Blank sign on variable speed limit motorways

[Bletchleyite]

Socially, speeding is nowhere near as frowned upon as drink driving or phone driving.

Yet.

 

[zwk500]

Yet.

It's getting worse in most circles, not better. I don't yet see any indicators in media or discourse or anything like that suggesting a major shift is imminent. The previous poster was right, any town centre restrictions (where speeding should be most frowned upon) are heavily objected to.

 

[MotCO]

Indeed. And with the authorities continuing to inflict deeply unpopular decisions like widespread urban 20 zones (see recent developments in Wales), and the endless scourge of excessively lengthy, both in terms of distance and duration, motorway works and associated limits, motorists’ frustration and their eagerness to make up ‘lost time’ is highly unlikely to reduce speeding or to make it less socially acceptable. Go to a 20 zone and half the people driving around town are speeding.

I was on the A1(M) today, and the road was closed near Leeds after an accident causing long delays. No sooner was it reopened, then there was another accident a bit further on. This may well have been caused by someone trying to 'make up time'.


Regarding spurious gantry messages and speed limit, I was convinced on one occasion that the signs were illumiated on the wrong carriageway. Probably in error, or possibly miswired?

 

[Hadders]

I think people are generally far more observant of speed limits than when I started driving in the 1980s.

Back then hardly anyone drove below 80mph on a motorway, nowadays I strongly suspect the average speed is much closer to 70mph.

 

[MotCO]

I think people are generally far more observant of speed limits than when I started driving in the 1980s.

Back then hardly anyone drove below 80mph on a motorway, nowadays I strongly suspect the average speed is much closer to 70mph.

Do speed cameras have something to do with it?

 

[johncrossley]

Speed traps can occur anywhere at any time. If you only slow down for speed cameras then you are a risk taker.

 

[zwk500]

Speed traps can occur anywhere at any time. If you only slow down for speed cameras then you are a risk taker.

And yet, many people do. And it is acknowledged that they do this because Speed Cameras are sited to act as a deterrent as well as enforcement.

 

[Hadders]

Do speed cameras have something to do with it?

Not in their own. I think a number of things have changed since i started driving, including:

- More traffic meaning it is far harder to drive at a fast speed on the busiest roads
- Cruise control - it doesn't take many to use it with it set it at or near the limit and it has the effect of slowing down overall speeds
- Social unacceptability - admitedely nowhere near drink driving levels but speeding is not as acceptable as it was in the 1980s
- Speed cameras do play a part but single cameras can have a counterproductive effect with drivers slowing down when they approach them only to speed up afterwards

 

[Bald Rick]

Not in their own. I think a number of things have changed since i started driving, including:

- More traffic meaning it is far harder to drive at a fast speed on the busiest roads
- Cruise control - it doesn't take many to use it with it set it at or near the limit and it has the effect of slowing down overall speeds
- Social unacceptability - admitedely nowhere near drink driving levels but speeding is not as acceptable as it was in the 1980s
- Speed cameras do play a part but single cameras can have a counterproductive effect with drivers slowing down when they approach them only to speed up afterwards

I‘d add that driver training is now much hotter on speed limits than it was ‘when I were a lad’.

Also, that most cars now have sat nav etc that tell you what the speed limit is, and for younger drivers their insurance often requires compliance with same.

Finally - and this is related to speed cameras - I have a hunch that there are a lot more people out there who have been caught by cameras than ever were in Pre- camera days, and therefore a lot more people with points, who don’t want to get any more and are thus more cautious.

 

[Hadders]

I‘d add that driver training is now much hotter on speed limits than it was ‘when I were a lad’.

Also, that most cars now have sat nav etc that tell you what the speed limit is, and for younger drivers their insurance often requires compliance with same.

Finally - and this is related to speed cameras - I have a hunch that there are a lot more people out there who have been caught by cameras than ever were in Pre- camera days, and therefore a lot more people with points, who don’t want to get any more and are thus more cautious.

Agree with all of this. Interesting about more people being caught, when we were discussing this at work almost everybody I work with has attended a speed awareness course or had points. I was very much the exception!

 

[Bletchleyite]

It's getting worse in most circles, not better. I don't yet see any indicators in media or discourse or anything like that suggesting a major shift is imminent. The previous poster was right, any town centre restrictions (where speeding should be most frowned upon) are heavily objected to.

Speeding (exceeding the speed limit) and speed limit reductions are two entirely separate things, of course. I don't support blanket 20s, though I do support the idea of the van limits for all vehicles i.e. 50-60-70, but I don't intentionally speed.

