By keeping speed limits so very low it is practically impossible to keep to them! If you can manage it, you engine clogs up with so much carbon, that it just seizes up!!! The 30 mph limit was fine when cars had caliper braking systems. Most now have disc brakes, many with anti lock, which stop you quicker. This should now go up to 40 mph.The schools 20 mph is fair enough. It could even go down to 15 mph right outside the gates.
The 50 mph urban limit on some roads is fair enough. Possibly, put some up to 60mph, but not all, depending on traffic volume. But the 70 mph on a motorway must be looked at.
I would propose a time period, speed limit, system. When the motorways are busy, in early mornings and evenings, say between 7am and 9am and 4.00 and 7.00pm, then the limit should be 60 mph.and not 70 mph. This is fast enough in heavy traffic. Between 9.15am and 3.45pm the limit should be 70 mph. after 8.00pm until midnight, 80 mph and from Midnight to 6.00 am the limit should be 100 mph.
With these little crossover periods, to sort yourself out for the changes. Cars all have clocks in them!!!
There must, just must, be a minimum speed of no less than 50 mph on a motorway, for cars!! Plodding along at 40/45 mph is ludicrous!! The members of the Middle Lane owners Club should be fined too and those laughing policemen, who decide to block the fast lane, even at the legal limit, cause frustration. If people want to speed past you, of their own free will, then let them pass and wave, saying, 'see you at the next crash!' .
Now there is nothing wrong with sitting in the middle lane if a motorway, is quiet. I do it all the time. I feel it gives me more space and time, should I get a puncture or whatever. But I use my mirror, to look behind me, not to do my hair, checkout my new sunglasses, do my make up, trim my eyebrows, talk to the dog, jumping all over the car and the women are even worse!!!!!
If I see a car, closing fast, I then move over. It is so easy. If the motorway is busy, with heavies playing leap frog and holding pissing contests, shouting on CB radios, 'my engine is bigger than your engine.' and ' are you sure your turbo is working?' Yes CB still exists, rubber duck!! well, then, I stay in the middle, leaving the fast lane for speed merchants doing 90 to 100, regularly. Limiting cars, as the Germans do, to 155 mph, is fine by me. Who wants to tool along an urban motorway, in rush hour, in a Bugatti Veyron doing 220mph.?
This leads me to bikers. Now I hung out with a biker club for 15 years. When we went on runs, the newer bikes all sat at about 65/75 mph on motorways. It can get windy out there!!! We found that most people were more than happy to get out the way, without prompting. The first few, in front, had lights on to show up better against the Sun. As with any group, the odd one or two would have a burn, if the road was clear and only then. They could whizz past the main group at 140 if they wished, quite easily. If I remember correctly, their is a police video on youtube showing two guys doing 168 mph and 155 mph as they were having a race!!
They were doing this in traffic. That is madness. Just one fool pulling out and they really would become Angels.
I have been on a bike, doing 130 mph, on an empty motorway. It was terrific and the only injury would have been to me. Hitting a stone on the road or a coke can and your toast. I recently had a brand new Ford Focus 1.8 and went out at 2.00 am one morning and bottled it at between 130 and 140. I was the only car on the road. In my younger days, I did 155 in a Rally spec Ford Cosworth. Again, in the early hours of the morning.
Now this was all illegal, but it would have been me and me alone, who got mangled. I suppose you may think that this is bragging, but all I'm saying is that I've seen it, done it and got the teeshirt. I was not driving when I was involved in a black ice skid crash on a 60 mph road doing 45 mph. I received a broken bone at the base of my spine, which has resulted in me now, being disabled. It happened. The driver was certainly a bit inexperienced but it was an 'invisible' black ice patch, on a country main road in the Highlands of Scotland with little lighting at 2.15am. The A82 is much better now and he made a damn good try to drive out of it, saving us all from going off the road and dropping some 700 feet. He chose the ditch and rock face on the other side of the road, to stop us, after fishtailing. Had he been more experienced, he would have slammed in the clutch and held the steering in the direction of our travel. But shit happens.
This is why I propose a time period speed limit. It will give enough of a taste of speed to actually stop speeding during busier times. By realising just how far you travel and how hard you need to concentrated on an empty motorway, at higher speed, you should realise that it is much harder in a dodgums situation and you just will not do it!
As a further caveat,there is the weather. Should my proposals ever come in (ho ho ho) then in bad weather the maximum speed should reduce to 55 mph. We all know what bad weather is, heavy rain, snow,ice or extremly high wind. It is the weather above your car roof which is the deciding factor not the whole country. v
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