Suitable speed limit for minor country roads

pwa
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Re: Suitable speed limit for minor country roads

Post by pwa »

Perhaps, after all, there is something to be said in favour of poor road surfaces. That keeps speed down on narrow lanes. Mandatory potholes. Though I can see a downside in that solution.
Steady rider
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Re: Suitable speed limit for minor country roads

Post by Steady rider »

The Isle of Man has been on TV tonight, they have covert officers on motorbikes to catch excessive speeders. In Victoria they used covert methods as well as high profile means to reduce speeding. http://www.who.int/roadsafety/projects/ ... 3-What.pdf

3.2.2 Speed enforcement methods
A number of police forces internationally have adopted enforcement methods based
upon an anywhere, anytime approach to deter all speeding on the network (Box 3.8).
The message is clear: speeding is illegal and unacceptable behaviour, and at odds with
the interests of the community.


On the A64 they have signs saying 'This camera is not in use' - even if not in use is there any good reason to tell people?
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horizon
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Re: Suitable speed limit for minor country roads

Post by horizon »

Around 30 years ago (or more), speeding was finally conquered. The introduction of hidden fixed speed cameras meant that motorists really had to stick to the speed limit everywhere or quickly lose their licence - a camera could be anywhere, around any corner. Random camera installation would basically finish speeding. AIUI the camera installation programme wasn't yet complete when the principle of unmarked or hidden cameras was challenged. Once it was decided that cameras would be clearly marked (and restricted to certain stretches of road), this fleeting moment of speed control vanished. I think there must have been some cold sweats amongst the motoring classes when they realised the significance of the new technology - the sigh of relief at its removal was audible in outer space. The technology obviously now exists in a vastly more effective form to control speeding so apart from resisting its introduction, it is the speed limits themselves that must be resisted.

There's quite a nice summary here:

http://www.politics.co.uk/reference/speed-cameras
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pete75
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Re: Suitable speed limit for minor country roads

Post by pete75 »

horizon wrote:Around 30 years ago (or more), speeding was finally conquered. The introduction of hidden fixed speed cameras meant that motorists really had to stick to the speed limit everywhere or quickly lose their licence - a camera could be anywhere, around any corner. Random camera installation would basically finish speeding. AIUI the camera installation programme wasn't yet complete when the principle of unmarked or hidden cameras was challenged. Once it was decided that cameras would be clearly marked (and restricted to certain stretches of road), this fleeting moment of speed control vanished. I think there must have been some cold sweats amongst the motoring classes when they realised the significance of the new technology - the sigh of relief at its removal was audible in outer space. The technology obviously now exists in a vastly more effective form to control speeding so apart from resisting its introduction, it is the speed limits themselves that must be resisted.

There's quite a nice summary here:

http://www.politics.co.uk/reference/speed-cameras


Well that might have been ok 30 years ago. These days with Satnavs people just install a database of speed camera locations. Sophisticated units even monitor average speed in areas where there are average speed cameras.
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Cyril Haearn
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Re: Suitable speed limit for minor country roads

Post by Cyril Haearn »

horizon wrote:Around 30 years ago (or more), speeding was finally conquered. The introduction of hidden fixed speed cameras meant that motorists really had to stick to the speed limit everywhere
..
..

"stick to the speed limit" :?

Do you mean: "keep below the maximum speed limit"?
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Bmblbzzz
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Re: Suitable speed limit for minor country roads

Post by Bmblbzzz »

If you kept looking around you, the "hidden" cameras were usually quite easy to spot. Plus, in the early days they were often set at a trigger speed significantly above the speed limit. Nevertheless, public opinion did consider them "unfair".
pwa
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Re: Suitable speed limit for minor country roads

Post by pwa »

We have more or less reached a point in time where it must be a practical, affordable proposition to require all new motor vehicles to have Satnav based speed controllers installed, making it impossible to exceed a speed limit by more than 1 or 2 mph. If we are not at that point we must be very close. When that happens, all the controversy about speed limits will be gone and we can just focus on the other road safety stuff. As a driver I would welcome technology taking away the possibility that a momentary lapse of concentration might end up with points on my licence.

But with regard to the main question, the default 60mph for unclassified roads has always been bonkers and 30 must be a better default. I know a few horse riders who would welcome that.
Steady rider
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Re: Suitable speed limit for minor country roads

Post by Steady rider »

Parliament and the police failed to implement the most effective system.
They were aware of the potential benefits but allowed a watering down of the enforcement.

A default at 50 mph would be more likely to be acceptable.
pwa
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Re: Suitable speed limit for minor country roads

Post by pwa »

Steady rider wrote:Parliament and the police failed to implement the most effective system.
They were aware of the potential benefits but allowed a watering down of the enforcement.

A default at 50 mph would be more likely to be acceptable.


