80 MPH!

[TWR]

Do you agree that the motorway speed limit should be increased?

[joggerjayne]

Yes, but only in Sussex.

[sigma]

No, keep it at 70. Cars have improved but driving standards haven't.

[Hopkirk]

TWR, can you provide a link to anything that confirms that the EU is reducing HGV speeds to 50?

I'm damned if I can find one.

[Hopkirk]

Oh, and Chuck, if you think that modern lorries can stop nearly as quickly as cars, you obviously have never driven a heavy lorry.

[TonyV]

IMO should reduce speed limit to around 55 mph much safer driving speed

[Paul22118]

TWR. I have been driving 45 years, clean licence, motor cycles, buses, coaches, HGV class I. My answer is MY opinion.

[DaveWoolhouse]

70 mph is good - 80mph would be much better.
People drive at 80 now, pretty much unenforced. I drive at 85/90 most of the time on the motorway and slow down to maybe 80 to pass Police units, that's if they're not passing me. I am an advanced driver and was trained by the Police back in 2001. Since then, I have noticed a massive increase in all things dangerous on our motorway network - foreign drivers (need i expand?), old people who dither around at 40 in the LH lane, idiots pulling out into the LH lane to move away after stopping on the hard shoulder (instead of gathering speed on the HS before pulling out), drivers not using mirrors, or using a manoeuvre signal mirror technique! I've seen too many times people missing their junction and stopping to reverse up the hard shoulder to the slip road, and even more offten cutting across the three (or more) lanes only to pass straight across the chevrons marking their junction. Theres always a one mile, half a mile, then 300yd,200yd & 100yd marker posts before junctions, why can't people just move over as they pass these, instead of risking everyones life as they cut across 50yds before the slip road?
Thats it now, rant over, unless anyone wants to come back with anything????

[ladybirder]

Davewoolhouse - I don't understand your post. Surely what you say in your second para gives many good reasons not to do what you say in your first?

[DaveWoolhouse]

Ladybirder, my point is this - the problem is not speed in itself. At 3 am on a totally empty carriageway, 120, 130mph may well be safe. But at quarter past 5 in the evening, 50 may well be dangerous. The fact is, inappropriate speed is the problem. In relation to the points I mentioned in the latter part of my post, the point there is thtdrivers just aren't nearly as observant as they should be. It's like rushing out to buy christmas presents on christmas eve, you've had a years warning it was coming up. It's exactly the same on our roads, things don't happen suddenly, if everyone took more notice, then 100 mph limit may be safe. Am I making any sense?

[TWR]

Paul, regards the coaches up to 62>>65 do not think it's bad enough now with HGV tailgating without coaches adding to the middle lane queue's? they should have left the Coaches in the outside lane, regards the 50 mph Hopkirk it was on the cards when I was on the road, the EU are on 50mph that means the UK will follow.

[TWR]

Regards your reply Davewoolhous,most all all Motorways in the UK are Monitored by CC TVs, I cannot understand if it is shown that A driver has done the said offences & we have all seen it done, why can't these people be prosecuted as the evidence is there.

[ladybirder]

Dave I am not disagreeing with the individual points you make. Nobody can deny their are some idiots on the roads who shouldn't be there, we all see them and curse every day. And on an empty motorway in the middle of the night it's ridiculous to have to sit at 70mph.
My point is that I don't understand why, given all these instances of bad drivers you mention, who are probably never going to change their driving habits, you advocate upping the speed limit to 80mph. How will that make things better? Do you think that will improve their driving skills? I'm not trying to be argumentive, honestly. I just would have thoughts the points you made would be a good argument for lowering the speed limit, not the other way round.

[DaveWoolhouse]

Dockspock, Police drivers are pretty good. British Police drivers are among the best in the world. I'm not sure why you seem to disagree with this? Maybe you're referring to ordinary beat bobbies, who have a simple response training course in order to get their permit. I was, and am, referring to trained traffic officers, in high performance vehicles. Not bobbies dotting around in astras.
Ladybirder, I take on board what you say, and I'm not trying to be argumantative either, I'm really not. But the speed is not the problem. The problems lie in drivers who either aren't trained enough (some aren't at all in the case of un-licensed drivers) or are too busy faffing around with their radios or phones to notice whats going on in front of them. Here's an example. I had cause to stop the traffic on a country lane about 6 months ago. Picture me, in a car with flashing lights on the roof, slowing down from 60 (the national speed limit) to a standstill over about 150/200 yards or so. We're not talking about an emergency stop, it's fairly gradual braking, as I'd noticed a couple of sheep in the road ahead, just stood staring at me. As I got close to them headlights flashing, they were still staring, but not moving. So, I got out, and shoo'd them (if tha'ts even a word) off the road and into a field through an open gate. I then heard the screech of tyres and noticed behind me that a vectra was hurtling towards my car sideways. It stopped just in time, but left 40 yard skidmarks up the road.
Now the stopping distance at 60mph is 73 Mtrs. The portion of this that's actual braking distance is only 55 Mtrs. So that gives the driver 18Mtrs to think about what she needed to do to stop (ie: press the brake pedal). Now if she were looking at the road in front of her, she would have seen me, on a long, wide straight road which it was, from at least a mile away. So why did it take an emergency stop, a loss of control, damage to her vehicle and the road in order for her t

[DaveWoolhouse]

Sorry for my posts being so long! there is one thing I would like to add though. In my last post, I said that unlicensed drivers aren't trained. It wasn't meant to sound like that. Clearly an unlicensed driver can be just as good as a licensed one, and just as safe. In the same way a licensed driver canbe just as dangerous as un untrained driver. Point I'm making is that a driving license doesn't make you a safe driver, it merely makes you a legal one.

[DaveWoolhouse]

TWR, i missed you there sorry. The reason that these dodgy drivers are very rarely prosecuted, is due to the Police forces across the country being run too much like a business. If the crime is a small, and would lead to a small sentence, maybe a fine etc, then it's not considered worthy of the effort it would take to bring the case before the courts. In many cases, the CPS decide not to pursue prosecutions if their representative in the force believes that there is too much of a risk the offender may 'get off' with it. Wrong I know, but it's unfortunately the way it goes! If every offender were traced for almost causing an accident on the motorway, then every force across the country would be snowed under forever. It simply would not be worth it.

[Dagman]

no, you've got to consider the slowest people and slowest vehicles. Increasing the speed widens the gap between the fastest and slowest so the safety margin narrows further. you'll get fast or impatient drivers clustering up behind the slow ones even faster than before having to drop their speed..

[TWR]

Dagman, a few years ago the volume of traffic including the in-put of HGVs from abroad where few and far between, since the Euro start & the tunnel traffic has increased one hell of a lot, before the tunnel the HGVs & coaches where running with no bother that is until some Pratt within the Euro decided that he / she was getting held up on their way home ( poor sod) then the decrease in the HGVs + coaches speed was reduced, coaches where not allowed in the outside lane HGVs where bunching up nose to tail hence the HGV travelling at 56mph & taking approx 4 > 5 miles to overtake the inside HGV, this has been spoken about with myself & the Motorway police & do they agree with it! & they do not but they are only doing their job, I can assure you the HGV driver does not like holding people up but only trying to do his / her job for a pittance YES a pittance for the responsibility of the load / weight the HGV is carrying, I am still convinced that the speed of HGVs + coaches should be returned to the original speed limits of 60MPH & 70 mph but no doubt someone that NEVER uses a motorway would not agree! & I'm not referring to yourself.

[Prudie]

does anyone actually get done for doing between 70 and 80 anyway? From my experience traffic in the fast lane of a free flowing motorway all cruise along at least 80 anyway.