• This topic has 192 replies, 22 voices, and was last updated 5 years ago by DezB.
Viewing 33 posts - 161 through 193 (of 193 total)
  • What's your understanding of the National Speed Limit in the UK?
  • DezB
    Free Member

    I’ve just realised. God I’m stupid – nobody will read my last post, and this bump of this will just start the arguments about the National Speed Limit signs again.

    For this I can only apologise. I’ll get it closed asap.

    perchypanther
    Free Member

    The Book of Regulations 13:18

    “Let him who hath understanding reckon the number of the speed, for it is a human number, its number is seventy or sixty on a single carriageway road with no streetlamps”

    whitestone
    Free Member

    @DezB – I looked at it as refresher training when I did one a few years ago, it had been 35 years since I’d had any training, i.e. before I took my driving test. That’s 35 years of developing bad habits 🙁 Obviously a 4 hour course isn’t going to correct that overnight.

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    DezB
    Free Member

    Thank you for that sensible post, whitestone 🙂  If the course helps me in any way, it can only be a good thing.

    butcher
    Full Member

    …this bump of this will just start the arguments about the National Speed Limit signs again.

    🙂 I had the exact same confusion as the OP. When I attended a speed awareness course, they stated national speed limit is 30mph in built up areas with lamp posts, which would suggest anywhere of that description displaying an NSL sign…

    Actually took me a long time and a bit of research to work out that what they were actually talking about is a default limit applied when no signs are present.

    As far as the speed awareness course goes, I quite enjoyed it. You’ll get a couple of people huffing and puffing like school children, refusing to take anything in, because they obviously know better. And there will be the ones you’ll be amazed even had licences in the first place. But for the most part I think people come out a little more thoughtful about their driving. I did.

    DezB
    Free Member

    I did plan to ride there and sit through it in my cycling gear, but damaged ribs has put paid to that little scheme.

    eddiebaby
    Free Member

    Drive there in cycle clothes, park elsewhere. Walk in.

    DezB
    Free Member

    😆 that’d be silly!

    perchypanther
    Free Member

    Drive there in cycle clothes, scream in to the car park at 50 mph, handbrake skid to a halt outside front  door,  abandon car. Walk in.

    DezB
    Free Member

    If only my car had a handbrake…

    joat
    Full Member

    If only your car had a foot brake, this thread would not have been resurrected.

    bikebouy
    Free Member

    Bend over, take it like a Man.

    bearnecessities
    Full Member

    If you think to ‘take it like a man’ means having to bend over, you’ve been misled by several officers.

    DezB
    Free Member

    If only your car had a foot brake

    Ha! I wasn’t in MY car

    wrightyson
    Free Member

    Do any of the 5 previous pages apply to white van man?

    sparksmcguff
    Full Member

    Think you’re getting her up over nothing. Drive in Switzerland, the US, Germany, the speed limit is constantly changing. At least in the UK there’s a speed limit and its applied in a fairly straightforward manner.

    Flaperon
    Full Member

    What about roads where each side is separated by a barrier, marked as NSL, but is only a single lane on each side?  I think this is technically a dual-carriageway and a 70mph limit, uh, Your Honour.

    martinhutch
    Full Member

    What about roads where each side is separated by a barrier, marked as NSL, but is only a single lane on each side?  I think this is technically a dual-carriageway and a 70mph limit, uh, Your Honour.

    Correct.

    whitestone
    Free Member

    @Flaperon – yes it’s a dual carriageway. Dual is probably the wrong word really, “divided” would be better. As Martin says, if it’s marked as NSL then it’s 70mph limit. One of those edge cases where you have to apply several parts of the regulations.

    Kamakazie
    Full Member

    5 pages confirms that the NSL sign is a bit confusing…

    Back to the original post: I would suggest that the road you mentioned is incorrectly signposted. It should have had 60mph gateway signs & repeaters. As you pointed out, the NSL on that road would usually be 30moph unless otherwise stated. They were stating that the speed limit was the NSL (by using the NSL sign) which should be 30mph.

    There should be no reason to use NSL repeaters, only gateway signs when exiting an area where NSL wasn’t applied (40 in an urban, 50 in a rural etc.).

    edlong
    Free Member

     yes it’s a dual carriageway. Dual is probably the wrong word really, “divided” would be better.

