70MPH on the M5 - with Cruise Control

[gh0st]

Further to JackoLahs post, here is my experience of 70MPH pretty much dead on accurate (72MPH on the speedo = dead on 70 according to gps calib.)

So I set my speedo to 72MPH which is damndest close dead genuine 70

Here is what happened -

Lots and lots of white van men suddenly wanted to do 71 as opposed to the original 60 they were doing as i started to overtake in lane 2

An unbelieveable amount of MLM in lane 2 took AGES to overtake at bang on 70 (69.9 - I cant exceed the speed limit remember - its the only prosecutable offense these days ) hence causing a traffic jam (sorry if anyone here got caught in it but the law is the law )

Took longer to overtake lorries - normally i would be happy to floor it past and pull in again but i couldnt

Kept getting caught up in "knots" of traffic all doing 69.9 and 71.1

Only pro was slightly better MPG but MUCH more stress from the contstant lane changing and blockading from other drivers who dont seem to like anyone overtaking them... on a motorway!!!

[towman]

I was going to post my experiences of running th elength of the M40 at 2am at 56mph, but I can`t remember any of it. I`ll have to ask my teddy (he`s currently wrapped in my blankey in the work bag)

Sweet Dreams

[leadfootlydon]

Hear, Hear about the problem of overtaking someone when constrained to travel just a little bit faster than they are.

Dallying in the danger zone next to another moving vehicle is unnecessarily dangerous.

Advanced Drivers, any comments?

There must be something we can do.

[Peter Ward]

gh0st, I agree. I've tried it before and it's horrible. Always in with bunches of traffic rather than getting past them and having some space and time to relax. It's not a safe way to drive. It seems to me that a distribution of speeds with no enforced upper limit gives people more flexibility to maintain safe space.

Worse still is what cruise control seems to do in these circumstances. On an empty road it's ok but as soon as there's some traffic around it gets in the way. It's interesting how in such driving we naturally adjust speed all the time to take account of what's going on. With CC you obviously don't do that, instead just ploughing on. For example, you hope that idiot in front will get out of the way before you have to brake and set CC all over again, whereas driving normally you'd just back off to retain a safe distance. I could see CC causing shunts for this reason alone, leaving aside the lack of concentration that it can encourage (as per towman's post!).