50 makes sense on roads with white lines down the middle. But on roads too narrow for that, 30 is about right.
thirdcrank
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Re: Suitable speed limit for minor country roads

Post by thirdcrank »

I think that one point being missed here is the huge variation of conditions on "minor country roads." On a motorway, you can set a standard national 70mph limit and know that in normal conditions it's broadly ok. As traffic levels increase, so sophisticated :roll: technology is being developed for when conditions deteriorate. The more minor the country road, the greater the variation in conditions, particularly the view ahead. In some places, especially since so many hedgerows have been removed, there are quite straight roads where you can see quite a long way and the biggest dangers seem to be to drivers themselves leaving the road. In others, walking speed is the only safe speed at a blind bend.

Having said all that, the general public's appetite for anything like this is low. We're discussing something that won't happen unless it fits in with the development of "driverless vehicles."
pwa
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Re: Suitable speed limit for minor country roads

Post by pwa »

https://www.google.com/maps/@51.4596524 ... 6?hl=en-GB

This is on one of my regular cycle routes and in more than twenty years of using it I don't think I've met one vehicle going fast. 30 mph feels fast on those lanes and most drivers I meet are doing that or less. So a 30 limit would not be controversial. The horse riders would welcome it.
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mjr
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Re: Suitable speed limit for minor country roads

Post by mjr »

pwa wrote:As a driver I would welcome technology taking away the possibility that a momentary lapse of concentration might end up with points on my licence.

Do you also welcome technology reducing the possibility? If so, have you fitted a Head-Up Display speedometer yet? About £20 and most of the time, it removes the need to look away from the road to check your speed. On most aftermarket models, it's near the bottom of the windscreen so you still have to look closer to the car than maybe you would otherwise, but it's probably no bad thing to scan the kerb/verge for emerging people/animals more often anyway.
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reohn2
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Re: Suitable speed limit for minor country roads

Post by reohn2 »

pwa wrote:
Steady rider wrote:Parliament and the police failed to implement the most effective system.
They were aware of the potential benefits but allowed a watering down of the enforcement.

A default at 50 mph would be more likely to be acceptable.


50 makes sense on roads with white lines down the middle. But on roads too narrow for that, 30 is about right.

IMO any road classified as lower than a B road should be 30mph or in built up areas 20mph unless otherwise posted but no more than 30mph.
B and A roads need reassessing as many are at stupid NSL(60mph) when 40mph is fast enough to be safe and sometime 30mph is fast enough to be safe.
Of course they need to be effectively policed,unless they are there's no point erecting signs.There's a couple of 20mph zones close to where I live,where only the minority stick to the limit and I regularly collect two or three cars tailgating me as I drive at the limit.
Police,can we please have some?

The thing is that speeding along any such roads saves only miniscule amounts of time a few seconds at most and most being only a race to the next TL to sit in a jam more often than not.
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thirdcrank
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Re: Suitable speed limit for minor country roads

Post by thirdcrank »

pwa wrote:https://www.google.com/maps/@51.4596524,-3.4973802,3a,60y,345.94h,82.04t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sa7u4Hc8qM6PMSLv4f58Ihg!2e0!7i13312!8i6656?hl=en-GB

This is on one of my regular cycle routes and in more than twenty years of using it I don't think I've met one vehicle going fast. 30 mph feels fast on those lanes and most drivers I meet are doing that or less. So a 30 limit would not be controversial. The horse riders would welcome it.


But I'm saying that a signed 30mph would be taken by some as a target speed. If people are already driving sensibly, why try to fix something that's not broken? If an idiot gets on a road like that, or a courier with a pressing schedule, a speed limit will make not an ha'porth of difference. The worst case is to meet somebody going too fast coming round the corner but it's no fun having somebody up your exhaust because you are driving too slowly by their standards. I'm always keen to let anybody like that overtake so they can act as a sort of trailblazer for me if there's one coming the other way, but if I manage to pull into some passing place they often pull in behind me, a sure sign they are looking no further ahead than my rear end. I know I cannot see around corners and I doubt anybody else's ability to do so.
Richard Fairhurst
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Re: Suitable speed limit for minor country roads

Post by Richard Fairhurst »

I see your point thirdcrank, but I think that ship has sailed. Many drivers treat NSL as a target speed too. I don't see that installing 30 roundels in place of NSL roundels would cause that sort of driver to speed up: they already drive as fast as they can.

mjr's allusion to technology is interesting, though. Already, satnavs/Google Maps/etc. know about speed limits and use it in route choice. If a road has a 20mph limit, that makes it less likely that a satnav will choose it (because the overall speed will be slower), thereby reducing rat-running. Looking into the future, that will surely be even more important as self-driving cars come into use. (And it may not be that far in the future: there was an interesting paper in the US last month about self-driving cars being feasible on rural roads even without detailed lane mapping databases.)
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