Journey times were about 1 hour difference and consumption about 1 gallon difference.

Is arriving home 1 hour earlier worth £7?

That is the key to the economic argument. If Hammond believes getting somewhere quicker will save companies money he must have done some sums (ha!). Let’s try it out…

Assuming every other part of a journey (getting to and from motorway) stays the same, someone travels 100 miles on the motorway, and they can average the limit what would the saving be?

100 miles @ 70mph = 1 hr 24 mins
100 miles @ 80mph = 1 hr 15 mins

That’s a saving of 9 minutes. If someone’s productivity stays the same after these journeys, and they are paid the average wage (latest figures i can find are £446 a week/38 hours = £11.73), the saving for a firm is about £1.75 per journey of 100 miles.

If you multiply that by the number of journeys people make you probably could get £millions of savings… but how much extra does it cost to drive 100 miles @ 10mph more?

I don’t think car journeys really work that way. They’ll either say ‘you need to be at X by Y’ and you set off in good time, in which case the 9 minutes won’t make any difference, or they will say ‘call me when you get there’ so you will have a relaxing trip and stop for coffee etc, so you’ll just be silghtly more relaxed and take slightly longer over your coffee.

“Increasing the motorway speed limit to 80mph would generate economic benefits of hundreds of millions of pounds through shorter journey times vastly increasing the amount of duty we get from fuel.”

FTFThem

Anyone think this may be part of the reason they are considering this?
A 20% increase in fuel consumption would certainly put a few extra pennies into the govt coffers.

Described in the guardian today as “fuel, fumes & funerals”.

Greenest government ever? Don’t make me laugh.

molgrips – Member
I don’t think car journeys really work that way. They’ll either say ‘you need to be at X by Y’ and you set off in good time, in which case the 9 minutes won’t make any difference, or they will say ‘call me when you get there’ so you will have a relaxing trip and stop for coffee etc, so you’ll just be silghtly more relaxed and take slightly longer over your coffee.

Like i said, lots of assumptions.

This would bring us clsoer to the rest of europe. I think we would be better off with varable limits (stricktly enforced as it seems people can’t do that for them selves) upto 80mph and this would vary depending on the road conditions (traffic, rain, ice etc)
On short journeys it doesn’t make a lot of difference but if you are doing more like 600 miles plus then it can make a difference to be allowed to go a bit faster. The lorries in france, germany etc are restricted to the same speed 80kph/56mph and there arn’t any more accidents becuase the cars can do 130kph/80(ish)mph. We need better lane disapline over hear and to get away from the slow lane is for lorries mentality. Its called the nearside or inside lane and is ment for everyone. they currently use signs to remind people to pull in and its about time they started to prosicute them for it as it is a driving offense.

Meanwhile, in other news…

http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/274216/EU-plans-a-18-mph-speed-limit-and-wants-to-meddle-with-the-Highway-Code

its about time they started to prosicute them for it as it is a driving offense.

It is?

“You should always drive in the left-hand lane when the road ahead is clear. If you are overtaking a number of slower-moving vehicles, you should return to the left-hand lane as soon as you are safely past. Slow-moving or speed-restricted vehicles should always remain in the left-hand lane of the carriageway unless overtaking.”
— Highway Code rule 264

No MUST NOT in there, just a “should” and some woolly qualifiers (i.e. how far ahead should be clear?)

mrspoddy coming along too?

I think so yes. Weather looks BRILLIANT!!

excellent 😀

mmm … increase to 80mph? Reinforces my preference for either:

(a) taking the train for long journeys (especially those that involve motorways!). Yes, sometimes it might cost more or take a bit longer (although often it doesn’t), but it means that it is ‘my time’ rather than ‘dead time’ – ie I can read, sleep, work etc rather than just ‘travel’

(b) carry on doing 55-60mph to reduce average fuel consumption.

The relentless desire to travel faster and faster doesn’t seem to have added to overall quality of life, we just have a more frantic, stressed and impatient society.

“if you are doing more like 600 miles plus then it can make a difference to be allowed to go a bit faster”

So it’s pointless in the UK then…?

