50mph speed limit possible - uk

ph

http://pistonheads.com/news/default.asp?storyId=19500

ph wrote:

News that Labour plans to reduce the national speed limit to 50mph has drawn an angry response from the Association of British Drivers, who today condemned a ‘speed bully policy signalling the end of driving excellence in Britain’.
The government scheme to enforce a 50mph limit with widespread use of average speed cameras was revealed at the weekend.

‘"This is nothing to do with road safety,’ says the ABDs Nigel Humphries. ‘Anyone can see that hazards vary along rural roads, and so speeds must vary with them. A blanket 50 mph speed limit does not recognise that roads vary enormously in character and that a limit as low as 50 is totally unnecessary on many rural roads’.

Numbers of road deaths have failed to improve for the last 15 years, while the only road safety policies promoted by the government have been those which make life more difficult and unpleasant for drivers, the organisation claims. In contrast, investment in driving skills, or improvements to dangerous roads have been played down.

The ABD lambasts the over-emphasis on speed as the sole determinant of road safety statistics, which it claims was always misleading. It says anti-car policies are being rolled out by stealth, one scheme at a time.

‘This is another step in the implementation of a surveillance society where your every move is monitored and no individual discretion allowed. Instead of encouraging intelligent and responsible driving, based on the road conditions and the vehicle being used, we have this dictatorial regime that attempts to monitor and control our minute to minute driving standards.’

With public consultation planned for the proposed reduction to the national speed limit, the ABD is calling for a vigorous response from motorists on whether they think it is a ‘wise and proportional response to the problem of traffic accidents’.

why like..?

Flyer1

Because they are idiots..

Wait till the irish government get a hold of this idea :eek:

Zube

Flyer1 wrote: »

Wait till the irish government get a hold of this idea :eek:

In case you missed it, the speed limit on most Irish roads went from 60 mph to 80 kph (a hair under 50 mph) quite some time ago.

Cookie_Monster

Zube wrote: »

In case you missed it, the speed limit on most Irish roads went from 60 mph to 80 kph (a hair under 50 mph) quite some time ago.

Yeah but most of those road you could never have done 60mph/100kph on anyway, at least not without ending up in the ditch at the next bend:D

Most of the other limits are actually higher than before though, aren't they?

70 mph > 120kph (74 mph)
60 mph > 100kph (62 mph)
30 mph > 50kph (31 mph)

and so on. So on the bigger important roads we can now all drive faster than before:)

r3nu4l

A section of the A14 near Cambridge has average speed cameras for a 14 mile stretch and to be honest, while it's irritating, it does seem to work but ONLY because most of that section is comprised of 3 lanes and people use the lanes properly (i.e., don't sit in the overtaking lane at 60 mph), making it work better.

During road works on the M11 between Junctions 8 and 10 a while back they had average speed cameras (50 mph) and this didn't work very well at all simply because it's 2 lanes per carriageway and HGVs decided they would overtake one another but try to keep to the 50 mph limit. This meant that even if the truck could overtake another truck he had to do it far more slowly thanks to the average speed limit.

Not a good idea at all except on roads that have plenty of overtaking lanes and providing drivers use those lanes properly.

Yakult

Are they reducing it to 50mph on all roads or just primary roads? (arent primary roads here 80kph ya?)