40mph standard limit for country roads?

[wilsodg]

Here we go.. plenty of fine country roads out there, so let's reduce the speed limit on all of them in a 'one size fits all' move. Why does this country have to reduce everything to the lowest common denominator.
BBC News - Speed limits: 40mph plan for country roads

 

[mightymouse]

i would have preferred it if they looked at the average car speed that would give a reasonable fuel consumption. this is ridiculous cuz its normally the slowest drivers that cause most of the accident

 

[wemorgan]

40mph - I wish. I seem to be always doing 15mph stuck behind a group cyclists. When I've finally pushed past them, spraying them with my windscreen washer, I'm then held up by eco-drivers doing 30mph. It's the pits.

 

[Howard]

That'll just make it easier to get by the lay-abiders then. :bannana:

Normally it is George and Mildred cruising along in their Rover 214 at 58mph , you have to really choose your overtaking point as the 60-80 dash while quick is scary sometimes.

If they are doing 38 , it wont really matter , just mash the pedal more or less anywhere and you'll be past.

 

[st4]

I never pay too much attention to speed limits. They're over rated and rather silly...

 

[bedwards1966]

What a load of stupid rubbish.
No doubt it'll be a great excuse for speed camera, more easy for the police to catch people, more limits to worry about breaking, slower travelling times all round, a more boring drive leading to no pleasure from driving (country roads are the last places that one can enjoy driving any more), and due to the slow 35mph that will become the norm more accidents will probably occur either due to frustration or forgetting to pay attention when nothing is happening.
Well done, another pointless waste of time, effort and money that will do no good. Why can't they tackle the real problems that the country faces. I suppose that would require effort, nothing beats targeting motorists...

 

[st13phil]

Putting the rants to one side for a moment, it appears to me that the accident rate on country roads is a largely the (unintended) result of policy regarding how speed limits are set and their enforcement.

Prior to the "speed kills" mantra becoming the be all and end all of road safety in the UK, speed limits were exactly that: the fastest speed that it was deemed could be used safely on a particular road. Drivers were required to develop skills and judgement and determine a safe speed at which to travel within that limit, according to conditions. An unexpectedly low limit on a road that appeared not to warrant it would be an important clue to an experienced driver that there was some sort of hazard that wasn't immediately recognisable, and would be the cue to slow down and exercise extra caution. Since the focus on speed limits and speed enforcement, things have changed. Limits have been set on a lowest common denominator basis, with a plethora of reduced limits around junctions and other hazards, and drivers are now told that as long as they're driving at or below the posted limit then they'll be safe. No longer can an experienced driver use the presence of a reduced limit for which there appears to be no obvious reason as an important cue to modify their speed and use extra care. And instead of using judgement and skill to set an appropriate speed at which to travel, the dumbed down driver just rolls along at whatever speed the limit signs say, abdicating responsibility for that decision to the authority who set the speed limit. Now put those same drivers in a rural road setting, with its variety of hazards, and they lack the competence to decide whether 60mph is either safe or appropriate with potentially awful consequences.

The second issue is the principle of displacement. The facts are that driving quickly is fun, that the most appropriate places to drive quickly are divided highways with graded junctions (i.e. motorways and high-spec dual carriageways), and open A-roads with good visibility. But those are exactly the places where exceeding the speed limit, even by a relatively small margin, will result in a fine and points on the licence. So, the only place left on the public roads to drive quickly - and safely, if the appropriate skills have been developed - with low risk of sanction for a minor limit infraction are those where it is arguably the least safe to do so: rural roads. Now our dumbed down driver, frustrated at the endless miles of inappropriately slow 40mph andn 50mph limits that infest some of our better roads, swaps to driving on country roads with their 60mph (national) limit and tries to drive at that speed regardless of whether its appropriate or safe to do so.

This is a problem that has been caused by policy elsewhere. The introduction of new DfT "Guidance" regarding the setting of limits on rural roads will not solve the problem, because the problem hasn't been correctly analysed and the "solution" is inappropriate. What it will do is allow the uninformed amateurs in local councils to deploy yet more irrelevant limits which make it even harder for drivers to judge which ones really are there for a sound reason.

 

[Druk]

I never pay too much attention to speed limits. They're over rated and rather silly...

You need to add "never raced or rallied" to the advert for your car.

 

[artyman]

Without enforcement, lower limits on rural roads will in reality be ineffectual. Driving at an appropriate speed on ANY road according to conditions is what should be emphasised. There are some rural roads near me that 60mph is fine others where 30mph is pushing it.