 

[zwk500]

Speeding (exceeding the speed limit) and speed limit reductions are two entirely separate things, of course. I don't support blanket 20s, though I do support the idea of the van limits for all vehicles i.e. 50-60-70, but I don't intentionally speed.

They are two separate things but they stem from a similar mindset of 'I know what speed is safe when I'm driving.' Funnily enough I would support blanket 20s in towns but raising Motorway speeds to 80mph, but that's a different issue.

 

[Bletchleyite]

They are two separate things but they stem from a similar mindset of 'I know what speed is safe when I'm driving.' Funnily enough I would support blanket 20s in towns but raising Motorway speeds to 80mph, but that's a different issue.

20 to me is justified for places where you want pedestrians and cycles to basically have full priority (i.e. walk in the road if you want). That makes sense for cul de sacs and non-thoroughfares as well as any non-pedestrianised town centres where you really want to incentivise people not to drive through. The idea of using 20 on thoroughfares is absolute nonsense; generally (excepting fully segregated places like new towns) urban thoroughfares should be 30 single, 40 dual.

I thus have no problem with signing down residential streets (the sort that might become LTNs anyway) to 20, but as a blanket thing as Wales are doing it makes no sense to me. The way to provide proper cycle safety is full segregation, at the expense of main carriageway space if necessary.

As for 80 on the motorway I used to support it but no longer do. It's safe enough, but with air resistance being the square of speed I feel it can no longer be justified on environmental grounds. Motorways are safer than normal duals, hence I do support a differential, but I'd achieve that by going to NSL as 50-60-70, possibly also considering adding 40 for any road without a marked centreline to stop the odd nutter causing unnecessary hazards on single track country lanes by allowing camera enforcement at particularly dangerous locations.

 

[Towers]

Speeding (exceeding the speed limit) and speed limit reductions are two entirely separate things, of course. I don't support blanket 20s, though I do support the idea of the van limits for all vehicles i.e. 50-60-70, but I don't intentionally speed.

Surely you don’t really support the notion of everybody being permanently limited to 60mph on the motorways?!

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 26 Jun 2023 ==

They are two separate things but they stem from a similar mindset of 'I know what speed is safe when I'm driving.' Funnily enough I would support blanket 20s in towns but raising Motorway speeds to 80mph, but that's a different issue.

Blanket 20s are totally ineffective, all they serve to do is mask those areas where there is a genuine justification for such a limit. They’re also rarely obeyed or enforced, and there has also been at least one study which suggested that accident rates had in fact increased since the imposition of a blanket 20.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Surely you don’t really support the notion of everybody being permanently limited to 60mph on the motorways?!\

No, 70.

(40 no centreline country roads)
50 single
60 dual (with the ability to sign up to 70 on motorway standard duals; proper length acceleration lanes and ideally a hard shoulder would be required for this - an example would be the North Wales Expressway or the A5(D) around Milton Keynes)
70 motorway

The van limits. I'd apply these to all vehicles, which is a nice simplification, though obviously lorries would be limited to 56 and coaches 62 due to the limiter.

Blanket 20s are totally ineffective, all they serve to do is mask those areas where there is a genuine justification for such a limit. They’re also rarely obeyed or enforced, and there has also been at least one study which suggested that accident rates had in fact increased since the imposition of a blanket 20.

Blanket 20s do reduce speeds in the manner of what they used to do pre-camera, which was to set the limit 10mph lower than you wanted people to do. But 20 Zones make more sense (though are more expensive).

 

[zwk500]

Blanket 20s are totally ineffective, all they serve to do is mask those areas where there is a genuine justification for such a limit. They’re also rarely obeyed or enforced, and there has also been at least one study which suggested that accident rates had in fact increased since the imposition of a blanket 20.

I agree that if you're going to have 20 limits you should have 20mph-designed infrastructure.

 

[johncrossley]

A problem with the 70 mph limit is emissions, hence why the Netherlands has a nationwide 100 km/h limit in the daytime. Maybe 70 mph is OK for electric cars.

 

[Bletchleyite]

A problem with the 70 mph limit is emissions, hence why the Netherlands has a nationwide 100 km/h limit in the daytime. Maybe 70 mph is OK for electric cars.

Smart motorways allow us to be more dynamic on that and dynamically adjust the limit based on detected pollution if we wanted. There's a less granular bit around Wolverhampton and Sheffield where it's just put down to 60 for that reason.

