UK Speed limit to be raised (?)

[Pickles]

According to the Independent, there is a serious proposal to raise the speed limit to 80 mph.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/motorway-speed-limit-to-be-raised-2362980.html

There's a juxtaposition of headlines on the Indy's website which caught my eye and attracted my sense of the absurd. Directly above "Motorway speed limit to be raised" was "Road deaths fall to record low" - almost as if raising the speed limit was a response to counteract the low road deaths.

Regards

Pickles

[idun]

As I have found that most people drive at 80 on the motorways, just increasing to the speed limit seems sound to me and shouldn't affect the accidents.

I'd love them to take away all speed limits on proper motorways too.

[Etoile]

There are no proper motorways in the UK. They are all obsolete and jam packed. Increasing the limit will raise pollution as well.

As for the journey time argument: If you drive faster while the road is clear you simply reach the next obstruction sooner. Journey times are not significantly reduced.

[Frederick]

What about the trucks ? Will they get an increase in their limit too ?

[Anton Redman]

M26 on a Sunday morning ?

Leave London at 4:30 am heading for Glasgow.

Handsoff speed UK motorwars lower than all autobahn

[mint]

[quote user="Pickles"]

There's a juxtaposition of headlines on the Indy's website which caught my eye and attracted my sense of the absurd. Directly above "Motorway speed limit to be raised" was "Road deaths fall to record low" - almost as if raising the speed limit was a response to counteract the low road deaths.

Regards
Pickles
[/quote]

Yes, Pickles, that made me smile as well.

[idun]

No proper motorways?

Felt like there were to me, when I did rather a long run the other week. I don't live in the south though, although on our hauls to and from Dover / NE we never got held up, even on the London/Dover bit. 

[Hoddy]

Not even on the M1 Idun ? I live near it and travel on it often and I'm usually in three solid lanes of traffic.

hoddy

[Jay]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-15116064

[LEO]

[quote user="Etoile"]There are no proper motorways in the UK. They are all obsolete and jam packed. Increasing the limit will raise pollution as well.

As for the journey time argument: If you drive faster while the road is clear you simply reach the next obstruction sooner. Journey times are not significantly reduced.[/quote]

Hi ,Etoile

Are there proper motorways in France ?

Every time I drive south from Normandy the motorway ends at Rennes , then again at Nantes, then again at  Bordeaux ( peripheriques etc)

In the UK I drive from London to Glasgow staying on the motorway all the way, 400 miles! (no peripheriques )

Etoile ,I think the above means there are plenty of real motorways in Britain!

[pachapapa]

[quote user="LEO"][quote user="Etoile"]There are no proper motorways in the UK. They are all obsolete and jam packed. Increasing the limit will raise pollution as well. As for the journey time argument: If you drive faster while the road is clear you simply reach the next obstruction sooner. Journey times are not significantly reduced.[/quote]


Hi ,Etoile

Are there proper motorways in France ?

Every time I drive south from Normandy the motorway ends at Rennes , then again at Nantes, then again at  Bordeaux ( peripheriques etc)

In the UK I drive from London to Glasgow staying on the motorway all the way, 400 miles! (no peripheriques )

Etoile ,I think the above means there are plenty of real motorways in Britain!




[/quote]

Around larger conurbations the Autoroutes become free in order to make traffic around and within the conurbation more fluid. There will of course be a péage on exiting and entering the pay section.

P.S Leo can I leave the conurbation dictionary check for you.[:)]

[idun]

Hoddy when we used to go down to Dover and back, we never used the M1, well once as there was an accident as we headed north and we decided to follow the M25 round to the the M1.

 However, about three weeks ago I drove down to the east Midlands and back mid week A19 then A1 and then M1 and it was fine, good driving, and I would have loved french driving speeds, although many did 130kmp, I didn't. I'm happy driving around 140kmp on a motorway.

Last time I was in solid traffic was on the A1 around Newcastle upon Tyne and before that in Lyons.

