1) People can drive like nobs without breaking the speed limit.
2) This is supposed to be for "environmental reasons", not safety reasons.
3) Small cars doing 70mph will still pollute less than 4x4's etc doing 50pmh.
4) Could you imagine the nightmare of getting from A to B if everywhere was 50mph only?

Taking that to its logical extreme, ban all road vehicles, including cyclists. F***in retard IMO. 70mph is an inappropriate speed limit in this current day and age and needs to be raised to 100MPH.

I'd settle for 80mph.

That's my point - no they won't. They break the speed limit because they feel entitled to drive at the speed they want to and feel the speed limit doesn't apply to them. If we reduced the speed limit they'll still carry on feeling entitled to drive at the speed they want to and feel the speed limit doesn't apply to them. So they'd drive at exactly the same speed. Someone who think it's OK to drive at 90 on a road and ignore whatever speed limit there is is going to drive on that road at 90 and ignore whatever the speed limit is, regardless of whether the speed limit is 70 or 50.

The people who would obey the speed limit at 50 are the people who are currently obeying the speed limit at 70. There are arguments for and against a 50MPH speed limit but 'it'll stop idiots driving at 90' is about the weakest of them. idiots who drive at 90 will drive at 90, regardless of what the speed limit is, because they already do now.

Jon

Indeed - but they tend to do less damage at lower speeds



Ah okay. You didn't make that clear in your original post and my days as clairvoyant are long since gone.



Yes. It be slower and less stressful.

Not to mention the almost-prurient delight of watching people with big expensive vehicles having to drive at the same speed as the poor.

Is there any better form of schadenfreude (Sorry Dave) than watching someone in a Ferrari stuck in a traffic jam?

Jon

Yes

Watching someone in a convertible Lambo stuck in a traffic jam in a rainstorm after having left the roof at home.

Seen it.

Seriously. You think a poor person can't get above 50? or 70? I can say for a fact I've owned a couple of bangers and each was capable of doing more than any prescribed speed limit in the UK.

I feel your argument is flawed and is more centred on a hatred for driver of big and/or expensive cars rather than the current speed limit.

If they're paying for their own fuel, yes.



In which case I know you're utterly wrong. My hatred is not aimed at "driver of big and/or expensive cars" as though the size or price of the vehicle somehow irritates me.

My hatred is aimed at nobhead drivers. However, because in my experience most of the nobheads I encounter are "driver of big and/or expensive cars", they tend to be the primary object of my ire.

If you have an issue with people doing over 70 all the time, you could always argue for average speed cameras on motorways (not just for road work).
I'd disagree as people will spend more time looking at their speedometers than they do at the road, but that's my opinion. I also find average speed cameras more stressful than normal driving.

Facebook account deactivated.

=======================================


That's the thing though - I don't actually want a speed limit. Everything about speed limits offends my liberal leanings; I'd rather people just drove sensibly. But they don't - and so a speed limit is required along with the enforcement.

The trouble is that the enforcement is almost non-existent. And so now we're in the situation where, instead of sensible enforcement by sensible Dibble of a sensible limit, I'm being asked to consider methods of control such as average speed cameras, ANPR and in-car tracking. All because the speed limit isn't 70mph, it's actually 86mph before Dibble will do anything about it on the rare occasions he turns up.

It's all way too Orwellian for my tastes. But what can be done in the face of a singular lack of enforcement, lack of funding and support for enforcement, drivers who insist on behaving like nobs and a demand for a higher limit so that nobs can be even worse?

As I understand it, that's the very reason speed limits were introduced to motorways. Originally there weren't any.

Indeed.

But a limit is useless without enforcement.

Nah, it gives the self-righteous Daily Mail reading section of society a good excuse to suck air through their teeth and tut disaprovingly at those going past them whilst they trundle along in the middle lane in a cloud of oblivion.

But as long as they're doing 70, nobody should be going past them.