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people driving sooooo slow cos they dont know the speed limit!
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@Lum - I get your point, but would you want to drive at 70 on that dual carriageway? I know I wouldn't. If that road was used by someone on their driving test would they fail or be penalised for not driving near or at the speed limit (as has been suggested by previous posters)?
On that particular road, as shown there, probably not as "always be able to stop in the distance you can see to be clear" applies.
If, once over the crest of that hill it became long, straight and flat, good visibility, and it were dry, and the tarmac were in a decent state of repair (it actually looks alright in that photo) then I would consider doing 70 on it. I would certainly get annoyed being stuck behind someone doing 40 or 50.
But my point was simply that, for cars, the national speed limit on a DC is always 70.
There have been plenty of situations where I have not been able to travel at an appropriate speed. One example was me driving a manky old Passat estate with a car engine in the back that was at risk of snapping the ropes and falling over if I cornered too hard. It was a 60mph single carriageway and of course I soon acquired a queue that would make any caravan driver proud!It is possible that other drivers are new to the area, don't know the road or are looking out for a particular street/house/turning.
For those people who insist other drivers are in their way, do you always know exactly where you are going, have you never been anywhere new?
A little more tolerance of other drivers and a lot less of the 'You are holding me up' mentality would do everyone good.
Guess what? When I came to a layby I pulled over and let everybody past. Of course I built up a queue again so I pulled into the next layby and let them past again. If you are not in any hurry (as is often the case with slow drivers) then why not do this? A little bit of consideration from both ends of the scale is needed.
On the A40 between Gloucester and Ross, there are signs that say "Use passing places to permit overtaking". I have never seen anybody take any notice of these signs, but I have seen plenty of 40mph drivers accelerate once they realise they are being overtaken.
And to the person complaining about people doing 80 on motorway sliproads. Due to speedo inaccuracy they could well only be doing 70, and the purpose of a sliproad is to match speed with the traffic you are merging with. It's a lot easier to slow down from 70 if the motorway turns out to be slow than it is to speed up to 70 if the motorway turns out to be fast.
It's also valid to zip straight to the outside lane if, as if often the case, the first two lanes are both doing 56mph due to lorries. It's obviously not valid to "accelerate to 135" but really, how often do you see this. I'd wager not often at all as most cars aren't capable of this.
My particular pet hate is people who do 40 or less on sliproads and then have great difficulty merging due to the faster moving traffic. Bonus points if they then drive to the end of the sliproad, stop, and attempt to merge from a standing start.
If you do find yourself stuck at the end of the sliproad then you are in an dangerous situation, emergency measures are valid so use the bloody hard shoulder to get up to speed!0 -
It's also valid to zip straight to the outside lane if, as if often the case, the first two lanes are both doing 56mph due to lorries. It's obviously not valid to "accelerate to 135" but really, how often do you see this. I'd wager not often at all as most cars aren't capable of this.
Interestingly, my dad once got pulled over for zipping straight to the outside lane. He just joined, looked in his mirrors, kept his indicator on and moved across all three lanes. Mr Copper told him that you have to cancel your indicator each time you change lane, then travel in that lane, check your mirrors, indicate again and move on.
Must have been a slow day at the office, methinks.My particular pet hate is people who do 40 or less on sliproads and then have great difficulty merging due to the faster moving traffic. Bonus points if they then drive to the end of the sliproad, stop, and attempt to merge from a standing start.
Yes, my pet hate too!0 -
Seeing the motorway cop on one of the TV shows last night he said he normally drove just under 80mph on the motorway because if he drove at 65mph no one would overtake him and the whole motorway would slow down.
I wish the highways agency wombles would do this.
Alternatively, I wish that people would learn the difference between a highways agency vehicle (Yellow + black stripes, black lightbar, text says "Traffic Officer" and a police vehicle (Yellow + blue stripes, blue lightbar, text says "Police"). Also being able to identify a roadworks/maintenance vehicle (Yellow + red stripes, orange lightbar, text has some company name, such as Balfour Beatty) and stop slowing down to 60mph for all of the above.Idiophreak wrote: »Interestingly, my dad once got pulled over for zipping straight to the outside lane. He just joined, looked in his mirrors, kept his indicator on and moved across all three lanes. Mr Copper told him that you have to cancel your indicator each time you change lane, then travel in that lane, check your mirrors, indicate again and move on.
The worst part is if he hadn't indicated at all they probably wouldn't have noticed. Pretty sure there is no law being broken either way.