[JSKS]

I always found it curious, when we lived in Germany, that motorists returned to the inside lane once they had overtaken. Our return from North Yorks via A1, M25, M20 yesterday served to confirm that the inside lane on UK motorways is for lorries only. Is that a new law since we left UK in 1990?

As for the 80 mph limit. Seems to me that a. that seems to be the unofficial limit anyway and b. the speed of traffic seems to be at the mercy of the traffic density rather than the posted limit.

Setting aside ''common sense'', it always seemed that drivers on the autobahns were somewhat more alert than on UK car parks, er, motorways. I think it's because the traffic travels at varying speed whereas in the UK everyone is travelling within 10mph of the overtaking or overtaken vehicle and you get the mind-numbing impression of travelling very much more slowly than they really are.

But then all other drivers are idiots except me!!

[idun]

So JK you took the same route north that we always took. Were you held up around London? We never were, but saying that we always avoided rush hour times.

I agree people should use the inside lane, still, I would rather like wagons not being able to move out of the inside lane. Around us in France many people were keen on using the middle lane and hogging it.

 

And I also agree about speeds, I find 70mph is mind numbingly boring on a motorway. Fast is good for me at least, keeps me alert and driving becomes a pleasure.

[Quillan]

Gosh I just caught this thread and it did make me laugh. I am wondering if something really spectacular has happened re traffic on motorways in the UK and the speed you can drive at on them in the last ten years. I ask this because the immediate vision that came to my mind was the amount of times I used to see the electronic speed limit signs on the M25, M2, M11, M23 and M4 drop down to 50mph as I crawled along at 20 or 30 mph thinking "if only". [:(] If I sat and worked out how much time in my last 20 years in the UK I used these motorways I must have spent at least two years sitting in traffic jams and road works.

As we are talking about motorways and to move away from the possible change in speed limits I would like to know how come down here in SW France I hardly ever see roadworks on the Auto routes, they have no 'tram lines' on the inside lanes yet the temperature of the road surface during the summer must be double that in UK where if your in the inside lane you can virtually let go of the steering wheel as it follows the 'tram lines'. Is this a way of creating jobs in the UK?

[Etoile]

Funny how there is this ego thing about speed. Speed produces more emissions and for that reason alone the government will not want to be seen to increase the limits.

Most of the time on British motorways speed is limited by the density of traffic anyway so raising the limit will have little effect on journey times.

In transport terms Britain is a third world country. There needs to be more emphasis on investment in infrastructure rather than in spurious arguments about speed limits and the like.

[LEO]

[quote user="Etoile"]Funny how there is this ego thing about speed. Speed produces more emissions and for that reason alone the government will not want to be seen to increase the limits.

Most of the time on British motorways speed is limited by the density of traffic anyway so raising the limit will have little effect on journey times.

In transport terms Britain is a third world country. There needs to be more emphasis on investment in infrastructure rather than in spurious arguments about speed limits and the like.[/quote]

I think the opposite is true!

France is third world when it comes to transport infrastructure in france

If you live in Paris ,transport links are wonderful , however most of the rest of france have no intercity buses or trains ,unless they are  on the, "to or from  Paris route "!

People in my part of Normandy are devoid of buses and intercity trains !

[Frecossais]

[quote user="Quillan"]

Gosh I just caught this thread and it did make me laugh. I am wondering if something really spectacular has happened re traffic on motorways in the UK and the speed you can drive at on them in the last ten years. I ask this because the immediate vision that came to my mind was the amount of times I used to see the electronic speed limit signs on the M25, M2, M11, M23 and M4 drop down to 50mph as I crawled along at 20 or 30 mph thinking "if only". [:(] If I sat and worked out how much time in my last 20 years in the UK I used these motorways I must have spent at least two years sitting in traffic jams and road works.

As we are talking about motorways and to move away from the possible change in speed limits I would like to know how come down here in SW France I hardly ever see roadworks on the Auto routes, they have no 'tram lines' on the inside lanes yet the temperature of the road surface during the summer must be double that in UK where if your in the inside lane you can virtually let go of the steering wheel as it follows the 'tram lines'. Is this a way of creating jobs in the UK?