That probably makes more sense for NL as it's basically all one big conurbation - there's not much of a problem in terms of the sort of emissions this is dealing with (particulate and NOx) in the middle of nowhere.

 

[MotCO]

Maybe 70 mph is OK for electric cars.

I think it would be dangerous for some cars to be (say) 60 mph (non-electric) and 70mph for electric. It will cause all sorts of difficulties, bunching on two lane carriageways etc.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I think it would be dangerous for some cars to be (say) 60 mph (non-electric) and 70mph for electric. It will cause all sorts of difficulties, bunching on two lane carriageways etc.

The issues caused by differential speeds (dangerous overtaking, mostly) is why I support applying van limits to all vehicles. On its own increasing lorries from 40 to 50 to reduce overtaking has been very successful, I believe.

 

[Towers]

No, 70.

(40 no centreline country roads)
50 single
60 dual (with the ability to sign up to 70 on motorway standard duals; proper length acceleration lanes and ideally a hard shoulder would be required for this - an example would be the North Wales Expressway or the A5(D) around Milton Keynes)
70 motorway

The van limits. I'd apply these to all vehicles, which is a nice simplification, though obviously lorries would be limited to 56 and coaches 62 due to the limiter.



Blanket 20s do reduce speeds in the manner of what they used to do pre-camera, which was to set the limit 10mph lower than you wanted people to do. But 20 Zones make more sense (though are more expensive).

Ah, got you! I thought you meant HGV limits, my apologies!

Not sure how 20 zones are more expensive than blanket limits - have you seen the amount of signage?!

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 27 Jun 2023 ==

The issues caused by differential speeds (dangerous overtaking, mostly) is why I support applying van limits to all vehicles. On its own increasing lorries from 40 to 50 to reduce overtaking has been very successful, I believe.

The flip side to this is that limiting all vehicles to the same speed results in ‘elephant racing’, as we’ve seen for years with lorries and which will become a much bigger problem when all cars have speed limiters fitted, as very rarely will two manufacturers manage to actually match exactly the same specified speed. Likewise the inevitable frustration caused by the 66mph dawdler when everybody wants to be doing bang on the limit (or so their speedo says!); often safer to just let people proceed at their own pace rather than have them sitting 6ft off the bumper of the marginally slower vehicle ahead of them.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Ah, got you! I thought you meant HGV limits, my apologies!

Not sure how 20 zones are more expensive than blanket limits - have you seen the amount of signage?!

The idea of a 20 Zone is that the road is redesigned to make 20 a natural speed by way of chicanes, obstacles, ramps etc. Far more costly than signage.

 

[Towers]

The idea of a 20 Zone is that the road is redesigned to make 20 a natural speed by way of chicanes, obstacles, ramps etc. Far more costly than signage.

Ah, indeed! Although the current fad of blanket 20 zones across a whole town results in hundreds/thousands of signs, plus a vast amount of line painting, which won’t be cheap.

 

[setdown]

Driving southbound on the M6, just before the toll junction there was a speed limit of 20 in the red circle. Never thought they could go that low on a managed motorway, lowest I'd seen before is 40. I obliged, but it didn't half feel scary when others just ignored it and carried on at 70.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Driving southbound on the M6, just before the toll junction there was a speed limit of 20 in the red circle. Never thought they could go that low on a managed motorway, lowest I'd seen before is 40. I obliged, but it didn't half feel scary when others just ignored it and carried on at 70.

Anything below either 40 or 50 (I forget which) has to be set manually so is less common. I've seen 20 and I'm almost sure I've seen 10 once, on the on-ramp at Luton South in stationary traffic.

If they're setting 20 they really do need to remove it promptly when the issue clears, as leaving it up is really dangerous. Disregarding it will have resulted in tickets for those who did though.

 

[MotCO]

Anything below either 40 or 50 (I forget which) has to be set manually so is less common. I've seen 20 and I'm almost sure I've seen 10 once, on the on-ramp at Luton South in stationary traffic.

If they're setting 20 they really do need to remove it promptly when the issue clears, as leaving it up is really dangerous. Disregarding it will have resulted in tickets for those who did though.

I always thought that 40 was shorthand for "there is a queue ahead, please be prepared to stop". Goodness only knows what 20 or 10 means.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I always thought that 40 was shorthand for "there is a queue ahead, please be prepared to stop". Goodness only knows what 20 or 10 means.

With yellow flashers it near enough is. With a red circle it's a speed limit you must comply with or face a fine and points (or a course if just over).

I suspect the 10 (if I indeed did see it) was for a situation where Police were directing people through a messy accident scene or similar.