By the same logic, we should say it’s morally wrong to participate in anything that could result in a call-out for the emergency services. Cycling for example.

theotherjonv – Member – I don’t think the same sort of psychological trauma is likely to be involved in treating the average cycling wrist or collarbone as picking someone’s body parts out of a crushed car that’s hit a tree. And when my mum got the call to come and pick me up because i was in a wrist cast….. i think she was more annoyed at me messing up her timing of the sunday roast than devastated at the loss of her eldest child in an entirely avoidable ‘accident’.

But you carry on, it’s only yourself you’re harming.

Actually, I had in mind the poor commuter who goes up the inside of a truck and gets squished. Absolutely disgraceful these cyclists riding around in traffic… think of the poor fireman that has to scoop her up etc etc

I don’t speed anymore I think it’s selfish,however I do agree with this

Daft doing that speed, but a ten year ban. Get a grip. It’s far more dangerous driving at 30 past a school than it is 120 on a deserted 3 lane motorway (in a high performance car).

Context is everything…[quote]

You didn’t say that though, you said ‘anyone who participates in anything that could result in a call out for emergency services’

FWIW; seeing as you raised it I think people who drive up the inside of trucks and busses are bellends, just the same as those idiots that drive unsafely and who think it’s all about them and their rights and choices.

Less crashes on our motorways than other roads. Very true.

However, if involved in a motorway crash you are far more likely to be critically injured or killed…

Simple reason, speed.

The question is, where do you draw the line? If the limit were 150mph there would still be people that feel the need to get to where they are going at 180mph.

There is no definitive “safe speed” for a motorway or any road but if you want less fatalities the lower the limit the better.

Personally, seeing how some drivers can’t even park a car properly, 70mph is fine by me.

Am i prefect,no? Have I ever broken speed limits, yes?

In my youth I was an idiot. At 49 I stick to the limits to the best of my ability only going over slightly due to “speed creep” as you simply can’t keep your eye on the speedo all the time.

Personally I think that 100mph+ on a motorways should be a mandatory ban, no ifs, no buts.

Also, just to check, this is a biking forum isn’t it? Motorways not withstanding we are some of the most likely to get injured/killed by a reckless driver. Whether that recklessness is speeding or negligence the result can be the same.

but we aren’t talking about reckless drivers, those are other people.

We’re talking about driving GODS 😉

theotherjonv – Member
You didn’t say that though, you said ‘anyone who participates in anything that could result in a call out for emergency services’

That’s why I said ‘cycling’ rather than ‘Mountain Biking’. But fairy muff.

FWIW; seeing as you raised it I think people who drive up the inside of trucks and busses are bellends, just the same as those idiots that drive unsafely and who think it’s all about them and their rights and choices.

I wouldn’t say they were bellends. Just ignorant. My point being that they are doing something quite dangerous in cycling round a city. Probably more dangerous than driving a car on a deserted motorway at 150mph…

If two identical cars doing 70mph and 90mph slam on at the same point, at the point where the car doing 70mph stops (potentially avoiding collision), the car doing 90mph is still doing 70mph.

I’d like to see a source for that.

Less crashes on our motorways than other roads. Very true.

However, if involved in a motorway crash you are far more likely to be critically injured or killed…

Simple reason, speed.

The question is, where do you draw the line? If the limit were 150mph there would still be people that feel the need to get to where they are going at 180mph.

There is no definitive “safe speed” for a motorway or any road but if you want less fatalities the lower the limit the better.

By that logic, we’re into the realms of a man with a red flag walking in front of your car. It’s all about acceptable risk. Crossing the road carries a risk.

In my youth I was an idiot. At 49 I stick to the limits to the best of my ability only going over slightly due to “speed creep” as you simply can’t keep your eye on the speedo all the time.

I can hold a speed quite easily, and can ‘feel’ speeds like 30 or 70 without needing to look at the dash. And then there’s cruise control.

Depends your definition of recklessness though..

Speeding isn’t nesecarily reckless or dangerous.

For disclosure.. Been driving 25 years, never had any points… And never done over a ton that I can ever recall. But that’s more because I don’t want to be banned, rather than I think it’s inherently dangerous.

I’ve driven at 180mph without incident.
I’ve also been rear ended whilst stationary, twice.

Makes you think.

😀

Possibly, but cycling in a city had a purpose too, to get places. What’s the purpose of driving at 150mph on the public highway that can’t be achieved by driving at 70, other than selfish amusement?

tpbiker – Member
Depends your definition of recklessness though..