On some modern cars you could cancel your indicator and re-indicate and nothing would happen due to the stupid setup where they do a minimum of 3 flashes. (as an aside, if anyone knows how to disable this "feature" on a 2010 Mondeo, I'd love to hear it)0 -
The problem with speed junkies is that enough is never enough.
If we had 155mph limits on our Motorways we would still have someone Irate at that 'hogger' in the middle lane doing 180.
What I would like to see is the introduction of speedways, Motorways with no speed limits where all are free to kill themselves at 180+ all day long.
Follow this by keeping a strictly enforced 70mph limit on the real motorways they replace and we are laughing.
It would boost the economy no end, as all the show offs caning their BMW's/mercs/supercars etc around get killed off quickly the jobs they leave behind could be filled by our unemployed and the money made on fuel tax would be fantastic and help prop up the country a bit.
There would be little chance of survival at such high speeds so the drain on the NHS should be fairly small, though we would need a lot more hearsts than we currently have. This in turn would boost the funeral service economy and create even more jobs and cash.
The biggest and best bonus of them all is that all of the lunatics would clear off from the roads to fight on the speedway and leave nice peaceful roads for me to drive up and down safe in the knowledge that the real mad men are on the speedway.
I would never set foot on it ever, sadly I have to sometimes transverse our motorways though I avoid them and use the A-roads as much as possible to keep clear of our nation of budding Ayrton Senna's (with a similar fatality outcome it has to be said).
The main limit however that gets broken by almost everyone and gets right up my nose is the 30 limit. It truly is 30 for a reason !!0 -
The main limit however that gets broken by almost everyone and gets right up my nose is the 30 limit. It truly is 30 for a reason !!
It truly, *truly* isn't always.
I used to drive a half mile stretch every day. Perfectly straight, not built up, perfect road surface - and it was 30mph. The reason being? There were nasty corners either end. Rather than credit the public with the intelligence to "brake" at either end, they just cut the speed limit to 30...0 -
If it annoys you so much than over take there are two extra lanes for you. Last time I read the highway code maximum legal speed on motorways is 70 mphI hate people who drive these large v6/v8 audi's and BMW's and potter about doing 60 on a motorway.
If they're not doing 90 I just think why the hell did they bother buying that car? Might as well have bought a Nissan Micra or Polo0 -
idiophreak:
It's still 30 for a reason. What's the point in breaking it to save a few seconds and/or pence?
Totally pointless. No sympathy for anyone getting caught speeding in a 30 limit, simply not worth the risk.
5t.What if there was no such thing as a rhetorical question?0 -
No overtake assuming they are in far left lane. The type of car bares no relation to the speed one should do usually on the motorway its down to the driver
If the vehicle is on far right lane then obviously you would have to undertake to get past, I dont advocate this but it does happen
Do not overtake on the left or move to a lane on your left to overtake. In congested conditions, where adjacent lanes of traffic are moving at similar speeds, traffic in left-hand lanes may sometimes be moving faster than traffic to the right. In these conditions you may keep up with the traffic in your lane even if this means passing traffic in the lane to your right. Do not weave in and out of lanes to overtake.This is a BMW/Audi we're talking about, I assume you mean undertake in the 2 extra lanes?0 -
@Lindopski, I wouldn't mind a few roads like that either. I doubt there would be the kind of carnage you suggest (there isn't in Germany on the sections of autobahn where there is no speed limit other than the defacto 155mph limit of most German cars) but as you say it would separate out those who want to go at that speed from those who don't.
The M6 toll would likely have been much more successful with a 3 figure speed limit, as opposed to the current situation where the limit is more rigorously enforced than on the stretch of M6 it replaces, so lower risk to your licence to take your chances on the M6 if you intend to drive at that sort of speed.
I'd happily pay the £4.50 or whatever it is to be able to legally bypass Birmingham at a 3 figure speed on a road where everyone else expects you to be doing such a speed. I'd also happily pay to be able to continue on the once-proposed M6 toll extension that was going to go to Manchester.
You'd probably need to phase it in gradually, start with a 120mph limit for example, you'd also need to set the minimum speed limit to something like 90 so that you don't end up with massive speed differentials resulting in some 40mph middle lane hog being in the way in a matter of seconds. Once you go above 120mph* you'd also need longer straighter sliproads to allow for safe merging.
*Most UK motorways, with obvious exceptions such as the M50, have a design speed of 120mph0
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