No MUST NOT in there, just a “should”

Which is because there’s no specific offence of middle lane driving – doesn’t mean that not pulling over to the left wouldn’t be sufficient evidence to prosecute for some non-specific motoring offence (ie careless driving, or whatever that’s called nowadays).

Lots of what I think about this has already been written so – crikey +1.

Anybody care to workout the cost of travelling at 80 for 100 miles rather than 70..? I know nothing about fuel efficiency.

Lane discipline is what bothers me the most on dual carriageways and motorways.
If somebody wants to do 55-60mph on these roads then fair enough but have the courtesy to do it in the far left lane. As the highway code says, the other lanes are for overtaking.

The most irritating people on the road are those who sit at 60mph in the middle lane….actually they are trumped by the ones that do 70mph in the far right lane preventing anybody from going past. If they have a problem with people breaking the speed limit then call in to the police with registration numbers….or just join the police. Joyless bastards.

Traffic would flow ten times better and we’d avoid the concertina effect if people drove in the correct lanes.

I take the motorbike on most long journeys these days, dont sit in traffic and can ignore average speed cameras as they face the front of the vehicle and there’s no number plate on the front of a bike….also never gets old watching people’s angry contorted faces as i filter past to the front of the traffic.

Driving at 80mph on clear roads doesn’t make you more stressed; and if our journey times were reduced we’d have more time to do everything else, so could very easily lead to less stress not more.

A far better option to improve motorway driving would be to put it on the driving test (in the theory bit) and then roll out a big campaign of TV shows and ads to educate the current qualified drivers.

Anybody care to workout the cost of travelling at 80 for 100 miles rather than 70..? I know nothing about fuel efficiency.

Well if my car did 50mpg at 70 and 45mpg at 80, I’d use 2 gallons at 70 and 2.22 gallons at 80. That’s 1 litre extra – current cost ~£1.35 (last time I filled up, which was a while ago.

Of course it all depends how much difference it makes to your economy – the real difference in fuel economy between those speeds is nowhere near that much – I’d guess about half, hence the cost is ~70p, or ~£4 an hour – less than minimum wage.

Dukes are known to be a bit high geared and to be honest 6th isn’t much good until you get to 70.

Maybe just use 5th then, eh? 😀

“the real difference in fuel economy between those speeds is nowhere near that much“

Depends on your car. For one of my cars, the figures you give are almost bang on.

If you stuck a rack of bikes on it the difference would be even greater.

Everyone knows there are only two kinds of men who feel the need to drive fast: professional racers and the poorly endowed. Sorry, but those are the facts. Obviously, some men will disagree, but only because they’ve lost all sense of reason, so enraged are they by the teeny-tiny dimensions of their penises, which really are crushingly small – so small they’d still look undersized even if transplanted directly onto a thimble-height scaled-down nude action figure of Dudley Moore.

Seriously, those guys deserve pity. They’d give anything to be packing a huge flesh-club down there – a fearsome, weighty great shank that emits a guttural snarl when roused before ripping through their pants like an escaped boar – but instead they’re cursed with a timid skin pipette, peeping through their pubic thatch like a frightened uvula, or a dormouse foetus, or the quivering tip of a Clanger’s nose. It’s humiliating. And that’s why they drive so fast. Even if they deny that’s the reason. In fact, particularly if they deny that’s the reason.

Anyway, I’m getting off the (teeny tiny) point here. The reason I bring this FACT (and it is a FACT) to your attention is the government’s plan to raise the motorway speed limit to 80mph, which is misguided for two reasons. Firstly because it’ll make Jeremy Clarkson smile, which is always a reliable barometer for bad policies. But mostly because it’s just not necessary.

