Country Road to 40mph

[CH2]

Drove from West Sussex to the East Midlands yesterday.....7 hours. The move to bring the UK to a standstill continues.

Not sure when anybody will get it that bad driving and excessive speed kills, attempting to bring the country to a crawl will not stop that.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-18840110

[Rover75]

Unfortunately the section of the driving community most likely to have or cause accidents are those who will continue to drive at excessive speeds no matter what the posted limit is nor the road conditions.
I'm all in favour of 20MPH limits in all built up areas because most people will ignore them and continue to drive at 30MPH, this is better than the close to 40MPH most people think is acceptable in current 30MPH zones.

[AlexC]

I can't see many people sticking to 40mph on these roads unless it's enforced and large fines are dished out. Travelling on the A35 (a 60mph road, single carriageway) from Lyndhurst towards Christchurch recently at night I was overtaken by a car that was doing 80mph. I know he was doing 80 because I accelerated to match his speed briefly before reducing back to 60.

[ArabJazzie]

Its great when someone wheels out the percentages to try and make an argument! They say that road deaths are falling all the time but the percentage of those killed on rural roads is rising. The thing is, if overall numbers killed falls and the rural portion of that falls at a lower rate, of course the percentage will go up!!!

Its fine that they want to lower the limit on some roads, but how will they achieve this? Reclassification? How will they police the changes? More officers in this time of cuts? More Scamera vans?

Arabest,
Geoff.

[boff180]

A lot of this isn't just road deaths.. its the CO2 people claiming that lower speeds emit lower emissions and use less fuel.

Which is strange, my car uses the least fuel per mile at 75!

In terms of enforcements, I see this is the beginning of a bigger picture.

I think they will eventually bring the "black box" idea for pay as you drive car tax.

Big picture idea:-

• Black Boxes are installed, by law, in all vehicles at purchase or next MoT that are downloaded each year to ascertain how many miles someone has driven for their pay per mile tax. In addition, these black boxes contain GPS and RFID chips.
• All speed limit boundary markers (I.e. Speed Limit signs) have a RFID chip installed in them transmitting what the speed limit should be from that point on.
• The law is changed and points are no longer applied for speeding offences unless it is a significant breach of the law (ie. 50 in a 30 or 100 in a 70/80).
• Instead, a sliding tarriff of fines is used depending on the speed limit on that road and distance travelled illegally (ie. £25 for each individual 30 zone breach and £1 per mile of breach, £35 for a 40 zone breach with £3 per mile.etc.etc).
• Everytime you speed, the black box knows via gps and the last RFID information it received. This then logs the breach and its location.
• At your annual download to calculate your tax, the amount of breaches is downloaded at the same time and all fines are charged as part of your tax bill.
• You get the opportunity to challenge any individual breach recorded however, if it is proved that the data recorded was correct (end of the day they know where you are via the numberplate reader network) then the fine is significantly increased for wasting time.

I don't agree with the above btw, and I certainly don't agree with lowering speed limits to 40 as it will lower travel times and effect the economy. However, I am afraid it is the way this nanny state is going.

Andy

[CH2]

Boff is right, I already have vehicles in my fleet with black boxes, which tell me everything from acceleration factors to braking performance and off course speeding, all in the name of sustainability, and it has to be said from that point of view it's a useful tool.

I was also shown a speed camera recently which is smaller than a football, and has been approved. None of this having to erect gantries and costly cabling involved with SPEC's. There are not enough plods to enforce what we currently have, so civilian run enforcement with a heavy emphasis on technology will continue to be the future.

That all said I am convinced a lot of people have not a clue what the national speed limit actually is, and continue to plod along perfectly good single track carriageways at 49mph.

[Craig]

To be honest the fundametal issue is common sense is required and you can't legislate for idiocy. As a result, it's sledgehammer to crack a wallnut time. The spped limit is fine as it is so long as common sense is applied, and changing the limit will make no difference whatsoever to that.

[zigzag]

The problem with blanket reductions is that people do not respect them, its fine to have reductions in specific areas, such as black spots ot schools, but a wholesale reduction loses its credibility as it takes no relation to circumstances and conditions, and therefore where the reductions are warranted people take no notice. Additionally in some circumstances saety is actually reduced as drivers resort to more dangerous overtaking when coming up behind soem slower drivers, below.

In rural South Warwickshire, wheree I live, most rural A & B roads have, for no apparent reason, been reduced to 50mph limit from the previous 60. You always get the driver who religiously does 10mph below the limit regardless of circumstances or conditions, with the limit at 60 these drivers were doing in the region of 50 and most following were content to chug along behind them at that speed. Now with the limit at 50 these guys do in the region of 40 and what you have now is a stream of frustrated drivers who now resort to more and more dangerous overtaking in order to get past these people.

Additionally the police have lost more respect because no-one can see why this was done, the previous limit of 60 was adequate, most drivers were then at or below the limit, just had the occasional one who went over the top - and these people still do. Also, strangely, in the first six montsh after the change there was a noticeable increase in the number of camera vans, cant quite work that out myself

Id rather see reductions of limits for rain/bad weather as they do in France for example, but that wont hapopen in here its far too sensible.

[phreakf4]

....Id rather see reductions of limits for rain/bad weather as they do in France for example, but that wont happen in here its far too sensible....

Would be a waste of time in a country where many, if not most, drivers see slowing down in any situation, whether caused by weather , congestion or any other factor, as "wimpish". Every time I am on a motorway (quite often) and the weather is bad as in poor visibility due to spray, mist or whatever, I am horrified to see the cars virtually nose to tail in the outside lane at totally inappropriate speeds. It is not the authorities who will not do it, it is we drivers who would refuse to comply. Motorway matrix signs already indicate when it is a good idea to reduce speed; most drivers simply ignore them (except when average speed cameras are in use, another example of the attitude that it is ok to ignore speed limits as long as you don't get caught).

[lozza]

Its great when someone wheels out the percentages to try and make an argument! They say that road deaths are falling all the time but the percentage of those killed on rural roads is rising. The thing is, if overall numbers killed falls and the rural portion of that falls at a lower rate, of course the percentage will go up!!!

Its fine that they want to lower the limit on some roads, but how will they achieve this? Reclassification? How will they police the changes? More officers in this time of cuts? More Scamera vans?

Arabest,
Geoff.

Well I can only go on the amount of people I'm cutting out of cars nowadays and its a massive decrease on what things were like 10-20 years ago.

loz