Speed Limits

[Phil xxkr]

Read an interesting article today stating over one third of Councils already had 20 mph speed limits and there is a aggressive campaign to make them country wide and if that wasn't bad enough some Mways are going down to 60 to lower nitrous oxide emissions 😱 Don't know about you but I find 30/70 mph hard enough most days. Maybe it's time to use an old tractor 😎

[Arnett]

That's horrendous. 

[ciao_chao]

Ugh....to be honest I often feel that the environment is a convenient smokescreen (pardon the pun) for the government. Now....20 zones, that's a bit different. Frustrating when the A1 Holloway Road is almost all 20 and lined with endless speed cameras, but down suburban residential streets, kinda makes sense.

[dutchie01]

[Phil xxkr]

11 minutes ago, ciao_chao said:

Ugh....to be honest I often feel that the environment is a convenient smokescreen (pardon the pun) for the government. Now....20 zones, that's a bit different. Frustrating when the A1 Holloway Road is almost all 20 and lined with endless speed cameras, but down suburban residential streets, kinda makes sense.

The sense of frustration is from the contradiction of circumstances not volume of traffic. Where we have a legal right to drive at a certain limit we can't due to, never completing roadworks, traffic calming measures, surveillance cameras, cycle lanes cyclists etc. Where we can there is a constant cacophony of noise about parking, pollution, and now speed where does it all end?  Well obviously when all cars are banned from towns in favour of bikes and tuktuks making them indistinguishable from every other south Asian town. 

[Phil xxkr]

11 minutes ago, dutchie01 said:

I believe journey times in London then were shorter than today? 🤠

[Mr Vlad]

Mmmmmmmm speed limits. Now that really is a contentious subject. I drive for a living. Ok it's limited to 56mph but boy oh boy do I see far to many unnecessary speed restrictions on our roads. Far too many cash cow cameras too. Blimey I know of 2 roads in Bradford where in a stretch of road no longer than 1 mile with no schools or shops just houses there are cameras spaced out about 500 yards or so.

To reduce the motorway limit to 60 is stupid. It must be a good 20 years or so ago the police who cover the M4 did an experiment. They monitored traffic flow with unmarked cars and the effect at the motorway end where traffic jams were terrible. 

Day 1 the police had a marked car doing 70mph. So you can imagine that All traffic stayed at 70. Oh dear the jam at the end of the motorway was worse than the monitored day.

Day 2 the marked car travelled at 80mph. Yes some cars travelled at 80 and others below that. The jam at the end of the motorway wasn't anywhere near as bad as the day before.

Moral of that experiment Raise the limit to 80. Nothing came of that experiment. Shame. 

[Boxbrownie]

The whole of our coastal area is a blanket 20 mph, with two schools and part of the SW Coastal Path being one of the “roads” it seems very sensible, not that the up country types that visit pay much attention to it.

[steve2006]

It always makes me smile when you are on a quiet A road and the speed limit has been lowered from National to 50MPH but every country lane off the road remains national at 60MPH.

[Phil xxkr]

2 hours ago, steve2006 said:

It always makes me smile when you are on a quiet A road and the speed limit has been lowered from National to 50MPH but every country lane off the road remains national at 60MPH.

Totally agree Steve 😎

 

2 hours ago, Boxbrownie said:

The whole of our coastal area is a blanket 20 mph, with two schools and part of the SW Coastal Path being one of the “roads” it seems very sensible, not that the up country types that visit pay much attention to it.

Interesting how we have morphed into a country of commenting on people who don't adhere to the rules, no matter how non-sensical they are. Do you think that there will be a time when we, the people, say enough already?

And how sly and surreptitiously these "rules" have slid in without hardly a murmur? To give you, the ordinary bloke/woman a flavour the UK tax code stands at 17,000 pages long😱 what chance do you have? 

[Boxbrownie]

The 20 mph limit here was decided upon by a town meeting, so no surreptitiously applied rules here, and we have plenty of 50 mph A/B roads which have 60 mph limits on smaller feeder lanes but the 50 mph is applied due to accident figures and traffic density in the holiday season (heaven help us!).

[dutchie01]

37 minutes ago, Boxbrownie said:

The 20 mph limit here was decided upon by a town meeting, so no surreptitiously applied rules here, and we have plenty of 50 mph A/B roads which have 60 mph limits on smaller feeder lanes but the 50 mph is applied due to accident figures and traffic density in the holiday season (heaven help us!).

Exactly that!  If it makes sense everybody will understand and most likely will obey. In the old days driving on the German autobahn there was always an explanation below a max speed sign. Like - dangerzone x fatalities last 12 months- and so on. Makes sense. Or in Denmark driving from village to village on b roads before entering  a schoolzone with max 30kmh there is a radar connected to a trafficlight. Too fast means red light and there is a camera connected so drive through red pic taken!. all this is down to safety nothing else. 

