Agree with Woodsmoke..... the standard of driving is increasingly dismal. The obvious problem is that all of the roads are now infested with "safety" cameras (sic) and average speed cameras. The number of traffic police has been slashed over the years and the result is that people know there's hardly any chance of being caught doing something idiotic/deadly or just bizarre. Just look at all the idiots with their "smart" phones on their laps when they're driving. You can change all the speed limits you like, but you can't legislate for stupidity. And I did have a chuckle at the 20mph limits in the borders, having just been over there for a week - the usual rule seemed to be if you were local or in a big car they didn't apply, the only ones who seemed to take notice were the tourists!
60 mph speed limit
- Thread starter gixer1
- Start date
Heym SR20
Well-Known Member
With most modern cars and engines, the engines are not running in their most efficient or clean phase at 60mph. You are getting incomplete combustion and the catalysts are not hot enough to complete combustion and clean up the exhaust. And all you are doing is increasing congestion, which equals even worse pollution.
Increase speed limit to 80mph (130kph) like it is everywhere else in the world, and everything starts moving smoothly and efficiently with engines running cleanly.
But of course doesn’t Boris, Goldsmith / Branson et al as they fly over in their helicopters / private jets feeling very righteous - well they don’t have a congestion on their offshore tax havens.
Increase speed limit to 80mph (130kph) like it is everywhere else in the world, and everything starts moving smoothly and efficiently with engines running cleanly.
But of course doesn’t Boris, Goldsmith / Branson et al as they fly over in their helicopters / private jets feeling very righteous - well they don’t have a congestion on their offshore tax havens.
Woodsmoke
Well-Known Member
Where we are between Forfar and Brechin seems to suffer a peculiar behaviour that I've not really noticed elsewhere. Namely, the number of utter mouth-breathing cretins who cut corners (even blind corners) is mind-boggling. I cannot fathom the level of mindless stupidity it takes to do such a thing, but it seems to be de rigour in these parts. If it were only themselves they were likely to kill or injure I wouldn't care less, but to put other people at risk by such unbelievably stupid and selfish behaviour is criminal
Spot on. Also the movement to go to 20mph in urban areas is brainless, not backed by good evidence and is nothing more than a measure to impede transport, not facilitate it. It's also much more dangerous for children (everyone actually) because they find it hard to judge when a car in the distance will arrive. Some drivers are doing 20mph, the buses do 30mph, anything driven by or for the council faster still and the motorists who think the limit is stupid 35 or so, and boy racers over 50. When the limit was 30, nearly all the traffic apart from boy racers went a similar speed.
Can they even reach 60 without a Hilux pushing from behind?Depends on the weight of the pick up, Defenders are under the weight limit !
This is my point - if we keep dropping speed limits due to incompetence we will be at a standstill soon!
why not train the people more thoroughly instead of the easy “drop the speed limit” option
I am not sure your solicitor will see that as a “bomb proof“;plan to get you acquittedNot sure if this is news to you.
But, rules are made for idiots, and the guidance of wiser minds.
Neil.
Unless held up by traffic I don't think I've ever seen a Merc Sprinter van do leas than 90mph...
Mine can, no problem, and it doesn't drop it's rear crossmember and towing hitch on the road while towing an Argo like a 16 plate Hilux I know.
Ouch, fair playMine can, no problem, and it doesn't drop it's rear crossmember and towing hitch on the road while towing an Argo like a 16 plate Hilux I know.
What I really resent is this trend to spend money on making roads safer and better though massive infrastructure projects, and then, upon completion to turn around and set lower speed limits than there were before. Just... why?
The M6 around birmingham used to be a rubbish road, with a poor surface and congestion. Yet it was considered perfectly safe at 70. They then spent 4 years adding a lane, resurfacing, adding better exits, all with a view of increasing through put and safety. Now it's a variable 50 limit. Where's the logic in that?
Same with the bypass between the M6 and the M62 round manchester. To do that journey before, it was a single lane road with round abouts every couple miles. 60 limit. Now it's a 2 lane dual carriageway with comparatively minimal hazards, yet the limit is 50. Where's the logic?
Both are objectively safer, better roads now than before, still used by the same group of feckless, distracted, poorly trained mouthbreathers as before, so if anything it should justify an increased speed limit, not decreased, surely?
It can't come as a surprise to anyone that people just decline to obey it completely and do the usual 85ish or so that people tend towards on motorways all across the land. If you actually did 50 there you'd be a legitimate hazard impeding the normal flow of traffic. They'll be putting cameras in shortly, I've no doubt.
