How much respect do you have for speed limits?

[TurboHatchback]

In the light of all the various threads on the endless reduction of limits, how much respect do you have for speed limits? When I started driving (only 5 1/2 years ago) I stuck to every limit religiously and on the whole thought that most limits were sensible and well considered. Now with the endless crusade to reduce the entire country to walking pace there are so many pointless and stupid limits being introduced that I have completely lost any respect I once had for any limits (not that I would ever speed, think of the kittens).

It used to be that if a road was a 40 limit then there was usually some decent reason for it and hence I would have no problem sticking to 40 if I came across such a limit. Now that chain of logic is completely broken, there is more often than not no reason at all for the limits hence I now don't assume there will be any practical reason to travel at the posted speed until I see it for myself.

It's like with any rules, if they are reasonable, sensible, logical & I can understand how they benefit people then I am inclined to respect and obey them. When the rules become oppressive and pointless (rules for the sake of rules if you will) I lose respect for them and am inclined to ignore all of them even if a few of them were originally sensible. It's like the basic crying wolf situation really, tell me there is danger when there isn't enough times and eventually I will ignore you even when there is danger.

In the hypothetical situation where one was to pay no heed to any limits and just drive sensibly to the conditions (which could be over or under the numbers on the poles), the risk of being caught seems fairly low as there are practically no traffic police on the roads, fixed cameras are easy enough to avoid so the only real concern would be scamera vans which tend to lurk in predictable places and could be viewed as an occupational hazard of driving.

So where do you stand on limits?

PS: Before the PC brigade descend to denounce me as an insane kitten-murderer, I actually drive fairly conservatively. I think that 30mph through villages & <30mph through small residential roads is fine, 70mph on the motorway is not unreasonable and I would leave the NSL at 60mph.

[TurboHatchback]

Generally similar approaches to my own then.

P-Jay said:

Stuff

Fair enough but I'm not sure what limits have to do with it. If I am driving close to parked cars with a pavement on the other side then I will be going pretty slowly regardless of the whether the signs say 10 or 100mph.

I would be mortified if I caused an accident due to my own stupidity/incompetence hence why I drive in a manner where I am 99.9% confident that I will not do so. If someone dived out in front of me in a manner which could not be foreseen and I killed them then I wouldn't feel bad about it (say they jumped off a bridge in front of me on the motorway).

[TurboHatchback]

It's all very well saying that you respect 30 limits because they are sensible but they are still only sensible in the right place. In an actual urban environment then yes 30 is sensible but why is this stretch 30 for example?:

http://goo.gl/maps/Lvtak

It goes back to the point that when all 30s were in places that needed them, when you came across one you always slowed down and stuck to the limit as you knew it would be sensible and well considered. When some of them are stupid and pointless it takes away that implicit trust in their validity and makes you question all 30 limits (which is bad as most of them are sensible).

[TurboHatchback]

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz said:

Speed limits are not THE way, but they are A way. Speed limits do not only apply to safety. Lower speed limits can be used to reduce congestion and fuel use, lessen pollution and noise nuisance.

A lot of speed limits actually increase pollution. My car is most efficient at 45-50mph where it will do nearly 45mpg at a constant cruise, at 20 or 30mph it is considerably less efficient. Obviously these thresholds vary from vehicle to vehicle but I bet there is barely a car on the road that is more fuel efficient at 20 or 30 than at 45-50mph.

I'm afraid I think dicking around with speed limits to reduce pollution is a ridiculous idea, its effectiveness is highly dubious, there are better ways of achieving the same goal and it is a very slippery slope which should be kept well clear of. If they want to reduce pollution then they should focus on increasing road capacity, redesigning junctions and raising speed limits in order to reduce traffic congestion as much as possible as the amount of wasted fuel and pointless pollution due to traffic congestion must be immense.

[TurboHatchback]

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz said:

Precisely. It's down a to a large combination of factors.

Claiming the raising of a limit is the sole factor in reducing KSIs is meaningless without looking at all the factors involved.

However, what you can't change is physics. In general, assuming the frequency of accidents and other variables remain the same, the lower the average speeds involved the lower the KSI rate will be. The more gentle the accident, the less likely you are to be hurt or killed. How stunningly controversial.

It is obviously true that if people kept piling into each other with the same frequency but lower speeds then the KSI rate would go down.

The important point here is that accidents are not caused by speed, they are caused by inattention and incompetence. Pointlessly reducing speed limits increases both as it removes any requirement to think from the driver. When I am in a pointlessly low speed limit on a huge wide open road or stuck in a queue of slow moving traffic then I find it impossible to maintain the same level of concentration and observation that I naturally maintain on a sensible road. There is then nothing to think about and my mind doesn't have an idle state so I drift off onto other stuff and not the task of driving. I'm sure most people are exactly the same.

Also if a driver has to think about every corner, every junction etc and pick the correct speeds and lines then it becomes second nature and they will think about their driving all the time. If a corner where some thought or slowing below the speed limit is required only occurs three times a year then drivers will never think about their driving as usually they don't have to and those three corners a year will come as a big shock and possibly an accident.