads, in principle.
'Would that mean between **** and **** (two small Sussex towns)?'
When I said it would, she looked doubtful, without expressing outrage however.
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Not knowing how fast you go isnt a good thing but its understandable.
Are you sure? Not being able to stop well within the distance you can see to be clear isn't a good thing (and nor is it excusable in the way that sometimes finding yourself over the limit is). But you don't do that by knowing how many miles per hour you are going, you do it by looking outside, assessing the hazards and using your experience to judge your speed and stopping distance. I happen to remember that the official stopping distance at 30mph is 75 feet, but I don't care and knowing that doesn't help because I couldn't tell you whether that child that's about to run out into the road is 76 feet away or 74. What I can tell you is whether, if they did run out, I could stop before I hit them.
I wonder whether the solution might be the other way around - to do away with speedometers altogether and insist that if you can't make progress safely without one you probably shouldn't be in charge of a car. Only trouble is, that would probably be all of us and the queue for more training would be enormous.
But certainly in any speed restricted zone I can't remember the last time, if ever, I looked at the speedometer to judge whether I was driving safely or not (I do look at it to determine whether I am driving legally or not). The only exception is on relatively quiet, wide open roads and multi-lane roads, where the complete absence of any visual cues around you might make it difficult to judge speed and stopping distance. Perhaps the answer is speedometers than only register above 60.
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Are you sure? Not being able to stop well within the distance you can see to be clear isn't a good thing (and nor is it excusable in the way that sometimes finding yourself over the limit is). But you don't do that by knowing how many miles per hour you are going, you do it by looking outside, assessing the hazards and using your experience to judge your speed and stopping distance. <<
Separate things. Not going over the limit is about preserving your license. I disagree with many speed limits that are set, but I recognise that it is not myself being victimised individually, so adhere. The way i look at it, atleast we dont have a 55 mph limit - it could be worse. Maybe I just feel there are bigger battles in this world to fight than speed limits.
You can stick to the speed limits and also make good judgements.
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Separate things. Not going over the limit is about preserving your license.
You can stick to the speed limits and also make good judgements.
That was exactly my point. If not being over the limit is about preserving your licence then going over the limit is entirely up to you and only depends on whether you are fancy risking your licence. The same can not be said of choosing to drive such that you can't stop well within the distance you can see to be clear.
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But certainly in any speed restricted zone I can't remember the last time, if ever, I looked at the speedometer to judge whether I was driving safely or not (I do look at it to determine whether I am driving legally or not).
Precisely. Well put indeed. This morning, unfortunately, I witnessed my second motorcycle collision (into the side of a bin lorry which pulled out of a junction). It happened right in front of me. The motorcyclist, who was prostrate in the middle of the road as I drove past (and is, I expect, dead), was travelling at about 70(ish) in a 50 zone when he/she hit the lorry.
Who to blame? The m/c headlight was on yet the bin lorry can't have looked very thoroughly. Had m/c been going at 50 I would say that the collision would still have occurred - so poor were the lorry driver's powers of observation.
Speed is never the only factor and, though I've never even ridden a m/c, this collision was, in my estimation, the lorry driver's fault.
The lorry was doing about 10mph, so well under the limit.
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was travelling at about 70(ish) in a 50 zone when he/she hit the lorry. <<
Had the bike been travelling at 50 not 70ish, it would not have arrived at the bin lorry at the same time as it would have covered less distance when approaching it.
The speed limit is set to allow people the appropriate amount if space and time to make decisions - the motorcyclist reduced this for the bin lorry below the amount deemed safe by those who set the limit.
When pulling out of our close, due to a curve in the road, a car approaching at 30 gives you just about enough time to pull out safely. If it is doing significantly more, it often creates a situation where both the car pulling out has a gamble to make and the speeding car may have to brake hard to avoid a rear end shunt. Doesnt stop complete idiots ignoring this and the school opposite.
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Had the bike been travelling at 50 not 70ish, it would not have arrived at the bin lorry at the same time as it would have covered less distance when approaching it.
