scoobynutta555

Quite interesting seeing Ladyman on the news this morning announcing a review of speed limits. Am I being cynical when I take review as a general reduction in speed limits?

I was underr the impression that local councils were already reviewing their speed limits, I can think of several main roads around where I live that have had 10 mph knocked off of them for no reason at all. Funnily enough, cannot think of one instance where speed limits have gone up.

TelBoy

Yep, overall reduction, even though they're trying to sweeten it. It's country roads they're "reviewing" the most thoroughly. All very well perhaps, but surely it's about 25 years past the point where 80 on the motorways is justifiable? But no, as ever, the greying policy makers think that's still waaay too fast for us.

OllyK

Yet more back door taxation. Nothing is being done to improve public transport and provide an alternative to private transport so you have no choice but to drive slower (or pay a speeding tax) and pay more tax for a certain type of car or congestion charges on top of road tax and fuel taxes. Add to this the removal of a direct route from south to north on the trains so that you will have to change an Birmingham on the way north and it all adds up to more NL **** ups.

Apparition

Will make no difference round here.... we're always stuck behind some bod polodding along at a very sedate pace.
Yve

Kyl3cook

did you see the MP's that propose a tax of £1800 per annum for the 'gas guzzlers'....I mean. If they don't want them on the road, why not just make them illegal.....oh wait. That would mean they don't get any money from them.

unclebuck

Blanket 40mph speed limits on all rural raads coming soon. Say bye bye to having fun on the 'twisties'.

The loonies at BRAKE will be dancing in the streets.

hedgehog

The full document can be seen here

http://www.dft.gov.uk/stellent/group...ety_612262.pdf

What is most interesting and worrying is that they are moving from the traditional 85th percentile mechanism for setting speed limits to setting the limit at the "mean" speed for the road. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see that with the 85th percentile method only 15% of drivers would normally choose to drive faster than the limit set but with the mean method 50% of drivers would normally drive faster than the set limit.

So, not only do we get lower limits but we get a lot of people who would naturally tend to drive faster than the limit that is set leading to more speeding offences.

The various green lobby groups had asked for a blanket 40mph limit and, slowly, they are getting it while motorists sit back and allow them control over our lives. The least you could do is join an organisation such as the Association of British Drivers and put up a bit of a fight.

As an aside the list of MPs who are on the committee who yesterday announced that for the pleasure of driving at 40mph you are going to be charged £1800 per year in tax is as follows, if any of these people are your MP then be sure to write to them and make your feelings known:

Mr Tim Yeo, MP (Conservative, South Suffolk) (Chairman)

Ms Celia Barlow, MP (Labour, Hove)

Mr Martin Caton, MP (Labour, Gower)

Mr Colin Challen, MP (Labour, Morley and Rothwell)

Mr David Chaytor, MP (Labour, Bury North)

Mr Tim Farron, MP (Liberal Democrat, Westmorland and Lonsdale)

Mr David Howarth, MP (Liberal Democrat, Cambridge)

Mr Nick Hurd, MP (Conservative, Ruislip Northwood)

Mr Ian Pearson, MP (Labour, Dudley South) [ex-officio]

Mr Mark Pritchard, MP (Conservative, Wrekin, The)

Mrs Linda Riordan, MP (Labour, Halifax)

Mr Graham Stuart, MP (Conservative, Beverley & Holderness)

Ms Emily Thornberry, MP (Labour, Islington South & Finsbury)

Dr Desmond Turner, MP (Labour, Brighton, Kempton)

Mr Ed Vaizey, MP (Conservative, Wantage)

Joan Walley, MP (Labour, Stoke-on-Trent North)

davegtt

Id be happy to drive at 20mph round town and local roads aslong as we can do at least 80 on the motorways or dual carriageway.

Leslie

Just another sop to the PC Roman Sandal wearing plonkers who hate cars because most of them can't drive anyway.

I love driving as much as anyone else but this will screw it for us all.

Les

SteveScooby

iTrader: (2)

I'm sure I heard on the radio yesterday that they're planning to reduce the motorway limit to cut down exhaust emissions!!

skoda_kid

Here here!If there were 5 speed cameras outside every school in the country,i would be more than happy too. But abolish them where they are simply revenue makers.

But lets up the motorways to 80mph at least.

Cars are much safer nowadays than when the limits were initially introduced.


Matt

SteveScooby

iTrader: (2)

Cars are safer, but unfortunately drivers are not. That's why there are accidents on the motorway every day

ru'

Oh my god; maybe better driver education and regular re-tests would not only make the roads safer, but also cut traffic as hopefully many people would loose the 'right' (ha ha) to drive.

It'll never work...

Although you could charge for the re-tests etc., the loss of revenue would not make the scheme viable.

stilover

All these road pricing pollicies are thought up by Mp's living in London. London, where you have a choice of Taxi, Tube, Bus, or car. There are loads of Buses, loads of taxi's, tubes etc.
I once worked it out when I lived in a Village, that if I wanted a night out in Yarm (About 20 miles away) I would have to set off at 5pm, get 3 buses (Middridge to Aycliffe, Aycliffe to Darlington, Darlington to Yarm) and I would get to Yarm at 7-730pm. The last bus back to Darlington was at 8pm. So I'd get 30mins with my friends and spend 4-4.5 hours travelling. Taxi's cost about £30-40 each way. To go by bus would also cost about £10.
The car took 20mins each way and would cost about £5.

Must be great living in London, having public transport everywhere and all day.

TonyG

There's another thread here.
The other thread

Scooby-Mark

Totaly agree !!

