Hello, I have a quick story for you.

I was driving up the M6 to Edinburgh with my mum in her car (Ford Focus C-Max)

Very quiet bit of road up in cumbria somewhere- I'm happily crusing along, when the car infront moves into 2nd lane (to overtake another car) and clamps the brakes on. No problem - car behind in 3rd lane already, but room for me to overtake. As I do, I see the van on the bridge, realise that it's a speed camera, but that I also have a car behind me and don't want to brake hard...

.. there was a letter from the Cumbria Constabulary on my mum's doorstep this morning. 79MPH in a 70. PANTS!

That's my quick rant over. I want to make perfectly clear that I fully accept that I was caught speeding and have no comments like "why can't you catch some real criminals?" to make. I live in the Derbyshire Dales and I get to see some terrible driving, especially through small villages and towns. I'd love to see that reduced

I was wondering what the BRISKODA massive thought about the 70MPH limit on motorways. Personally, I'm in favour of them being relaxed - but I am the one with 3 points and

I personally think the limits should be raised to say 80mph, the old limits are based on vehicles and technology that you simply dont see on the roads any more!

One other thing that I seriously believe would actually reduce speeds in general on our roads - and some might not like this - would be for us as a country to get rid of MPH on our speedos and signs, and change to KPH as in the rest of Europe.

Now i'm not a Euro ponce or anything like that (keep the pound, shove the Euro up your ....) but my theory is this -

100 is a nice round number to be travelling at, now 100mph is arguably a bit dangerous on our roads as they are today, but 100KPH isn't dangerous at all, in fact if my maths is correct its 63mph - my point is that psycologically it would feel like you were going really fast with 100 showing on the speedo, but really your not. i've only used 100 to get my idea across, but hopefully you'll understand what i'm getting at.

You might have something there - the national speed limit in NZ is 100kph and I find myself cruising at 90 - when there's a bit of straight road to cruise on.

Maybe the story will be different when I get the Skoda back and the speedo's in mph as well. I'll have to be careful!

I was wondering what the BRISKODA massive thought about the 70MPH limit on motorways. Personally, I'm in favour of them being relaxed - but I am the one with 3 points and

I personally think the limits should be raised to say 80mph' date=' the old limits are based on vehicles and technology that you simply dont see on the roads any more!

One other thing that I seriously believe would actually reduce speeds in general on our roads - and some might not like this - would be for us as a country to get rid of MPH on our speedos and signs, and change to KPH as in the rest of Europe.

Now i'm not a Euro ponce or anything like that (keep the pound, shove the Euro up your ....) but my theory is this -

100 is a nice round number to be travelling at, now 100mph is arguably a bit dangerous on our roads as they are today, but 100KPH isn't dangerous at all, in fact if my maths is correct its 63mph - my point is that psycologically it would feel like you were going really fast with 100 showing on the speedo, but really your not. i've only used 100 to get my idea across, but hopefully you'll understand what i'm getting at.[/quote']

Think you might be onto something there actually, i'd agree with what your saying.

I was having a chat about this with my observer for my Advanced Driving on Saturday,

Now if everyone was at the advanced driving standard then 90mph on the motorway would be a problem, its the lack of driving skills of other motorists that cause the problems.

Good luck on your advanced, defo worth it!

I think the problem is that most people drive at a speed that feels comfortable to them. For some this is above 70mph. I do feel that its about time they reviewed the speed limit and incresed it to 80 on the motorway.

I am also in favour of doing away with the national speed limit sign and changing these to 60, 70 where appropriate, this way I wouldnt get wound up on the way home evry night by people slamming on brakes to slow to 50 at speed cameras in a 60 zone, and I would get home about 10 minutes earlier if the people in front werent doing 45 on a clear open road. Question is how do these people get in front of me in the first place.

I know some people will say "you wont get there any quicker", but if I am stuck behind someone doing 50 in a 60 for an hour, I am ten miles away from where I would have been.

Sorry went off on a tangent there

Therefore it is reasonable to assume if you raise the legal limit to 80mph, most will drive at 90mph and some over 100mph, which isn't particularly safe on our roads, as previously stated..

Not necessarily, there's a good article on the ABD website explaining the psychology and mechanical factors behind speeding - it's do do with vehicle performance more than anything - haven't looked recently but it's something about the speed limit set as 85% of the average vehicles maximum speed - nowadays thal number is much higher than 70 so more people speed. Check it out www.abd.org.uk

Force people to drive a car that shakes etc at 80 mph and above, like my old Rover 100 - it takes bottle and a sense of death-defiance to go much faster than 90 mph on the speedo.

In a lot of modern cars, 70 mph feels like you're standing still as the cars are refined enough these days.

Another way of slowing people down is the number of potholes in the road, and 'speed bump-alike' motorway stretches. There aren't that many on the stretch of the M4 I use, but the two I get across do noticably disturb the car balance at speed, and it has already caused a few accidents with taller 4x4 vehicles :(

One (controversial?) way of making the motorways safer would be to implement a system like in Germany where HGV's are kept off the road during peak times of the day.

Chris

I believe the limits should be increased on motorways but not before the standard of the driving test is improved. Unfortunately a majority of the UK drivers would not cope with driving any faster, or people around them driving faster.