No. The bin lorry would have caused the same incident had the m/c been going even 40. There is obviously much estimation on my part but the point isn't the speed, it's the proximity of the m/c to the bin lorry when the latter pulled out probably fatally. No m/c'ist could have been expected to anticipate the bin lorry's idiocy despite all they're told routinely by friends and other m/c'ists. You cannot drop your speed to 10 mph at every crossroads in case a driver decides not to see you, despite your being quite clearly there. At the risk of sounding like I'm points-scoring off the back of a horrific collision, this is a simple case where one party WAS indeed speeding but safely. The irony isn't lost on me either; but it surely HAS to be safe to assume that vehicles won't try and ostensibly mow you down mafia-style.
I will check with the local news website for updates.
I'm familiar with roads like your close and, even if the limit is 30mph, if it doesn't look safe to do so around a blind corner (which it never is) then you should not do that speed. As you say, idiots, and considerate ones too. As a child passenger once, I was treated to a shunt the same as you describe. Chap in the MGB GT was simply going too fast (and received the full vent of my pipe-smoking turtle-neck wearing father). I imagine those ghastly convex mirrors aren't the answer.
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this collision was in my estimation the lorry driver's fault.
Not in mine, I'm afraid. The (sad) story seems to indicate the case for speed limits pretty well.
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OC - the m/c'ist would, in my admittedly fallible estimation, have come a cropper had he/she been travelling at the limit. While speed can accentuate the results of such a collision, I don't think the bin chap would have seen a naked bottom right outside his window. Are you sure you're looking at the m/c'ist as at fault?
I am certainly not against speed limits either; I obey them myself. I've seen plenty of m/cs travelling at 100mph+ and this was not one of those occasions. 70 in a 50; it's wrong legally of course but it's not necessarily unsafe. It's only unsafe if someone doing any speed decides on temporary blindness. And you cannot legislate for that in any way other than digging up the roads and giving us the "Integrated Public Transport System" we were promised on Tomorrow's World on that cold Tuesday night in 1981. The thought still makes me feel a bit sick.
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The thing with increasing the speed you are driving at, is you reduce the time window other drivers have to react to your approach.
There is a chance that given an extra few seconds, the bin lorry driver would have seen the approaching Mbike.
It doesnt sound like a speed related example if the bin lorry driver didnt look, just stupidity.
As for bikes, I imagine it requires much restraint to keep to the speed limit given how stupidly fast many of them are, with very little of that speed useable on the road legally.
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Nicely put, Lud. I think my generation think of relaxing as "chilling out", to use a horrid phrase, and that tends to mean extreme relaxation(!) To be relaxed but vigilant and mentally active is indeed the ideal way to drive.
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In today's Metro, the results of a poll showed a strong No to lowering the speed limit (83% to 17% I think)
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"In summary, making roads "safer" may often have the opposite effect, something that the Powers that Think they Be find beyond their collective mental abilities. "
Totally agree KG, plus of course all the safety features added to cars that allow every driver to be invincible.
By which i mean, seatbelts, abs, airbags, belt pretensioners, etc etc.
They have had an opposite effect in reality; allowing people to just jump in a car and press on when they really shouldn't, and if they hadnt had the features they probably wouldnt.
But its a sad state of affairs that we need to put a blanket speed limit on the roads; imagine 1 speed deemed to be safe for every circumstance!
Id prefer more traffic cops patrolling and enforcing. It would take some time but it worked before ! I still dont understand why it would cost more though? How many criminals use cars without required paperwork etc and to escape from scenes of crime.
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>>Id prefer more traffic cops patrolling and enforcing. It would take some time but it worked before ! I still dont understand why it would cost more though? <<
Id second that. Im not sure it would cost more if it was effective at taking a chunk of the uninsured drivers etc off the road because if its as many as they say, you could cancel alot of road building due to reduced congestion surely.
Only problem is, you gotta lock the people that get caught up so they dont repeat - who would wanna be in politics lol
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By which i mean seatbelts abs airbags belt pretensioners etc etc. They have had an opposite effect in reality; allowing people to just jump in a car and press on when they really shouldn't and if they hadnt had the features they probably wouldnt.
Given that it's possible for people to cause accidents around me that I would find it very hard to avoid becoming part of, I am very pleased to have a world of seat belts, abs, airbags, crumple zones and the like to keep me and my loved ones safer. But you are right, I suspect there are people who have forgotten that not being in the accident in the first place is better than being more likely to survive it.
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