Speeding isn’t nesecarily reckless or dangerous.

Not necessarily, in theory but given that the faster the speed, if things go wrong they tend to go very wrong where would you set the limit?

Whatever limit you give, people will still say they can drive faster than that, safely.

So you either have a speed limit that some don’t agree with or no limit at all?

I personally find boasts about braking speed limits (not necessarily on here by the way guys) akin to people having a laugh because they got home safe after “a few beers” down the pub.

In case there are any keen policemen out there I’d just like to add that I don’t drive at silly speeds. My car starts breaking up over 90mph and would need most of the M1 to get up to 100mph.

I’m just siding with the 180MPH’ers on this thread because they’re funnier.

180mph through a classroom on the other hand is totally unacceptable.

If two identical cars doing 70mph and 90mph slam on at the same point, at the point where the car doing 70mph stops (potentially avoiding collision), the car doing 90mph is still doing 70mph.

very basic calculations would suggest you’d actually be doing about 55mph. Still enough to kill you and the poor bastard you hit, assuming at 70mph you stop just behind the stricken car or whatever whilst at 90mph you plow right into it. If the car is initially doing 100mph then the original assertion would be true I think.

I’m not saying there should not be speed limits. If everyone drove at 100mph all the time regardless of traffic conditions then it would be carnage. I’m frankly staggered that that’s not the case on the autobahn. If it was up to me I’d probably bump it up to 80, but no more.

I may have slightly 😳 broken the speed limit taking the wife to hospital mid labour on wrightyson jnr no 2. Her waters broke 10 yards after getting out of the car. I’d had it 4 weeks, I would have been very upset if I hadn’t have gone a bit quickly on that journey. It was 3am, No one around, I might have also rlj’d at a crossroads. Should I burn?

theotherjonv – Member

Possibly, but cycling in a city had a purpose too, to get places. What’s the purpose of driving at 150mph on the public highway that can’t be achieved by driving at 70

Same purpose as driving at 6mph.
It’s a convenience.
It’s getting from A to B quickly.
Me saying it’s ok to do 180mph is exactly the same as molgrips someone else saying it’s ok to do 60mph.
It’s selfishness.

wrightyson – Member

Should I burn?

Using the vehicle for the purposes of an ambulance, no?

There was an article posted by the West Midlands traffic police recently which argued that motorists need to now be properly regulated because they cannot be trusted to self-moderate their driving behaviour. They were absolutely right and some of the attitudes on this thread demonstrate why.

https://trafficwmp.wordpress.com/2017/02/10/driving-an-extinction-event/amp/?__twitter_impression=true

I can’t think of any other context where systemic criminality is casually accepted like it really doesn’t matter and motorists are free to break the law as they please because in their subjective opinion it’s not dangerous to drive 112 mph “in context” or because they can’t possibly be expected to take responsibility for monitoring their own speed the whole time.

Illegal driving is a huge problem in our society but we can’t or won’t recognise it and deal with it because it’s just not convenient. But you can’t cherry pick. If you take the view that the motorist can choose when to comply and when to break the law, that speeding is fine in the right “context”, then you shouldn’t be surprised when you get close-passed, or an HGV driver jumps a red light, or someone opens a door on you as you cycle past. By accepting that we’re allowed to speed we’re accepting that road traffic law compliance is entirely voluntary. And that’s why our roads are so lawless and dangerous.

There’s a tracker thing in my car which tells the maker where it is and what it’s doing. If they linked that to the GPS and the limiter I need never worry about speed limits again, and simply drive at the speed that seemed approriate up to but never beyond the speed limit. So please, Mr Renault get your act together.

The roads would be safer, there would be less traffic jams (do some research before you jump on your keyboard to rubbish this), less oil would be imported, less pollution produced. The technology is available and yet isn’t even proposed as an option. I want a car that won’t let me break speed limits.

Anyhow, now that car have trackers and black boxes in air bags etc. if you do speed then expect to get charged with careless or dangerous driving and spend time in jail if your speeding contributes to an accident in which someone is killed or seriously hurt.

Yep Jim jam and if it only monitors tire pressure and temperature then it’s exactly as blind as I said it would be….. What if due to a manufacturing defect it’s delaminated. Your car won’t see that ….. You start doing 120 on motorway and……Bang your upside down in the Armco.

Fella on here had a blow out at speed limit a few years back . Looked pretty horrific but both he and his kids walked away.

Ha finally something we agree on edukator.

The less speeding means less traffic jams is a thing.