One (controversial?) way of making the motorways safer would be to implement a system like in Germany where HGV's are kept off the road during peak times of the day.

Chris

Excellent Idea Chris.. What about Caravans..

What about Caravans..

Ban the lot of them I say

:sofahide:

Chris

Ban the lot of them I say

:sofahide:

Chris

Brave Man.............Very Brave Man...Wait til' the caravaners read it!!!!!

In this day and age of better built cars, better safety features like ABS/airbags/crumple zones, etc etc, I think 80 would be a suitable limit.

What were the general safety features of cars around when the 70 limit was first brought in? When WAS the 70 limit first brought in? 60s? earlier?

Wasn't the speed limit introduced as someone was testing there cars on the motorways......Shelby springs to mind, I may be wrong..

Wasn't the speed limit introduced as someone was testing there cars on the motorways......Shelby springs to mind, I may be wrong..

Shelby and Jag on the M1 if my memory serves (cos I thought it was down to fuel shortages)....

Remember too though that even with all these safety features, there are also a lot more cars on the road so the chances of accidents are increased!

Chris

It always narks me when I get back to 70mph on the A20 out of Dover having not long before been cruising at a legal 130K on the autoroute into Calais. I am sure most manufacturers these days 'tune' their car's performance and acoustic properies to be 'sweet' at this speed which is the rule in most of Europe.

However, the motorways here are much more crowded and that may be a factor in not relaxing the limit. In France you rarely see anyone going OTT despite the relative lack of police patrols and speed cameras. At the Voxan club AGM I was told that this is because if you are caught more than 15 K over the limit you can get an instant ban :eek: - if you are French

It is the usual problem. Inappropriate speed is the killer. On an empty three lane motorway in good weather, higher speed is not such a problem (ignoring mechanical failure, which if we start down that path could mean the return of the man with the red flag ). On a crowded, two lane, wet motorway speed needs to be much lower. In France the limit is 110 in the wet. The idea of a variable speed limit (M25) probably needs extending at the same time as allowing a higher overall limit on the right section of road in the right conditions.

Glad I can still get my annual fix by riding over the Mountain

Shelby and Jag on the M1 if my memory serves (cos I thought it was down to fuel shortages)....

Remember too though that even with all these safety features' date=' there are also a lot more cars on the road so the chances of accidents are increased!

Chris[/quote']

Lot of publicity at the time of the original 70mph National Speed Limit about AC Cobras being tested at 100 mph plus.

The blanket 50mph speed introduced in the mid 70's because of fuel rationing was temporary. Managed to get done for 102 on my R90/6 at the time

IMO it is cameras that are the danger, in the original post it was stated that car in lane 2 slammed on, if you hadn't checked your mirrors and just seen video van and slammed on may not have got a ticket but would have a painfull rear end!. before cameras the police seemed tyo use their discretion a lot more and would be quite happy to ignore xcessive mph on an empty motorway and take into account dreiving style condirtions etc. So the guy slamming on would be more likely to get a ticking off. Cameras are much too arbituary and can't take into account situations like the one mentioned, ie a safe overtaking manouvre.

I was fined for doing 93mph on an almost empty, straight section of the M62 at 6:30am on a bright, sunny, summer's morning.

I'm in favour of a higher limit, maybe 85 or even 90 BUT with adaptive signing to reduce this in poor conditions or as the traffic gets heavier, coupled with better driver training and more enforcement. Also banning lorries in the rush-hour - especially on 2-lane M-Ways - would be a good plan.

However, the motorways here are much more crowded and that may be a factor in not relaxing the limit. In France you rarely see anyone going OTT despite the relative lack of police patrols and speed cameras.

I think that's the big thing for me, we shouldn't go faster as in this country you have a relatively small time to react to a danger as the roads are so congested here. On the continent, as you say, few police and cameras. Though you have to be careful on the toll roads not to have exceeded your time, the best way I saw was go hell for leather for a while then have a half hour kip in the back!

Nobody's perfect, but I see some terrible driving on the motorways.

Text messaging at rush hour has to be one of the most dangerous things. You can spot it from a long way away -Car travelling at 65mph and weaving all over the place. God help anyone in front if they have to stop suddenly..... I'd prefer to be in a column of traffic at 120mph with decent gaps than have a car or HGV at 60 mph with a driver typing on a phone behind me.

it's something about the speed limit set as 85% of the average vehicles maximum speed

I thought 85% came into speed limits as they were set at the speed where 85% of drivers were at or below a speed that allowed them to drive safely in that area under all conditions (known as the '85th percentile' IIRC). This implies, of course, that 15% of drivers WOULDN'T be safe at that speed, but I guess that's what's known as an 'acceptable risk'...

I can see the sense in increasing the speed limit on motorways, but there's also a case for decreasing it in residential areas. It's already 20 near some schools round here, and although that seems a bit daft to have it 24/7 even during the holidays, I guess it's just not feasible to have a variable speed limit system set up outside every school.

As regards the kph, I remember feeling that the 130kph limit on the motorways over there was quite-fast-enough-for-me-thank-you, even though it's only just over 80mph which seems to be a fairly normal motorway speed over here. Plus they reduce the speed limit to 110 in the wet, which seems sensible...

Maybe all cars should have that Mercedes anti-crash system they showed on Top Gear?