People regularly drive at 80mph on motorways now anyway - legal or not.

The govt dropping plans to make it legal means nothing to the average person who will carry on as before.

All it means is one more thing on the list of broken promises...

I think that the increase in speed limits would cause the government significant problems meeting its carbon emissions targets.

I'm glad they've dropped it

Owning an old 5 speed 'family' car the difference for me between 70 and 80 would be pretty high in terms of fuel economy reductions

I am in two minds about it. While many will still ignore it and still go at 80 most of the time. They will pay for it via higher fuel but you should not feel pressured to go any faster.

The limit is just that, a limit, not a goal.
You do not have to go 80 if that's the limit.

Mark

They are planning on dropping the speed limit in Germany to 120km/h, approx. 70mph, from a 'recommended' 130km/h. Sabine Roth, leader of the Green/B90 party (the one that got beaten up by the authorities in Turkey last week) has been campaigning for the lower limit for years, claiming up to 30% less fuel and less co2 output.

There is certainly a big difference with my car, driving at 120 or less, I get around 6.8l/100km, at 130 it is closer to 7.4.

How much of a 'voting issue' is it do you think? I seem to recall one party member being ostracised when he spoke of lowering the current limit(s).

For the Green party it is a positive thing, for the rest, it is verging on political suicide. To go from a recommended 130, with no actual limit in those areas, to a strict 120, that is a huge difference for many drivers.

Especially those that are on the road a lot and drive at over 250km/h, it would be a big hit. That said more and more parts of the network are under speed restrictions anyway. The limits are coming in the back door by classing parts of the network as too dangerous for unrestricted speeds, so they are set to 80,100 or 120km/h.

For the 'unlimited' areas, you can drive as fast as you like, but if you drive with over 130km/h and you are involved in an accident, you have part liability, whether you caused the accident or not - i.e the insurance won't pay out the full amount. The network is also so busy, that you can't really get your foot down for long, you end up accelerating hard, braking even harder, which means more stress, even more fuel consumption and additional wear and tear on brakes and suspension.

Though if you are rich enough to be able to afford such a car the extra costs of fuel etc will be insignificant, plus they really do not pay the true carbon costs so really do not care.

A Ford Mondeo diesel will do 240, driving at 150 will get about over 45mpg, constantly accelerating hard to over 200 and braking will drop that to mid 20s.

Yes but many will be driving porsches or high end sports cars, where fuel economy is not as important.

But only a very small minority of people driving at high speeds are people in Porsches or Ferraris. The majority are driving VW, Kia, Peugeot, Toyota, Ford, Opel etc. The price of fuel is not something they can really ignore, but the rush of driving "faster" that the Porsche or whatever they just blew past gets them.

We all knew politicians would never have the balls to actually raise a speed limit.