Important word there. Completely changes the meaning of what ACPO have been reported to have said.

Eu directive to have all new cars installed with telematics devices from 2018 (date from memory) hopefully you’ll all just explode as soon as the limit is exceeded have your speed electronically limited after that.

Tomhoward, I am deadly serious about the speed limits etc. Just not convinced the sad lame petrol heads (of which I am/was) will ever be placated. You think the fluffy kitten/child’s face brigade are barking, along with the tobacco lobby, but the motorists lobby is so mental. An Englishman’s car is an extension of his castle.

Happy days!

Speed is only one (minor) part of vehicle control.

Where’s the statistical analysis to find out what kind of speeds are being seen in 20mph limit areas, and whether or not accident rates are affected. And whether it’s even the same in all parts of the country.

Anecdote based policy making?

Urban limits are pretty much the only ones I pay much attention to, tbh! I know it’s anecdoty but speeding in our 20mph area (and in the neighbouring 30mph areas) is fairly constant, there’s speedbumps etc but they don’t really do the job.

There is a lot more that could be done on urban planning in residential areas to naturally reduce speeds.

But it would be great to see traffic enforcement move from easy catches on high speed roads into residential areas.

It should be blocked off then. Thats the thing residential areas should be the last or first few hundred metres of anyone’s journey, not a through route. People need to start making the mental connection that these are the streets we live on, where our and our neighbours kids play.

They need separating from roads used for through traffic.

A cars ability to safely negotiate a stretch of road is not the only reason to set a speed limit.

Re 20s I wish they’d sign these better as a few times I’ve pootled down a road at28 only to find Iwas 8mph over the limit.

Re speed limiting cars to 70 – I can’t see this saving any cycling lives, I’d prefer black boxes in all cars that provide evidence on driving so drivers don’t squirm out of dangerous driving charges

Good, 20s are a good idea.

I hate speed bumps though, both in the car and on my bike. The ones that are just islands, rather than the whole way across, mean that drivers swerve to get them between their wheels, they cut in too close.

Forty Hill is a 20. NO ONE STICKS TO IT. When I drive along it I go 20, with a group of tailgating cars 2″ off my bumper. When I ride along it they swerve in and out behind me trying desperatey to get past. FFS wait! It’s only a couple of km long, and there are lights on the bridge half way down anyway.

There are 20s all over on my route to work, people simply don’t observe them.

When I am Queen there will be stiff penalties for speeding in residential areas – proper loss of licence and freedom penalties (plus when they are in jail they will be put on a chain gang to build cycle ways), but I shall allow my subjects to go fast (faster than now) on motorways and other suitable trunk roads.

There will be no danger to cyclists, horsists, and footists because there will be proper alternative, convenient, pleasant, viable routes for them which are separated physically from the motorised traffic. On routes where it is not possible to separate squishy road users from hard ones, the hard ones will just jolly well have to slow down OR ELSE see above.

The problem as I see it, is that there is peer pressure on the roads, and people are reluctant to slow down for the fear of holding others up. And because it’s so uncommon, that automatically makes you an outsider if you were to slow down even if there’s no one else there. There is always this fear of acting outside social norms.

That type of behaviour will only be changed by direct intervention, for example by campaigning or enforcing the limits. I probably wouldn’t be as aware as what I am if I wasn’t so familiar with being a vulnerable road user. It makes you think differently when you can physically feel the traffic passing you.

It shouldn’t require physical measures of humps chicanes etc as there is an intelligent being piloting the vehicle
Itds funny when riding a motorcycle fast on an A road and the 40 mph dodderers that hold you up on an A road carry on at 40 through a village…

Physically limit the speed of cars and drivers will then drive at that limit, whether appropriate or not. You can already see this behaviour in HGVs.
If you start to remove people’s need to be responsible then they will gladly oblige by being less responsible.
I know regulating speed is easy, but I would rather we concentrated on aspects of bad driving that are responsible for far more accidents than the 4% caused by excess speed.

There is a 20mph limit by a school near me that I generally obey, although It’s possible I might be travelling a little faster at 3am on the way home from work.
Im my ideal world there would be no speed limits, so zero enforcement*. Couple that with no speedometer in cars and people would be forced to think a little harder about what speed is appropriate.

*Drivers could still be prosecuted for driving too fast, if they travelled at a speed that would not enable them to stop in the distance they could see was, and could reasonably expect to remain, clear, for example.

Law says 70mph in UK, end of really, If you are a driving god and think you are safe at 80-90 then you are actually an idiot and are breaking the law. Mind you if your driving in thick fog and doing 70 you are still an idiot, so speed is only half the story.

What i would also mention is speed differentials, when i first started driving and using motorways it took a little time to get used to overtaking, i was doing 70 seeing what seemed a safe gap to move into to overtake only to realise the car that was in the faster lane was doing a ton and far closer than first appeared.

Speed limits need to be respected and you should always drive to the conditions.

The 70mph speed limit was set in the UK in 1965 and that still the limit.

My point is that a lot of UK drivers do not compare to the better standards on the EU.

Our motorways, slip roads in the UK are as good as those on the EU, (our slip roads tend to have a lot of run off) the problem is we are an island all fighting for the same piece of tarmac.

If you want to drive fast, do track days or go to the North Loop.

But our roads are some of the “safest” in the world:
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic-related_death_rate

(For a specific definition of safety)

I always thought 20s were legally enforceable and exceeding the signed limit in a 20 carried the same weight as a. 30, 40, 50, etc…

So yeah I obey 20s, many don’t…

So far as I understand the intention of our limits in the UK, they are supposed to be proportionate to the risk along that specific stretch of road, Hence many 20s are near schools, parks or other locations where you are likely to find children (perhaps lacking in traffic awareness).

Blanket 20s for all residential areas? Dunno, obviously there are kids about perhaps not in the same numbers but volume of children shouldn’t be the only point to consider. I don’t think current 20s are well enough enforced and putting in “traffic calming features” often seems to have the opposite effect, drivers seeing them as a new chicane to spice up their drive home.

Making a road 20 without any visible enforcement regime seems to mean that over time drivers end up treating it as a 30, which might be the real (unstated) goal, using the majority’s habit of exceeding the signed limit by a certain percentage o get them to do more or less what you want.

The other benefit might be nothing to do with safety but actually about public spending, our local residential roads are a wreak, potholes galore and that is certainly due to speed, a vehicle braking hard from 30 – 0 chucks a lot more energy into the road that one slowing from 20, plus the increased reaction window means drivers will be doing less panic braking and might read the road ahead a little bit better. Road repairs fall to local authorities, so expect them to be all in favour of anything that limits the now annual post winter patch up costs.

No such thing as a slow lane.

This is a prime example that people who are traveling along the carriage way are not reading the road. I guess you mean M6 J14, yes its a short slip road, into 3 lanes of traffic…. so i’m not sure what your point is ?

Restricted speed limits are also set in Germany by the way…

Two ways to reduce the number of accidents – take away the cars or take away the people. We’ve done the latter – Much less walking and cycling. Children no longer allowed to play outside in the street.

Cars are much safer – seatbelts, airbags, crumple zones, ABS brakes. But they’re not significantly safer when they hit a human (a little tinkering around the edges but offset by more, and bigger cars, being driven faster). 4x4s are a nightmare for ped’s – much more likely to kill as they hit you higher up so the impact is greater (you’re less likely to go up and over the bonnet – more likely to ‘bounce’ off which means more force).