Speed obviously is bad

[Slaighty]

What the hell is going on with the speed limits? Thought Warwickshire was bad, with miles of country A road having the posted limit dropped to 50, old 50 limits now 40 etc. But had a weeks holiday in Devon and they are even worse. Was going along an A road, can;t remember which, whenever we went through a village the limit was 20 ! On a A Road?

[Station]

Seems un-natural doing 20.Let's face it, 20 or 30, it's still going to frigging hurt.

[Polystratus]

Derbyshire County Council is very fond of this sort of thing - most of the A roads that were NSL for years have been dropped to 50 and I know of one section of A road it was NSL then changed to 50, with new signage, that was all taken down and replaced again when the limit changed to 40.It's a good example of how to waste public money, and previous New Labour control freakiness, something that should be on the top of the cutback lists when they happen.

[reallyloud]

I did one of those speed awareness 'lessons' a few weeks ago in lieu of 3 points and £60. The 3 hour session cost about £90. What surprised me the most was that I was one of the youngest ones there at 36 - everyone had been caught doing between 3 and 7 miles over the limit. The fact that I'd been distracted by my misses babbling on about something or other at 12.30am on a saturday while driving through some sleepy village in sussex was apparently inexcusable. But there seems to be a lot of evidence supporting the survival rates of being hit by a car at 20mph - I know the adverts say that but at college we did a module of car accident safety and it all tallys up. 20 is bloody slow, especially in the middle of the night when you've got owls and night time Radio 4 overtaking you, but there has been a bit more thought gone into the recent wave of speed limits and camera positions recently - I know this because following a series of fatalities in a local village, a speed camera was put up within weeks.

[saabhappy]

Derbyshire County Council is very fond of this sort of thing - most of the A roads that were NSL for years have been dropped to 50 and I know of one section of A road it was NSL then changed to 50, with new signage, that was all taken down and replaced again when the limit changed to 40.It's a good example of how to waste public money, and previous New Labour control freakiness, something that should be on the top of the cutback lists when they happen.

The thing that really pissed me off on the way to Cholmondeley was the way the "New Speed Limit" signs had a smug little message "For Your Safety" with them. How to induce road rage...

[Minimad5]

I thought this was a thread about Drugs I guess the speed reductions and signs can be taken either way , good or bad.I have a very good friend who is a biker, and his best mate was killed last year on an "A" road, so he is all for promoting safer speeds and driving.I guess it can be linked with Rab's thread about young kids driving stupidly.It is the speed that kills, but the killing is more down to unexperienced drivers pushing it too far.

[brammy777]

The speed limit through here is 30, but that does nothing to stop some people absolutely blazing it through here, be it two or four wheels. The real issue is the amount of drivers who insist in ignoring the traffic lights, even when they are red. Its a busy High Street, but I think its going to take an accident to happen for anything to be done.

[Mr Lobster]

The [previous] governments mantra of Speed Kills is / was too simplistic. To say that speed alone causes accidents is rubbish.Inappropriate speed causes accidents (and that can still be under the posted limit), poor driving, not paying attention, over confidenence and myriad other things cause accidents but its too easy to blame everything on 'speed' rather than trying to educate people to become better drivers.What annoys me is that coming towards my house is a NSL road, plenty of vision and what have you so 60 is safe enough. Further down it becomes narrower, twisty and then the houses start so the limit drops to 30 which seems sensible enough. But the number of people who amble along in the NSL at 45 and then blindly continue into the 30 limit at 45 is amazing. I can only assume they are blindly oblivious to the road / speed / their surroundings and are just stupid.

[Lankytim]

Speed DOESN'T kill. I thought everyone knew this! If it did why dont F1 drvers drop dead behind the wheel?