LG John

LOL 40mph on rural roads. I'll trebble that happily when I go to have some fun. F*ck em, F*ck em all.

hedgehog

I don't think you will treble it when a black box has control of your car.

There is no question that this document is designed with ISA in mind in the sense that the proposals for ISA highlight that it will be slowing you down for corners even if the posted limit is much greater than the limit the box will actually let you drive at. This document is very much focused on removing any requirement for driver judgement by setting much lower limits for bits of road with corners, hills etc. It also insists that so as not to confuse the driver these areas of much lower limits should not be less than 600m in length. So, 300m from every bend or hill your car will be limited to 40 or even 30mph. At first it will just be a speed limit but once the black boxes go in then you car will be restricted to that speed.

LG John

You mean the blackbox that can be 'faked', 'tricked' or otherwise tampered with by some dude at your local pub or market for £500??? For every law there is a new crime/scam to get around it and I am 100% selfish when it comes to cars. I hate to think that my kids will probably never know the joy of driving a sports car quickly but I sure as hell won't give up my freedom to do that now that i have it.

shelbyscoob

Theres more accidents now because there are far more drivers, especially those that haven't even got a licience or that are foreign imagrants, my mate got hit at 3 am by an imigrant with no licience or insurance mot nor tax f_c_ed his insurance no claims and his focus rs right up, there the ones that are the danger not the speed limits there just slow....

Oh yeah re-tests at 55-60 years old get the decrepeds off the road who think 5 mph is still too fast.....

Clarebabes

I hate this country.

Just got back from the Ring today. Drove through Germany, Belgium and France without a hitch. Get back to Old Blighty and there's traffic jams, road works and tolls which aren't supposed to be charged! Didn't have any money for the tunnel, so we've got to pay the toll plus a £1 admin fee within 7 days or we're in trouble. When I pointed out to the traffic officer that it was agreed that the toll would be dropped on the Dartford crossing once the bridge had been paid for (as it did in 2001 I think), he said, 'oh, it's all changed now. It's just another congestion charge and Ken doesn't want to lose £190m a year does he?'

ISA is another way of controlling us.

P.s. where's the thread about the real level of immigration and the hike in council tax we're all going to have to pay?

scoobynutta555

I'm generally getting fed up of this nanny/police state that we now seem to be living in. Hopefully in a few years from now I'll be getting out just as many other people want to.

It's hard enough as it is to drive on A and B roads with the ever increasing amounts of road furniture, decreasing limits and the treat of licence removal by revenue machines. What's the next announcement, a hardline enforcement of motorway traffic?

Leslie

The black box will also record your speed Saxo Boy and has been mooted as a way of prosecuting motorists! There will also be an even bigger net of ANPR cameras to record every journey you make. Lots of those in place already.

Les

B9GLY

how the hell are they going to get a black box in everyones car??????????????????????????? Can you imagine how long it would take and how much money???

OllyK

The money isn't an issue - you'll be paying for it, same as your ID card.

hedgehog

I am aware that government IT systems rarely go smoothly but the black box is being currently priced at around £400 and, of course, you will pay for it. If you don't pay you don't drive and remember you will be messing with the police state so I'm sure your crime will be considered by police as a "priority crime."

It is likely that the black box will be allied to an RFID tag in your number plate and, as Les says, the ANPR system and so there will be a range of interlocking technologies to monitor your movements. Remember that one of the aims, the commercial one, will be to charge you for road use and at up to £1.35 per mile there is going to be a lot of profit motive to drive this technology.

So, of course there will be ways to beat the black box. The question you must ask is do you want to go to all the effort to criminalize yourself to drive your car? Lets face it a very many people on here don't even join up to the likes of the ABD to fight against the ending of private motoring so I can't honestly seem them being bothered becoming criminals to fight it when it does come. A lot of talk but very little evidence of action.

TelBoy

The thing is, hedgehog, many people, myself included, believe that joining associations such as the ABD is futile. If road pricing is going to be brought in, there's little or nothing the ABD or anyone else can to do prevent it, despite their (and probably your) claims to the contrary.

SJ_Skyline

A clawhammer would be my favourite

unclebuck

People are slowly waking up to what this Government actually represents.

Too late now though, they're in power and the opposition has turned into god knows what They won't listen and they can't be stopped.

dsmith

I live in the sticks, in a village but on a reasonably busy through road.

The village is 30 mph (for about 4 miles) but with derestricted sections either side. We see on average a major accident (car off the road) every other month or so. I'd say about 80% are within the 30 mph sections, on sharpish bends. 2 houses in particular get a new fence every 6 months, at least, courtesy of insurance companies.

Clearly "the limit" doesnt stop these accidents. There used to be a time when going into a 30mph was a genuine indication you shoud slow down for a good reason. I think a good part of the time now a percentage of people don't trust that a 30mph limit is anything relevant and fail to slow more than a few mph.

On other sections of local road (A140) the limit changes constantly between 30/40/50/60 and it is virtually impossible to be certain that you're sure of the limit at any specific time. The road has grown a forrest of ugly speed limit signs but it doesnt really help.

If we lose all distinction between village and non-village road its going to get far far worse. Those that ignore the 60 mph limit today but still slow down for 30mph will increasingly fail to change their speed at all as they move from one random limit to another and more and more people will naturally fall into that group.

Some will drive at the lowest speed (<30) regardless which will then fuel frustration further as people try to get past (legally but with a limited scope in a 50 etc).

I hate the way its being described as a consultation when they've clearly decided what we shall do.

I've been car-less recently and worked out that to get to my office for 9 (25 miles away) I would need to leave at 6.30 am to do the journey by public transport.