Alas nowadays it is Co2 legislation and collecting money for the treasury that dictates speed limits and not safety and this will only get worse  

[doog442]

In relation to 20mph limits. I appreciate not many on here cycle, however it's not until you cycle down a street at 20mph that you realise that its actually quite fast in a built up area or residential street . It certainly seems faster than driving along in a 1.5 ton car entombed in a world of A/C , apple car play and the rest. 

Of course the point of a 20mph limit is mainly down to fatality rates and the associated costs of fatal or Injury accidents. A 2.5% chance of fatality at 20mph , rising to 20% at 30mph. Naturally more chance of this outside schools or in built up areas. 

A cost is put on every accident. A fatal accident cost more than a life, it's a considerable amount of money to deal with and Investigate, amounting to several million pounds. If a particular location suffers a certain number of say Injury accidents, its looked at in detail and improvements are made to road Infrastructure, traffic calming etc so more expense. 

In relation to UK motorways and nitrous emissions, yep that sort of loony decision doesn't surprise me in the slightest  

[PRT68]

I did read somewhere, and it may need further research that  those roads with a NSL of 60mph, the authority responsible for that road has to inspect it every year and  maintain to a certain standard. Whereas if the  limit is under the NSL, ie 50mph it doesn't have to be.  So a possibility of authorities abdicating responsibility. 

As I mentioned I may be wrong, and further research needed.

[Phil xxkr]

2 hours ago, Boxbrownie said:

The 20 mph limit here was decided upon by a town meeting, so no surreptitiously applied rules here, and we have plenty of 50 mph A/B roads which have 60 mph limits on smaller feeder lanes but the 50 mph is applied due to accident figures and traffic density in the holiday season (heaven help us!).

Presumably then David you have signed up to Vision Zero? Because if that's an example of your Town Hall meeting decision making rationale it's really hard to find a way forward for Cornwall. You live in one of the most economically deprived regions in Northern Europe hugely depending upon two golden geese State funding and tourism. Yet with the latter as with London you seem determined to make extinct this particular goose. It seems you like the tourist money but not the nuisance of them actually being there? Try suggesting virtual holidays in say St Ives, to your Town Hall and I absolutely guarantee someone will support you. 

[doog442]

I'm not a sure a 20mph limit will stop tourists, it might even slow the buggers down. 

[Phil xxkr]

7 minutes ago, doog442 said:

I'm not a 20mph limit will stop tourists, it might even slow the buggers down. 

I refer the Honorable gentleman to the answer I gave a few moments ago 😎

[Boxbrownie]

25 minutes ago, Phil xxkr said:

Presumably then David you have signed up to Vision Zero? Because if that's an example of your Town Hall meeting decision making rationale it's really hard to find a way forward for Cornwall. You live in one of the most economically deprived regions in Northern Europe hugely depending upon two golden geese State funding and tourism. Yet with the latter as with London you seem determined to make extinct this particular goose. It seems you like the tourist money but not the nuisance of them actually being there? Try suggesting virtual holidays in say St Ives, to your Town Hall and I absolutely guarantee someone will support you. 

What a completely pointless post……bad day there?

[Phil xxkr]

10 hours ago, Boxbrownie said:

What a completely pointless post……bad day there?

Let me apologise should you feel David, that other people's views are impacting you in an emotionally negative way, I feel for you. As a matter of interest do you concur with the pragmatic viability of Vision Zero? 

[Boxbrownie]

1 hour ago, Phil xxkr said:

Let me apologise should you feel David, that other people's views are impacting you in an emotionally negative way, I feel for you. As a matter of interest do you concur with the pragmatic viability of Vision Zero? 

I have absolutely no idea what you talking about regarding “vision zero” and have no wish to, trying to be clever by insulting people shows ignorance, nothing more or less.

This is not the forum I joined almost fifteen years ago, please don’t bother replying…..I won’t be.

[wharfhouse]

As many have commented on here, the trend is clearly to lower speed limits, whether that is motorways (it won't be long before all are "smart" and the lower speed limits will be on most of the time), A roads or towns, and add more cameras to force compliance (just look at the metal gantry festooned "smart" motorways that are a complete eyesore). It's all in the name of "the science" (which is a few quangos that somehow manage to justify to the government whatever is their pet - public funded - project at the time).

I have spent many years of my career driving high mileages for work (and a lot of miles for leisure too) in the UK and Europe. I've had "fast" cars in the past and enjoyed them safely given the right time and place - and probably spent too much money on them! But in the last decade I could see the writing on the wall. It doesn't matter what logic is applied to the contrary it's clear where this is all heading. That was part of my decision in 2016 to get a Lexus IS 300h. On paper (and journalist "test drives") it doesn't seem to stack up when compared to some of the traditional competition but in the real world we are now in and inescapably moving further to then the IS 300h (along with other similar models) just "works" - comfortable, quiet, fast enough (given traffic and the many restrictions we now have), and even saves on the petrol bill as we all have to tootle along blindly in a big line of traffic at artificially low speed limits for mile after mile...

The standard of driving is atrocious on many of the journeys I now make but the mantra is still speeding kills. Nope, idiotic driving of any type kills. Which can include speeding but is as likely to be for many other reasons that no-one can be bothered to investigate or change the behaviours.