 

[Colin_b]

I live in the middle of nowhere, relatively, and the roads are exactly the sort of roads that will be targeted. Narrow, poor condition roads, poor lines of sight with trees lining them.

The result will be either 26mph convoys for 40 miles, if enforced, with the crashes continuing as people get frustrated and overtake stupidly. Or widespread lawbreaking.

 

[grober]

BBC News - Speed limits: 40mph plan for country roads

Ralph Smyth, from the Campaign to Protect Rural England, called for "a presumption that minor rural roads, the narrower winding ones, have a lower speed limit".
I sense a certain "demographic lobbyist" influence here?
This does seem a more sensible approach.
Milly Wastie, vice-chairwoman of the National Federation of Young Farmers' Clubs, meanwhile, said raising awareness about driving conditions in rural areas was key to reducing accidents.

 

[Dieselman]

The facts are that driving quickly is fun, that the most appropriate places to drive quickly are divided highways with graded junctions (i.e. motorways and high-spec dual carriageways), and open A-roads with good visibility. But those are exactly the places where exceeding the speed limit, even by a relatively small margin, will result in a fine and points on the licence. So, the only place left on the public roads to drive quickly - and safely, if the appropriate skills have been developed - with low risk of sanction for a minor limit infraction are those where it is arguably the least safe to do so: rural roads.

It's simpler than that. Rural B roads just have all the best bends...

 

[davidmi]

Education, education, education. The BBC broadcast explained that the real reason for blanket bans is that they are cheap, provided the requirement for repeater signs is dropped. This is also why sensible suggestions such as warning of dangerous or deceptive bends or unusual surfaces (common in these days of zero maintenance) are ignored. The pro-banner on the BBC explained that it is not the material cost of the signage that is the main issue but the cost of the health and safety operation demanded to protect the workmen. In my rural area, it seems from personal observation that accidents are less to do with out-and-out speed but more to do with cutting unsighted bends, failing to anticipate junctions and tailgating. In far-off days of yore, there would have been locally stationed policemen to bend the ears of such miscreants when spotted. A one-a-year sighting of a patrol car is now worthy of note. Short of the satellite monitoring favoured by New Labour, enforcement of 40 mph limits in the sticks will be a joke.

 

[jefrs]

Around here we have many rural thoroughfare B roads designed by the Romans, they tend to be erm, straight. We also have our share of single-lane winding lanes with passing places and other holes in the hedgerow designed by cattle (lane = cow-path).

They are not the same are they.

Nanny has gone mad and needs to be locked up in the attic.

 

[Bellow]

The important part >>>


''The Scottish government was given devolved powers under the Scotland Act, introduced in May, to set its own speed limits.''quote

 

[MOCAŠ]

The important part >>>


''The Scottish government was given devolved powers under the Scotland Act, introduced in May, to set its own speed limits.''quote

Careful - they may plump for 30...

 

[pipmk]

I never pay too much attention to speed limits. They're over rated and rather silly...

I am so grateful you live a long way from me and mine. Somewhat amazed that you still have a licence(presuming you do).

 

[Transalpir]

I'd heard that this lowering of the speed limit on country roads was as a direct responce to the need for signage. That is to say that they now have to place repeater signs for a national limit approximatly( not entirly sure of spacing) but they are now not required for the 40 limit. As the average cost of placing the signs is £500 each, the reaction has bieng to change the limits rather than changing the requirement to sign every flaming thing!

Like other posts on here what ever happened to common sense and judgement, there was a time when there where few speed limits prior to the oil problems of the seventies, inperticular motorways had no limit till then and 70mph was introduced as a "tempory" measure to imrove mpg during that time. This limit had never being and never will be lifted especialy when we have x f1 drivers pleading for a 55mph limit on our motorways.

When will these numpties clear off and start their own nanny state on private island they can all go and live on!!!

I have decent cars because i enjoy my driving, I have also done an amount courses to improve the driving I do, to keep myself and others around me safer while enjoying a blast down these lanes.

 

[bpsorrel]

As it's mostly country lanes where I live, my driving pleasure has just been knocked on the head. Seems it was a good time to buy the hybrid...

 

[stevieb15]

I am so grateful you live a long way from me and mine. Somewhat amazed that you still have a licence(presuming you do).

I think he has a tongue also and I've a very good idea which part of his mouth it's in.