I understand why they’re doing it – it’s a brazen attempt to capture the seething underdicked male vote, and that’s an important group to placate, because let’s face it, those guys are as furious as they are unpredictable – but it seems curiously self-defeating. Part of the argument for raising the permitted figure to 80mph is that lots of people break the existing 70mph limit: roughly half of all motorway drivers, in fact. Why are they driving that fast? The government seems to earnestly believe these people are in a hurry, which is terribly sweet of them, but we all know that isn’t the reason. It’s to do with pushing the limit, with gently breaking the law. I can’t drive a car – I’m an inferior human being – but even I understand the psychology of the accelerator pedal. If cars came with two speeds – 30mph or 90mph, and the only way to switch between them was by pushing an instant “break the speed limit” button, drivers might think twice about doing so. But that pedal, that incremental, giving pedal … it almost encourages you to push your luck.

Another dumb thing the dumb government seems to dumbly believe is that raising the speed limit will boost the economy. According to transport secretary Philip Hammond, “increasing the motorway speed limit to 80mph would generate economic benefits of hundreds of millions of pounds through shorter journey times”. I don’t think he actually said those words out loud. I think he physically carved them, letter-by-letter, out of pure horseshit. If Hammond honestly thinks “shorter journey times” are the key to fixing the economy, why hasn’t he kickstarted a campaign encouraging us to take bigger, brisker strides? Why isn’t he issuing us all with stilts? Why isn’t he touring the nation, sawing off our children’s feet and replacing them with wheels? There are only two possible explanations: either he doesn’t care about our economic wellbeing or he knows damn well he’s talking through his hat. Which he wears up his backside.

Incidentally, as well as raising the upper limit to 80mph, he is also increasing the number of 20mph zones. So you’ll be hearing far more screeching brakes in future. Don’t worry, eventually it’ll blend unnoticed into the background, like birdsong or gunfire.

The current situation, in which the official limit is 70mph, but which half the population pushes to somewhere around 80mph when they think they can get away with it, seems like a fair compromise. The 70-80mph buffer zone of cheeky lawlessness seems about right. Why punch it higher? If anyone really, really wants to drive faster than that, they could visit a test track, play Need for Speed, or simply risk it and swallow the consequences. It’s useless in everyday life. Unless you’re delivering urgent donor organs, you don’t need to reach your destination that quickly. And if you think you do, either set out earlier, or spend less time browsing for “Grab Bag” size packs of Quavers at the service station.

And besides: zooming petrolheads already have it their own way on the roads: aggressively driving up other peoples’ arses, bleating away with their horns, flashing their lights … seriously, what’s wrong with you people? It can’t just be the penis thing, surely? The anger and the obvious raging inadequacy seems so … raw. Do you need a cuddle, is that it? Should we designate special laybys to be used for cuddle-breaks, just to calm you down? Come to think of it, that’s probably how dogging started. Fair enough. If that’s what it takes to get people to slow down, it’s fine by me.

Because there’s too much bad-tempered showboating on the roads, and not enough amiable sauntering. When I become minister for transport, I’ll introduce a new motorway lane specifically designed for 19th-century horse-drawn hay carts – a lane that criss-crosses all the other lanes at random intervals. I’d also position a sniper on every bridge and instruct them to blow the head off anyone who looks like they’re getting a bit of speed up. Or anyone who looks like they’re enjoying the road a bit too much for my liking. Or anyone listening to an album I hate. Or wearing a loud shirt. Or who might be Sagittarian.

Basically anyone. Anyone in a car. Or near a car. Or who looks like they’re thinking about cars.

Hey, I’m just trying to offer solutions here. If you don’t like it – leave. Leave now. Get out. Get out of this article this instant.

Charlie Brooker

I did a 300+ mile round trip over the weekend and happily sat at a steady 70mph all the way. What I noticed was that the majority of cars were going way faster and I was just overtaking the wagons etc.

Then every so often I would come up behind a tailback of cars in the middle and outside lanes, all jamming on brakes, undertaking, tailgating etc.

But then occasionally I came up behind some clown (usually in a Rover 45) doing exactly 45mph.

Ohh, and the real idiots who think it is okay to fly down the ‘fast’ lane then cut right across two lanes of traffic at the last minute because they actually wanted to come off at a junction.

