I agree too. However, the "law" enforcing the 70 limit is so lax, it will make virtually no difference to how people drive on motorways. All that will happen if 80 becomes law is that more people will think that driving at 90+ is fine. What I want to know is, does this increase in the national speed limit apply to ALL vehicles? Will we see lorries, cars pulling caravans etc doing 70+ legally? What about trunk roads. Will it now be legal to do 70, as opposed to 60?
I certainly agree with point 3 there, people in the wrong lanes. I experience this all the time, not on the motorway but in a one way system, there's many signs approaching the main bottleneck before it splits, it goes to three lanes at some traffic lights. The number of people who go down the middle lane which is usually quietest not reading the signs and then try and change lanes really hold people up.
If you drive correctly on a motorway, you should hardly ever have to use your foot brake. That includes maintaining the correct distance behind the car in front, which is one of the things you are supposed to be tested on when you take the driving theory test. I am quite capable of determining if the cars in front are slowing down, without them slamming the brakes on. "Red lighters" are one of the primary causes of tailbacks, congestion and accidents on motorways.
Unfortunately many will pull into this gap you've left! I'm all for upping the speed limit. It won't change the way I drive as I already tend to do 75-85. As for people saying that more people will start going over 90, I believe that many people currently do anyway (especially dickhead BMW drivers ).
sp4nky: Braking on the motorway is a very bad thing indeed, as it leads to increased braking further back. It's well documented that every person brakes just a tiny fraction more than the person in front, before you know it the braking wave has travelled back through the traffic and caused a jam. Lifting off and allowing engine braking to take over is exactly the right thing to do - it's a nice, controlled deceleration which the person behind can see, and they've always got the brakes to fall back on if needed. Pete: Don't agree with you there - I'm of the opinion that there are plenty of people out there who do 80-90 mph now to keep close enough to the limit, up that limit and they will drive faster, isolated in their metal bubbles believing they are invulnerable should an accident happen. OT: Interestingly, the readers of Autocar magazine are only 41.5% in favour of upping the speed limit, but Guardian readers are 68.4% in favour. Check out the PH article on it with some quite alarming figures also collected in the same survey!
Both points are correct, usually the traffic dictates how fast you can go, not the limit, and for a daily commute, it probably makes no difference. But when driving an empty motorway at night...a 120km/h limit is really really frustrating. Especially when covering long distances. I drive 600 km to my parents, doing a 100km/h average (at 130km/h limit) or 130km/h average (going about 160km/h where allowed) the difference is well over an hour. don't get me started, middle lane huggers should be fined like speeders.
This really f***s me off and I don't even drive! Roundabouts are a simple proposition, yet they seem to be extremely difficult for most people to grasp. Always give way to the right. Up to and including 12 o' clock, you need the left-hand lane when approaching; after that, you need the right-hand lane. If you're going past 12 o'clock, you indicate right; if you're not going past 12 o'clock, you do not indicate right. Regardless of which lane you're in, you indicate left just after you pass the exit prior to the one you want.
I must have annoyed a lot of poeple on british roundabouts. I apologise. What most brits don't seem to know, roundabouts elsewhere in europe function differently. So if someone with a foreign numberplate is behaving strange, it needn't be meant bad. Honking is not requierd. In Germany for instance, we don't have this inner-outer circle thing you have, therefore also no indicating to the inside of the roundabout. In Germany, traffic in the roundabout (usually) has right-of-way. In Austria and the Netherlands they usually haven't. Netherlands has both forms, roundabouts where incoming traffic has right of way and roundabouts where traffic on the roundabout has right of way In France.....well I'm sure there's official regulation but I've never noticed any exept the-biggest-or-boldest-goes-first In Switzerland and Germany you're NOT allowed to indicate when entering a roundabout. In Austria you are. When leaving the roundabout, you must indicate in all three countries. Conclusion: behaviour on roundabouts IS difficult to grasp (at least for foreigners)
Heh, people with non-UK plates are allowed to be confused by it - no other country in the world has quite the obsession with roundabouts that Britain does .
If it's increased to 80mph then the prosecution limit will have to be 88mph. They have to allow for inaccuracies in speedometers. I've got no problem with the limit going up, however it wouldn't get anyone anywhere faster, and it wouldn't improve the economy in any way. Fewer people would be prosecuted for speeding though, which is a result.
Does no one think if trucks didnt spend thirty minutes overtaking each other and hogging exits it may produce a free flowing motorway system?
How would raising the speed limit to 80mph benefit the economy in any way at all? Last time I looked, lorries are a huge proportion of trade via motorways and I can't see them doing 80mph. On top of that, people who are saying their car is achieving good economy at 80mph are talking crap. It's simple physics, the faster you go, the more energy you waste against air resistance and it's exponential so going that 10mph faster is quite a difference. Also, with small car engines you sure as hell aren't going to get their maximum energy efficiency at 4000RPM. Helping the economy by using more fuel to get to a destination and keeping articulated lorries exactly as they are. Yeah, right.
Krikkit posted this: If, by law, the indicated speed must never be less than the true speed, why is there this idea that prosecutions cannot be for speeds less than 10% over the limit? If your true speed is 81 mph then your indicated speed must not be less than 81 mph. The inaccuracies work only to over-estimate your true speed, so you may think you're doing 90, not 73.