 

[HillmanImp]

I do speed when i think its safe, i.e. roads with clear visibility at either side where no kids can suddenly run out from behind a car/tree etc. I tend to keep it slow in residential areas. I suppose the lowering of speed limits around the country could simply be to slow down how much over the speed limit people go. If its normally a 60, people might not think twice about doing 80, but if they reduce it to a 40 the same person might only do 60 as a lot of people would be wary of getting caught doing twice the speed limit. Does not seem like that much of a bad thing really. Just a thought. I tend to think like this a lot, maybe because I once nearly married a psychcologist.I suppose the problem will arise when you get someone doing 40 all the way. Saying that you nearly always would have got one of them anyway tootling along 20 under the speed limit.

[Pillock]

Just seems a knee-jerk reaction to increasing accident figures. It used to be that as soon as you got out into the countryside, it was a NSL road and even then, the police were a little less eager to sting you out there. They'd concentrate on 30s and 40s in built-up areas. Good good.Increasingly now there's 50 limits popping up seemingly at random - for example, the ENTIRE county of Derbyshire, and coincidentally GATSOs on the same stretches. Now, if it was a dangerous road surely one or the other would be OK but both seems like the coffers are a little empty.I'm quite happy with 20mph stretches outside schools, past parks and that sort of shizzle but when they take the piss with it, miles and miles of 20mph, then it gets tempting to eek it back up to 30. Same with any limit, if it frustrates me that they've set a nice open road with no hazards to 50mph, I'll break the limit. Just seems to be that they've got a quota to meet so they lower limits in order to be able to report they've "done something about it". There's plenty more they can do about it, but nothing that involves a few cameras on poles.

[seth]

It bugs me that these days with cars so much easer to drive and control on winding bumpy roads that such a backward step is seen to be required.

[retrogeezer]

The worst bit of road I drive on is the A34 Stone Road from Stoke towards Stafford, 30 limit one minute, then 40, then 60, then 50 then back to 60.....it's bloody ridiculous!

[seth]

The worst bit of road I drive on is the A51 (I think) from Stoke towards Stafford, 30 limit one minute, then 40, then 60, then 50 then back to 60.....it's bloody ridiculous!

Actually yes, that is worse. Hopefully cutbacks might mean that there is less budget for superfluous signs altogether.

[HillmanImp]

Actually yes, that is worse. Hopefully cutbacks might mean that there is less budget for superfluous signs altogether.

 

[brammy777]

R.welfare may agree with this, but the road to Tadley is ridiculous, the limit seems to change all the time. I think there has been a fairly high amount of accidents though.

[Lankytim]

The worst bit of road I drive on is the A51 (I think) from Stoke towards Stafford, 30 limit one minute, then 40, then 60, then 50 then back to 60.....it's bloody ridiculous!

.

I think you mean the A34, the A51 is in the same area but goes from Stone to Rugely.I know what you mean though, that road is a bastard. Its not as bad as it was though, since they adjusted some of the limits to make it slightly more driver friendly. Even Jeremy Clarkson has commented on this stretch of the A34 and its damn speed cameras on Top Gear.

[FredTransit]

Just a few observationsModern cars are very easy to push over the speed limit in, look down and suddenly you are doing 80 on a motorway. Do that in a Mk2 transit and your fillings are falling out!No, speed doesn't kill, colliding with things and people will do it.Not stopping at a red light or doing 50 in a built up area, and you get all you deserve. 60 on a well lit dry dual carriageway in the early hours with nobody else for miles should be fine. It's common sense. Oh wait, it's motoring law we are talking about here....Don't get me on scameras.

[retrogeezer]

Yeh, it is the A34 Tim, I did change it pretty quick but Seth had already quoted me! I had the A51 in my head as thats the way we go to Shugborough from here unless we are going through Stoke/Trentham on the way.

[Albert Ross]

Most modern engines are multivalve, and make peak power at high revs, but they expect us to crawl around at 20 mph burning fossil fuels. In my Land Rover, it's hard enough to get to 40 without being forced to shut off "power" to drop to 30 every mile or so. I reckon go back to two valve engines, and that way we all get more power!