My answer to the OP’s question on whether or not to have a 100mph limit on motorways is: I don’t know.
Unlike most of you whippersnappers here, I’m old enough to have been driving before the 70mph max limit was introduced in 1965 – just. My distant memories of those unrestricted times are mainly that driving standards were better than now. Most people drove at the speed that they and their vehicles were comfortable with. The inside lane on the M1 was used far more than the other lanes and most of us drove with a good awareness of what was going on around us. We didn’t have seatbelts, airbags and all the other safety features lulling us into a false sense of security. We knew that it was likely to hurt if we got it wrong. Those of us who started on motorbikes had an even better appreciation of this.
I have two stories to illustrate what it was like at speed on the roads then. On one occasion I was riding my Triumph Bonneville up the M1 early one morning, happily cruising along at around 125mph with virtually no other traffic on the road. An AC Cobra came past me so fast that I nearly got off to find out why I’d stopped! Apparently it was doing nearly 190mph on a road test prior to the 1964 Le Mans. It didn’t bother me and it didn’t cause any accidents, but many people thought the 70 limit was introduced because of it. On another occasion, only weeks before the 70mph limit came in, I was driving my MkVII Jag along the M4 towards London at over 120mph. A sudden downpour was too much for the pathetic wipers that blew the fuse and left me blinded! My passenger had to lean out of his window and guide me over to the hardshoulder to fix the wipers. I was only 19 at the time and certainly shouldn’t have been driving at that speed in changeable weather conditions.
The point of those 2 stories is that we could get away with very high speeds, even when inexperienced, because there was far less traffic on the roads. BUT we did learn to be aware of other much faster vehicles. We had to keep our wits about us. So perhaps a 100mph limit now would make us return to having to stay more aware when driving, to be less complacent. But would that mean those of us who want to drive at 100mph (that includes me) would find ourselves with the same mindset as we do at the moment when driving at 70? Would we be thinking, “I’m not going to get caught for speeding, therefore I can relax”!
When I’m driving above the speed limit I concentrate far more on my driving. I’m more aware of hazards such as other drivers who may not be expecting me to approach at such high speed, and I’m also on the lookout for cameras and jam sandwiches. There’s the possibility that my concentration levels would reduce when driving “legally”.
It was rightly mentioned earlier that most speedos are inaccurate. This leads to the holier-than-thou brigade hogging the middle and even outside lanes where their speedo is indicating a tiny fraction under 70. But we know that could in reality be 65 or even less, so we get frustrated when stuck behind them. That’s not good at 65-70mph. It’d be even more dangerous at 90-100mph. But hopefully my earlier mentioned “saints” would also be doing their bit to save the planet and still be driving at around 65mph, but knowing that they’re not the legally fastest cars and thus keeping out of the way of us oil consumers.
So, in essence I’m tending towards being in favour of 100mph limits in a few places when the conditions are favourable. I think that a big jump to 100 is better than a piddling increase to 80, which I believe wouldn’t make any difference to driving attitudes. But I’m just not sure, so I’ll have to sit here with a large chunk of fence where the sun doesn’t shine.
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