[/quote]

It's probably that in the UK, motorways are repaired using inferior quality materials which means they have to be repaired more often. As you say, keeps people in jobs!

Mind you, have you been on that autoroute from Paris going south to Lyon, the A6 I think? You'd think it had speed bumps.

[idun]

Once the autoroute was fully opened via Dijon Bourg en Bresse and linked to the autoroute to Reims etc we never used the A6 much, unless we were heading to say Paris or NW France. There are some brilliant bits of the A6 in the Burgundy region, I think that's where. When the road is very wet, there is next to no splash/spray, even from wagons.

[Théière]

[quote user="Etoile"]Funny how there is this ego thing about speed. Speed produces more emissions  But for less time so what is the net effect? Newer vehicles are not only producing a lot less emissions they have more gears so engine revs can drop lower than older less highly geared vehicles thus less emissions. Most of the time on British motorways speed is limited by the density of traffic anyway so raising the limit will have little effect on journey times They are raising the limit not making it a compulsory speed. In transport terms Britain is a third world country. We have 1st world levels of traffic. There needs to be more emphasis on investment in infrastructure What get rid of more green bits to build more roads? Surely you couldn't mean that. rather than in spurious arguments about speed limits and the like.[/quote]

[crossy67]

[quote user="Quillan"]

 I ask this because the immediate vision that came to my mind was the amount of times I used to see the electronic speed limit signs on the M25, M2, M11, M23 and M4 drop down to 50mph as I crawled along at 20 or 30 mph thinking "if only". [:(][/quote]

I like the signs that say "speed checks in operation" whilst you're doing the 5mph crawl through holiday traffic or the likes.  Always makes me think of a 50 year old copper on a wobbly bush bike pottering through the traffic peeping in through the windows, looking at your speedo to see how fast you're going..

[Gardengirl]

It's a long time since we've been held up on UK motorways, apart from maybe when we made the mistake of taking a taxi to Luton airport on a Monday morning! But we often see them in the opposite direction when we're heading for the channel tunnel from Berkshire, and heave a sigh of relief! We've also arrived back in UK to be met by signs warning of congestion ahead, with none at all to be seen all the way home. Keeps you on your toes, though! We've also had radio traffic warnings all the way south in France, with nothing to be seen when we've driven further on - but often no mantion of the road now being open/clear; we've often planned where to turn off to avoid said hold ups, only to find they're non-existent. 

We often take the alternative route heading south when there are warnings of hold-ups around Lyon, as it's a lovely route as well as avoiding problems around Lyon - which can be awful if you're unlucky. I'm usually happiest heading towards Lyon at lunchtime - rarely any hold ups then.

There are frequently hold ups on the autoroute near Montpelier; there were plans to build extra lanes, but now they are apparently thinking of building a new toll autoroute around Montpelier and making the current area of autoroute non-toll, as a ring-road.

There are lots of hold ups on French autoroutes, it just depends where you are travelling and how often.

[Pickles]

[quote user="gardengirl "]There are frequently hold ups on the autoroute near Montpelier; there were plans to build extra lanes, but now they are apparently thinking of building a new toll autoroute around Montpelier and making the current area of autoroute non-toll, as a ring-road[/quote]

According to Midi Libre, the existing A9 speed limit around Montpellier will be dropped to 90 Km/h with effect from next month. The cameras that enforce the existing 110 Km/h limit are already quite big earners, so this should increase the take even more.

Regards

Pickles

[dave21478]

You also have to realise that there are more motorways in UK than just the M25 and surroundings. The M6 from about Preston northwards is three lanes of often completely empty road. Last time I went up that way, I got from Penrith to near enough Glasgow and only saw maybe a dozen other cars on the road that evening. 80mph in those conditions presents no increased risk at all.

[Frecossais]

The M6 is a nightmare though from Birmingham all the way north to Blackpool. I hate it with a passion for the density of traffic and for the frequency of junctions on that part.