Speed Limits, Road Safety, Technological Change, Economic Growth

Thrugelmir

ILW wrote: »

it does take a fair distance to stop something weighing that much.

Amazes me the speed car drivers go in fog.

mattcanary

Tescos lorries do seem to be the ones that never go above 40 mph on single carriageways. Other supermarket's lorries do seem to go rather quicker

bugslet

Isn't there a campaign to raise the speed on single carriageways to 50mph for trucks? It would certainly help ease the frustration for car drivers of having to do 40, when their legal limit is 60mph.

MacMickster

Surely reducing journey times means that vehicles are on the road network for less time, so there are less of them on the roads at any one time reducing congestion.

It is bad driving that causes accidents, and to stop that we need far more police on the roads in unmarked patrol cars. Driving too fast for the road conditions (whatever the legal speed limit), tailgating, dangerous manoeuvres etc are things which are ignored by speed cameras and are the major contributors to accidents. Driving standards need to be enforced by having traffic police out on the roads.

grimsalve

MacMickster wrote: »

Surely reducing journey times means that vehicles are on the road network for less time, so there are less of them on the roads at any one time reducing congestion.

It's actually the reverse, higher speed limits cause more congestion - the faster the traffic is allowed to go then the more likely it is to cause bottlenecks.

Raising the speed limit will just give those drivers who currently drive at 80mph an excuse to drive at 90mph instead.

lisyloo

If they used the technology of speed cameras to automatically limit vehicle speeds, they would lose all their income from speeding fines

At 1.8 million a pop, how many fatalities do you think you'd need to save?

MacMickster

grimsalve wrote: »

It's actually the reverse, higher speed limits cause more congestion - the faster the traffic is allowed to go then the more likely it is to cause bottlenecks.

Raising the speed limit will just give those drivers who currently drive at 80mph an excuse to drive at 90mph instead.

That can be the case on motorways and dual carriageways BUT only when the roads are already congested AND if people drive like idiots (see heavy traffic ahead but decide to drive at speed right up to it, slam on the breaks, tailgate the car in front who would obviously go faster themselves if they were not in traffic). This is why more traffic police are needed to either educate the nutters or get them off the roads.

Really2

Move it to 50mph and have the limits for trucks GPRS enforced.

I had a neighbour killed in her car (mid 20's) by a trucker who could not make it round a corner on a Single Carriage way (basically the truck took the corner too fast, too fast would be way over 40mph).

So Increase the speed, but ban all those that don't comply by using GPRS.
I am all for increasing speed limits if complying standards are increased also.

It will get all the bad drivers off the roads.

Really2

MacMickster wrote: »

Surely reducing journey times means that vehicles are on the road network for less time, so there are less of them on the roads at any one time reducing congestion.

It is bad driving that causes accidents, and to stop that we need far more police on the roads in unmarked patrol cars. Driving too fast for the road conditions (whatever the legal speed limit), tailgating, dangerous manoeuvres etc are things which are ignored by speed cameras and are the major contributors to accidents. Driving standards need to be enforced by having traffic police out on the roads.

I agree, getting pulled over was standard procedure 20 years ago, even for minor stuff.
Police were visable nearly all the time. Now they are non to be seen, that has now turned into people pulling out on islands in front of traffic to save time.
People using right hand lanes to go left to save time etc etc.
The list goes on, standard have dived and the amount of dangerous manovers have gone up.

abaxas

Just ban the imports of audi A4s, all BMWs, range rovers and Volvo Xc90s.

In a couple of years road safety would have doubled.