    Why? The “dual” refers to the number of separate carriageways (i.e. two, one going in each direction) not the number of lanes in each – you wouldn’t refer to one with three lanes in each direction as a “trial carriageway”

    Kamakazie
    Full Member

    With regard to dual carriageways, dual carriageway does not mean 2 lanes in each direction, it means 2 divided carriageways separated by a barrier or a verge.

    You could have 1, 2 3, or 10 lanes on each side and it would be a dual carriageway.

    thepodge
    Free Member

    Ask a few too many questions and make the course over run by 10 minutes then sit back in amazement at how many people speed out of the car park on their phones.

    tthew
    Full Member

    OK, this seems like a place to ask, (was going to say sensible place, but…)

    On the Deeside Industrial Park, (Welsh Deeside, not Scottish) there are at least 3 huge, but temporary 50MPH signs with a black border instead of red. The NSL repeaters on the lamp posts aren’t covered up.

    Advisory speed limit, or a warning of a lower limit further on? By further on I mean about 3 miles, a couple of massive roundabouts and a major road bridge. This is way outside the limit that any traffic backing up to the speed restriction would reach.

    Cougar
    Full Member

    I’d guess “mandatory limit which is technically unenforceable due to incorrect signage.”

    whitestone
    Free Member

    @edlong – a lot of people mistakenly assume that the “dual” bit refers to there usually being two lanes in each direction rather than two separate carriageways (with unspecified number of lanes) that just happen to be going in opposite directions.

    TurnerGuy
    Free Member

    The OP is right though – if I saw the NSL sign I would assume that the speed limit is the national speed limit, and if I was in a built up area (<span class=”ILfuVd yZ8quc”>a settled area identified by the presence of <b>street lights</b></span>), then the NSL is 30.

    TrekEX8
    Free Member

    From my speed awareness course:

    Can you roll an orange across the road.? If no, it’s a dual carriageway.

    TrekEX8
    Free Member

    My understanding is that there is never an unannounced change of speed limit.

    it will always be marked by a large sign. But for a change to a 30 zone there will probably be no small repeater signs after the initial sign if there are street lights.

    downshep
    Full Member

    Not read past page 1 of the thread..

    BUA, as indicated by the presence of streetlamps = always a 30 unless signed differently. If different, repeaters are required. Doesn’t matter if single or dual carriageway, the same rule applies.

    Rural road with no streetlamps = always a NSL (white sign with black diagonal) unless signed differently. If different, repeaters are required.

    NSL = 60 on single carriageway or 70 on dual for cars and motorcycles.

    Umpteen variations based on vehicle class / towing.

    Simples!

    Greybeard
    Free Member

    My understanding is that there is never an unannounced change of speed limit. it will always be marked by a large sign.

    I agree if you mean a specific limit. But if the NSL applies, the effective limit will change from 70 to 60 if you go from dual to single carriageway, and there will be no speed sign, and possibly (?) no sign for the end of the dual a carriageway.

    But for a change to a 30 zone there will probably be no small repeater signs after the initial sign if there are street lights.

    I’ve never seen 30mph repeaters, nor a 30 limit with no street lights.

    thisisnotaspoon
    Free Member

    BUA, as indicated by the presence of streetlamps = always a 30 unless signed differently. If different, repeaters are required. Doesn’t matter if single or dual carriageway, the same rule applies.

    Rural road with no streetlamps = always a NSL (white sign with black diagonal) unless signed differently. If different, repeaters are required.

    There’s at least one village round here where the 30 limit extends a long way past the houses (doubt there are any street lamps in the village either). I’ve not measured it but its a lot more than the repeater distance for 20’s.

    I did mean to query it at the time as its on one of the motorcycle test routes.

    There is probably a good reason for it like a farm entrance, I just wondered what the technical requirements for 30mph repeaters were.

    DezB
    Free Member

    Well, the course was pretty good actually. Lots of stuff made me think! Especially the bit about how speed limits are only changed (reduced) on roads where stats show that the existing limits mean more accidents. I swore blind where I was caught wasn’t at all dangerous, but I guess it’s 30 for a reason.

    also made me think about my passengers and how shit it is for them to be driven by such a **** (it’s not often cos, for good reason, I don’t drive much). So, hopefully, I can improve on that front.

    and the dual carriageway/ national speed limit was very clearly explained- a lot of the people on the course saying they’d learned something useful in that regard.

    Biggest surprise for me was the lack of arseholes in the room and (after what other people have said) the  absence of cyclist hatred.

    //thread 😉

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