The M6 around birmingham used to be a rubbish road, with a poor surface and congestion. Yet it was considered perfectly safe at 70. They then spent 4 years adding a lane, resurfacing, adding better exits, all with a view of increasing through put and safety. Now it's a variable 50 limit. Where's the logic in that?
Same with the bypass between the M6 and the M62 round manchester. To do that journey before, it was a single lane road with round abouts every couple miles. 60 limit. Now it's a 2 lane dual carriageway with comparatively minimal hazards, yet the limit is 50. Where's the logic?
Both are objectively safer, better roads now than before, still used by the same group of feckless, distracted, poorly trained mouthbreathers as before, so if anything it should justify an increased speed limit, not decreased, surely?
It can't come as a surprise to anyone that people just decline to obey it completely and do the usual 85ish or so that people tend towards on motorways all across the land. If you actually did 50 there you'd be a legitimate hazard impeding the normal flow of traffic. They'll be putting cameras in shortly, I've no doubt.
StephenToast
Well-Known Member
I'd love to join in on this but I rarely leave my county and there aren't any motorways in Suffolk
Rake Aboot
Well-Known Member
Sorry but that’s rubbish
As is the rubbish about cars running cleaner at 80 than at 60
Made up facts that aren’t factual.
There is certainly data from the West Country which shows that the 20MPH limit does not reduce accidents. This is real world stuff. Also after the big oil crisis when the US returned the 50 limit to the pre crisis 70 accidents fell there too.
David.
There is nothing to say about this except that you are wrong. I live in a 20zone and use buses which never adhere to the limit, nor do council vehicles, police cars. Some private cars do, some don't. There has been no improvement in safety. Statistics for London showed increasing numbers of road deaths correlating with the large scale rollout of 20mph limits.
Again...
Incidentally 20mph is much more polluting than 30mph.
Cf. the link you showed which contained no coherent evidence of safety improvement.
Not sure I agree, treat people like morons and they will act like it!!!!
lots of roads in other parts of the world have lower speed limits. In Canada "rural" roads are limited to 50 mph, despite them being dead straight, wide and empty.
I traveled over there a couple of years ago with a motorhome and one day we travelled miles from agawa Bay on the shore or lake superior and met 10 oncoming vehicles until we got about 10 miles from Timmins!
I traveled over there a couple of years ago with a motorhome and one day we travelled miles from agawa Bay on the shore or lake superior and met 10 oncoming vehicles until we got about 10 miles from Timmins!
Rusty Gate
Well-Known Member
Its a money maker & nothing else. Unless your engine is humming at a nice rpm for its rev range, running it at low rpm in a high gear is inefficient & counter productive to its design.Just read that some of the motorway speed limits have been reduced to 60mph to reduce emissions….is this correct? Are we really the only country who’s speed limits are going backwards!!! What a crock these environmentalist lunatics suggestions and implementations are…
get a grip and get the limits up, not down! We need to improve the standard of driving, not reduce limits to allow for Poor driving!
regards,
Gixer
The speed limits are so out of date it's unreal!
Some Euro countries are lorry/caravans inside lane, outside for overtake only. Here people sit in the middle lane passing nothing?
Autobahn is well run, maintained & above all clean...... no shredded lorry tyres or bits of exhaust anywhere. We got back to the UK, two tyres exhaust section & a bumper corner within ten mins of Dover
Cootmeurer
Well-Known Member
The US National speed limit of 55 is long gone. That was a by product of the Jimmy Carter oil embargo of the 1970s. If it did anything it was to result in a nationwide non compliance of posted speed limits - with the norm in the USA now being “keep it 9 over the posted limit” because the police rarely ticket until 10 over.
Some states refused to comply until the Federal Govt threatened to withhold federal fuel tax money, so those states made tickets a $1 fine with no points reported on your license.
Nowadays the the limit is usually 70 on open stretches of interstate (equivalent to your single digit motorways) and 60-65 in city limit. Some of the western states are 80+, and even unlimited during daylight periods of high visibility. That may seem extreme until you go drive across WY or NV.
Living here on the east coast currently, near I95, which is the major corridor between the over populated northeast and Florida, wrecks are a daily occurrence and it seems the number 1 problem is not speed, but heads down stuck in a phone. I have to drive I95 almost every other day and I see electronic issues daily, including laptops on the dash, tablets in the lap, etc… saw one fool with a tablet mount for his steering wheel.
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