Means more uniform traffic arrival at bottle necks. Most recently experienced when they average speed cameras the a90 . Now bridge of Dee is actually usable as it’s a steady stream instead of those the majority of who left dundee at 6.30-6.40-6.50-7.00 and 7.30 all arriving at the same time

Driving over the speed limit ‘to get there quickly’ isn’t a convenience, it’s selfishness still, saying I can’t be bothered to allow the time necessary to complete this journey (yes there will I’m sure be exceptions)

The same sort of selfishness as amber gamblers, cutting in at the front of queues, etc.

We’re all in this together, driving is a tool and it works better for all if we all follow the same rules, not just the ones we like.

And besides, who’s going anywhere at 3am on an empty motorway at 150mph and needs to get there quicker. 99% that’s just using it as a track day.

The current speed limits are completely anachronistic and I’m sure a lot of people could safely drive at 120mph. Here’s 3 reasons why upping the speed limit by that much is a bad idea:

1) the environmental impact of that extra speed is not insignificant. Your car gets significantly less efficient at higher speeds, and outputs more noxious gases.

2) not everyone is a driving god. I am in my early thirties so I have several years’ experience yet my faculties haven’t broken down yet. My eyesight is perfect, I don’t have arthritis in my neck limiting movement, my reactions are quick etc etc. So I’m probably (like most of you people) pretty capable of driving fast. But there are a hell of a lot of drivers who are older, mentally slower, have niggling injuries etc. You don’t want them to feel pressured to drive at 120mph because it’s the new norm and some tool in an Audi TDI is tailgating them. Whilst I’m sure I could drive at 120-130 for brief periods, it’s mentally taxing, and I wouldn’t be safe doing it for any length of time.

3) at 70mph, people slowly overtake the 55mph trucks and other cars. It’s fairly safe. You get the occasional pillock that drives at 40mph on the motorway (which is dangerous) but on the whole people are moving at similar speeds. If you increase the speed limits a lot, the closing speed between fast and slow vehicles is going to be massive. DANGER.

So whilst on a personal level I’d love to see speed limits increased, I don’t think it’ll ever happen. Frankly I’m just waiting for the day when I can sit back, relax and watch a film while my car does all the driving.

I don’t drive on the motorway that often but I wouldn’t like to see the limit increased. The amount of lane jumping with no indication and people braking for no discernible reason is enough to make me uneasy about the idea.

Curto80 – well said. It’s nice to see a sensible post on a driving thread for a change. it’s truly staggering the number of people who think they are teh awesomez at driving.

Those that advocate zero speeding tolerance on the motorway, how do you feel when you cross the channel to an 80mph limit.

Well it is until the rain starts to fall.

I’ve driven at 180mph without incident.
I’ve also been rear ended whilst stationary, twice.

Makes you think.

Yes, if you stop anyone in the car had better disembark pronto!

And that’s why our roads are so lawless and dangerous.

Where do you live, Mexico City? 😀

Here in the UK things are rather more sedate.

Since the majority of M-way accidents occur in Lane 1 due to interaction with traffic in the hard shoulder, I think speed can be discounted as a major contributor to accidents on the M-way. Better control of driving standards and perhaps more patrol cars rather than a reliance on cameras should be the way ahead.

80 Mph would be a new reasonable M-way speed, many drivers are maxed out much beyond 70 anyhow and can’t work out which lane they should be in (Lane 1 unless overtaking), can’t work out which lights to use (headlights unless vis <100m) and have a phone in their hand.

I’ve got no qualms about opening it up where conditions dictate, otherwise I’ll sit at 70mph on the GPS.

The bottom line is that speed is quantifiable by automated equipment, standards are not. Therefore we’ll always have a focus on speed rather than lane discipline. That said, urban and residential areas should have zero tolerance to speeding.

If two identical cars doing 70mph and 90mph slam on at the same point, at the point where the car doing 70mph stops (potentially avoiding collision), the car doing 90mph is still doing 70mph.

I’d like to see a source for that.

It’s the right idea but the numbers are a bit out as it’s all to do with peoples mistaken belief that brakes remove speed in linear fashion; they don’t they remove energy which is not quite the same thing. Assuming the two cars are identical (i.e. have the same mass) then the amount of kinetic energy that each has can be represented as the square of the velocity (E = 0.5*m*v^2) so for a car doing 70 it is 4900 and the car doing 90 is 8100. Subtract the “70” from the “90” and you get 3200 which when you take the square root to get back to the speed would be 56 mph as previously. To have the second car still doing 70 you would need it to be doing about 100 mph (well 99 but close enough)

trail_rat – Member

Yep Jim jam and if it only monitors tire pressure and temperature then it’s exactly as blind as I said it would be….. What if due to a manufacturing defect it’s delaminated. Your car won’t see that ….. You start doing 120 on motorway and……Bang your upside down in the Armco.

