Ministers are planning to crack down on motorists who speed on motorways in an attempt to meet government targets aimed at reducing Britain's emissions of greenhouse gases.

http://politics.guardian.co.uk/homeaffairs/story/0,11026,1642046,00.html

Its only a proposal at the moment which, means it would be months before it came into action. Interestingly the government seem to have thought up yet another excuse to persecute motorists in the war against our bank balances.

Did you vote for them ?

Excellent, clear a few more people of the roads policy at it's best...

Why arn't they doing sensible things like biodiesel or ethanol production...I know some are already underway but at a silly low % of what we could be doing.

I'd happily buy a v8 ethanol car

What makes me absoutly mad is that in order to lower emissions, the UK uses up to 5% ethanol in fuel...GREAT...we ship it in from south america...ffs dumb asses, point missed by a supertanker margin.

We have the solution but we don't do anything, freight on rail, partical cannons on bridges to remove 50mph drivers forcing lorrys into the middle lane and thrid lane hoggers when two inside clear etc...

Change in soceity demanding products from far when available locally. Discourage business forcing people to drive 200 miles for a one hour meeting...get on board and throw 1% of the ammount they waste on war into BT's coffers for 10mb broadband country wide and that would almost cut 15 thousand miles of my life overnight per annum...

Then again I'm sure that's not the aim...ka-ching.

Anyway, given over 1k miles in the last fortnight I can say that thanksto my map, the computer says I do a better mpg at 85 than 70...go figure..34.2 v 30.1

Particle Cannons on bridges

i'm all for that one, as long as i can be a gunner for a bank holiday weekend....... rofl

One of the options, a new obligation to mix renewable biofuels into petrol for vehicles, was announced last week. Stricter enforcement of the 70 mph limit, the document says, would save 890,000 tons of carbon a year - more than the biofuels obligation and many other listed measures put together.

See above, but I don't think shipping ethanol in is exactly in the spirit of enviromental protection, chop a forest down, few thousand tonnes of co2 on a.n.other countries books in order to say we use environmentally friendly fuel mixes...BS.

Stricter enforcement of the 70 mph limit, the document says, would save 890,000 tons of carbon a year

Umm...can anybody tell the gentleman about the following technologies:

Nuclear

Cold fusion

Solar

Wind

Hot air

Here we go...

50,000 pc's for 40 hours a week leaves an annual elecy bill of 1.8 million, or roughly 18,720,000 kWh*...wonder how much carbon that is from a coal powered station.

So can I add quantum computng to the list?

ta.

*Src: it now BCS magazine.

I agree with Col. The whole paperless office and video conferencing thing is a farce really. Our office generates so much waste paper it is scary. And if we had faster t'interweb the whole fat cat going on a jolly would be stopped

Have to say even the roller skate is more economic above 70 than it is on 70.

There is lots of other ways to cut polution, it annoys me that cars are always hit.

would save 890,000 tons of carbon a year

OK we save it, what do we do with it? Put it in a landfill?

yes colin, you go colin, i think you bang on!

Colin for PM!

Country is run my a bunch of nutters with no grip onreality!

Joel

Government as usual missing the point. At steady speeds (pretty much any steady speed) your economy is good and emissions are low. What generates the crud is acceleration. Constantly changing speed pollutes far more than free-flowing traffic. So what do they do? Add traffic lights on roundabouts (why? they are supposed to self regulating), add chicanes and don't phase lights so if you hit one on green you go straight through. These lessons were learn a long time ago, but current traffic planners seem to have forgotten them.

And no I didn't vote for them, but I did vote (so I can complain. right?)

Absolutely pathetic

What next after that? Reduce NSL to 30?

Maybe they would be doing better, if they didnt try to deliberately cause congestion in city centres, like newcastle have done. Lets see, what causes more pollution? 100,000 cars in a city that are able to get out of the city quickly, or 100,000 cars sitting there with their engines idling for 30 minutes every day? :rubchin:

They really are c

Next time you are heading down the motorway (irrespective of speed) have a look at all the lights on in empty car parks and empty office blocks. I occasionally drive past Meadowhall which is a big shopping centre on the M1 at Sheffield and it's car park and the whole building itself are lit up like a xmas tree 24/7 365 days of the year. Most cities and towns have them and they are all pointlessly burning fuel while the government puts ads on the TV telling us to switch off 20% of our lighting. This lot are only politicians cos they couldn't hold down a job anywhere else!

Looks like I need Cruise control

Looks like I need Cruise control

Looks like I need to Emigrate earlier than planned !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Next time you are heading down the motorway (irrespective of speed) have a look at all the lights on in empty car parks and empty office blocks. I occasionally drive past Meadowhall which is a big shopping centre on the M1 at Sheffield and it's car park and the whole building itself are lit up like a xmas tree 24/7 365 days of the year. Most cities and towns have them and they are all pointlessly burning fuel while the government puts ads on the TV telling us to switch off 20% of our lighting. This lot are only politicians cos they couldn't hold down a job anywhere else!

I remember being told that it uses more energy to turn on a flourescent tube then it does to leave it on all night. I know quite a few places with flourescent lighting that leave them on because it is meant to be more effiecient.

Here in N.I. most people drive around the 75ish or 80 mark on the motorway. When I go to my sister's near Liecester i'm still surprised at being over taken by articulated lorries doing 90mph. If I sit at 80 (on the clock) it feels like i'm driving too slow and get BMW drivers up my chuff flashing their lights. I can see that an enforced 70 mph limit on motorways in England would be a big shock to motorists there.

A friend in the police over here once told me that the allowance they make before stopping someone driving above the speed limit is 10% + 2mph. I've since had that verified but i'm not sure if it still applies currently. It wasn't a hard and fast rule really but more of a rule of thumb.

It does however yield the following

Speed Limit -----Speed before stopping motorists

30 -- 35

40 -- 46

50 -- 57

60 -- 68 (70 in practice)

70 -- 79 (80 in practice)

If you take into account that most speedos over-read by 5-8% then you could potentially get away with 85mph on the clock before the rozzers would think about nabbing you.

I saw a documentary on the motorways in England a while back and they interviewed a traffic cop with a T5 Volvo. He said they didn't bother going after any car doing less than 90. That's about 96 on the clock!

Over 85 mph I was told it's starting to get 'potential for pullover increase'. Over 90 is almost certain. This was from a traffic officer

My speedo was out by 0.5 mph according to the speed gun vs my speedo, so don't rely on the speedo being out unless you have a GPS to know your true-ish speed.

My Rover 100 is out by a LOT at higher speeds, it overreads probably easily 10%, more likely 20% - but then at 80 mph on the clock it feels (too) fast anyway

Your Rover 100 does 80mph!