Fingers crossed I've got a good few decades left in me of driving but I've given up on expecting anything to "improve" in the way I think it should. No-one is listening to those of us who have spent much of our lives on the roads. The decisions are now made by those who probably never or at best infrequently actually drive themselves around the country. Going forwards I am falling into the bracket of a car just gives me a reasonable amount of freedom to get from A to B - the choice of model being to achieve that in some comfort and as stress free as possible - and to pursue other passions and spend my hard-earned money where the joy hasn't yet been removed...

 

 

[Phil xxkr]

9 minutes ago, wharfhouse said:

As many have commented on here, the trend is clearly to lower speed limits, whether that is motorways (it won't be long before all are "smart" and the lower speed limits will be on most of the time), A roads or towns, and add more cameras to force compliance (just look at the metal gantry festooned "smart" motorways that are a complete eyesore). It's all in the name of "the science" (which is a few quangos that somehow manage to justify to the government whatever is their pet - public funded - project at the time).

I have spent many years of my career driving high mileages for work (and a lot of miles for leisure too) in the UK and Europe. I've had "fast" cars in the past and enjoyed them safely given the right time and place - and probably spent too much money on them! But in the last decade I could see the writing on the wall. It doesn't matter what logic is applied to the contrary it's clear where this is all heading. That was part of my decision in 2016 to get a Lexus IS 300h. On paper (and journalist "test drives") it doesn't seem to stack up when compared to some of the traditional competition but in the real world we are now in and inescapably moving further to then the IS 300h (along with other similar models) just "works" - comfortable, quiet, fast enough (given traffic and the many restrictions we now have), and even saves on the petrol bill as we all have to tootle along blindly in a big line of traffic at artificially low speed limits for mile after mile...

The standard of driving is atrocious on many of the journeys I now make but the mantra is still speeding kills. Nope, idiotic driving of any type kills. Which can include speeding but is as likely to be for many other reasons that no-one can be bothered to investigate or change the behaviours.

Fingers crossed I've got a good few decades left in me of driving but I've given up on expecting anything to "improve" in the way I think it should. No-one is listening to those of us who have spent much of our lives on the roads. The decisions are now made by those who probably never or at best infrequently actually drive themselves around the country. Going forwards I am falling into the bracket of a car just gives me a reasonable amount of freedom to get from A to B - the choice of model being to achieve that in some comfort and as stress free as possible - and to pursue other passions and spend my hard-earned money where the joy hasn't yet been removed...

 

 

Fantastic post Phil 👍👍👍unfortunately you and I are one of those dreaded impediments to an Alice in Wonderland illusion of progress by the very people you speak of. Each day that goes by thousands of pages of new rules and regs get slid onto the books with 99.9 % of people it potentially covers totally oblivious to the possible consequences. They undoubtedly start life as a "good idea" supported by dubious statistics and well-intentioned people before they gain a life of their own. Witness the headlong rush to pave over deserted town centres and increase parking charges so driving away the very people who coincidentally have the highest levels of discretionary spend. Or in Cornwall and Devon where various public sector bodies have signed up to Vision Zero which is to have zero, nil, none, road fatalities and serious accidents by 2040 0️⃣. Just think for one moment about the real-world practicalities of such an ambition without the state having total control over your mobility freedom - EV's anyone? 

[wharfhouse]

13 minutes ago, Phil xxkr said:

Fantastic post Phil 👍👍👍unfortunately you and I are one of those dreaded impediments to an Alice in Wonderland illusion of progress by the very people you speak of. Each day that goes by thousands of pages of new rules and regs get slid onto the books with 99.9 % of people it potentially covers totally oblivious to the possible consequences. They undoubtedly start life as a "good idea" supported by dubious statistics and well-intentioned people before they gain a life of their own. Witness the headlong rush to pave over deserted town centres and increase parking charges so driving away the very people who coincidentally have the highest levels of discretionary spend. Or in Cornwall and Devon where various public sector bodies have signed up to Vision Zero which is to have zero, nil, none, road fatalities and serious accidents by 2040 0️⃣. Just think for one moment about the real-world practicalities of such an ambition without the state having total control over your mobility freedom - EV's anyone? 

Yes more good examples. I've just come back from a few days in Devon and it's a place that we have been seriously thinking of moving to in some 5 years time. I'll have to have a read of the Vision Zero now and see what that is all about... 

[dutchie01]

https://www.volvogroup.com/en/about-us/traffic-safety/safety-vision.html

VOLVO has a vision zero as well.

 

[wharfhouse]

In my business life we often set goals and objectives and one major consideration is that they had to be realistic and achievable. None of these vision zero goals meet either of those criteria so are all worthless. Yes, work to reduce the number of fatalities but be realistic - it will never be zero unless we all never go near a road! In two of my other interests - sailing and hill walking - I accept there is some risk that I might die due to some unforseen accident. I wouldn't stop doing either though and do my best to mitigate the risk but accept that there is a real risk in both.