Every single argument you can come up with regarding a mechanical failure is still safer and less likely with a fully autonomous car. A car monitoring its tyre pressure and temps is far more likely to not drive than leaving that job up to a person. The delamination issue is more likely to happen due to human neglect. In an autonomous high performance car any catastrophic failure is likely to be safer than having a human behind the wheel as the car will detect and correct quicker than a person could and traffic around it will be safer too.

Tesla and Google seem to be anticipating that their cars will be exceeding the speed limit, either legally or illegally so it’ll be an interesting transition at any rate.

So you sit in the fast lane doing 70mph? You could like, move over…

Highway Code understanding fail, you need a recap…..there’s no such thing as a “fast lane”….makes me wonder what else you’ve failed to retain about the HC.

🙄

Rule 264

I’d like to see a source for that.

Having done the same course & seen the same vid with Tiff, I can vouch for that.

Right answer, wrong reasoning. At least assuming you’re meaning that brakes don’t remove speed in a linear fashion with respect to time – given that under maximum braking acceleration (deceleration) is effectively a constant limited by friction then that’s exactly what they do – ie if it takes 1s to slow down from 70 to 50 it will also take 1s to slow down from 90 to 70. However in that 1s you will travel only 3/4 of the distance when slowing down from 70 to 50 compared to slowing down from 90 to 70 (average speed 60 vs 80). Hence the numbers do work out so that brakes remove energy in a linear fashion with respect to distance (however that’s not the way people usually measure braking performance, it just happens that’s how the numbers fall out).

Edukator – Nissan GTR’s have an on board satnav linked limiter based on whether it’s sitting on a road or track. So it’s not only doable but has been done.

I think the main reason a lot of motorways (usually around cities) couldn’t have limits raised is more to do with line of sight, if you can’t see where you can reasonably stop then it’s too fast.

Anyone with a modern car these days can scroll through the OBC and find out what the most recent speed is, or average speed since the cars reset button was pressed or even going back as an overall average since the car left the show room..

My average since leaving the showroom shows 33mph, and I’ve just clocked 3900miles since new..

Whilst it’s no proof of any speeding offences caused/not caused it’s a clear indication of the speeds I do.

Now I know some of you lot would turn ferocious if following me, but I care not one jot. I will always drive under the speed limits, and not really GAS about your perceived sense of entitlement.

Not necessarily – it might just be that you spend a lot of time in traffic jams and floor it whenever you have the opportunity (recently my trip average speed was very low because my car had spent significant time idling on the drive). Average speed over the lifetime of a car is a very useless piece of information.

It’s nothing much to do with the original post in this thread, but the bloke who overtook me in a village this morning as I was doing 30 in a 30 limit simply so he could get to the next queue of traffic slightly more quickly was a prize winning stroker of cock.

Where are people going that is so damn important?

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/free-flow-vehicle-speeds-in-great-britain-2015

In 2015, on motorways:

46% of both cars and light commercial vehicles exceeded the speed limit (70 mph)
11% of cars and 12% of light commercial vehicles exceeded the speed limit by 10 mph or more
the level of speed limit compliance was 99% for articulated heavy goods vehicles (with 60 mph speed limit)
Across all road types, national speed limit single carriageways had the highest level of speed limit compliance for cars in 2015 with 92% of cars not exceeding the speed limit (60 mph).

For all vehicle types, 20 mph roads had the lowest level of speed limit compliance in 2015. 44% of articulated heavy goods vehicles (HGVs) exceeded the speed limit on 30 mph roads.

Average speed over the lifetime of a car is a very useless piece of information.

Agree. My average speed is 28mph over the last year. I am not very good at staying within speed limit but I don’t drive on motorways so my rather low average speed gives no indication of my driving.

I lived and drove in Sao Paulo for three years so I have the perspective you are referring to. I also had a good pal killed at Ipley Crossroads in the New Forest which is maybe one of the reasons I am a little sensitive about this stuff…

And that’s why our roads are so lawless and dangerous.

Where do you live, Mexico City?
Here in the UK things are rather more sedate.

Jimjam in your mind maybe.

Speed = momentum. More momentum equals more damage.

Regardless of system shit goes wrong .