Charlie Brooker

Phew – when I saw that tagline at the bottom I thought I’d have to revise my opinion, but fortunately my original position conforms with my policy of disagreeing with everything Charlie says.

will be good for me if it ever happens.
Long drives down the M74 with virtually nothing on the road, cruising at 80 and not looking at every bridge to check for cameras. Not having to deal with heavy braking every time the car infront sees a “motorway patrol” car.
It seems that most of the near accidents I encounter come from people desperately trying to slow to 70 to avoid a ticket.

This is all Philip Hammonds idea. Theres no rational justification behind it, he just thinks the speed limit should be 80mph and has thought up some reasons to justify it, the economy, cars are safer, etc.. The 20mph speed limit in city centres is not part of the consultation. He’s told the civil servants to look into raising it to 80mph. Why not 90? 60? he’s just picked a number out of the air.

I really don’t think its going to make much difference to anything, but it will take a considerable amount of time and money to implement, which might be better spent looking at other things.

Why not 90? 60?

Presumably to bring us into line with Europe…?

Presumably to bring us into line with Europe…?

Europe doesn’t have standard motorway speed limit, it varies country to country from 100-130kph.

My cars limited to 80mph.

Can I stick in the fast lane now..

It seems that most of the near accidents I encounter come from people desperately trying to slow to 70 to avoid a ticket.

What makes you think we won’t have exactly the same thing only 10mph faster?

Presumably to bring us into line with Europe…?

If we’re doing that then why not do it properly and move to kilometres and kph.

Think of the huge numbers of jobs it would create: changing every road sign and speed limit across the land. If that wasn’t enough then we could always switch to driving on the right at the same time 😀

What makes you think we won’t have exactly the same thing only 10mph faster?

+1

Accidents are caused by the speed differential. Presumably, the 45mph vehicle will still be doing that speed when the limit is raised. 10mph more speed differential means more accidents, which will be worse ans the cars are moving faster and kinetic energy is proportional to velocity^2.

graham S – because I’ll stick to 80 like I have for years

Should also be a MIN limit to reduce the speed differential too

chriswilk: you might, do you reckon anyone else will?

The speed limit is 70, a large number of folk drive at 80+

If they up the limit to 80 then those same folk will probably drive at 90+. Maybe not straight away, but I’d guess that after a couple of years the number of speeders would be roughly the same.

Long drives down the M74 with virtually nothing on the road, cruising at 80 and not looking at every bridge to check for cameras. Not having to deal with heavy braking every time the car infront sees a “motorway patrol” car

Drive at 70. Problem solved.

If they up the limit to 80 then those same folk will probably drive at 90+.

As I’ve already said, I don’t think they will. They’ll just be able to get on with driving at 80mph without worrying about cameras

Drive at 70. Problem solved.

Not really, there’s dozens of folk who slam on despite being below the speed limit already.

If they up the limit to 80 then those same folk will probably drive at 90+. Maybe not straight away, but I’d guess that after a couple of years the number of speeders would be roughly the same.

I’m not sure that’s the case, but I’ve no proof either way so it’s pointless saying it ultimately.

Not really, there’s dozens of folk who slam on despite being below the speed limit already.

I drive at 70, and I don’t seem to have any of these problems. I don’t need to look out for cameras or police cars, and if anyone in front brakes to say 60mph, well, that’s why I leave an adequate braking distance.

I drive at 70, and I don’t seem to have any of these problems. I don’t need to look out for cameras or police cars, and if anyone in front brakes to say 60mph, well, that’s why I leave an adequate braking distance.

Brilliant! One of the best I’ve seen.

What I wonder is – do any of these morons who speed up and slow down in between the cameras on the new ‘average speed’ sites on the M1 ever get caught. I was watching a few of them doing that over the weekend. Idjits.

Can anyone explain this rare phenomenon, you don’t see it much, but you do see it;

Large empty motorway (M74 on a Sunday afternoon for example), small car in outside lane cruising along. You come up behind them and move in to outside lane to come up behind them. They instantly see you and move over (good awareness). You pass and while you are going back in to the inside lane, they move immediately back in to the “fast lane” and maintain their cruise.

I find it very bizarre, but also quite entertaining.

Brycey – I see this often on the M74, sometimes outside lane, but more often in the middle.