The end of cruising at 85 mph on the motorway?

[frankenstein12]

Petrolhead_Rich said:

frankenstein12 said:

Most people in this country are uncapable of driving a car and as such I dont think speed limits are unreasonable.

PH Spelling Police

fksticks...

[frankenstein12]

Davie said:

fast_eddie said:

frankenstein12 said:

Which is why i drive according to the conditions and have as yet in all my years driving and what must be nearly three quarters of a million miles mostly in excess of the speed limit on motorways I have never had a ticket.

Standard process on motorways is when on unknown motorway have waze/speed cam app on and keep a look out for gantry cams and these new ones.

At all times on known or unknown look as far ahead as you can to see if you can spot anything on any rises or bridges across the carriageway or lots of cars brakes coming on at the same time on approach to a bridge or going through a bend.

Keep to lane discipline and keep as far left as possible. A natural response for a speed camera operator is going to be to focus on the inside/overtaking/fast lane. The further to the left of it you are the better chance you stand of not being pinged or slowing down before they get a chance to ping you as they will expect the faster moving cars to be in the "fast" lane.

When passing onramps quick mirror glance shoulder check to see if plod are sat up the ramp waiting for someone to whizz on by. (This is a favourite trick on the M11/A14 between Bishops Stortford and Cambridgeshire.

Oh and of course on bridges and even footpaths be aware of foreign objects sticking up over the side of the railings (look for tripods). If there are even spaced pods possibly camera van hidden off to the side.

Unmarked cars. Usually in furthest lane to the left. Keeping to speed limit or thereabouts. New cars. Clean. Normally a little lower at the rear than should be. Look through car to see if there is a camera near the rearview mirror. Unmarked cars are definitely getting harder to spot.

Just a few things t observe when on every motorway journey.

Well, that's the first time anyone has ever written exactly as my brain works whilst driving on a motorway!
I grew up driving in the 80s and 90s and there were Police everywhere...
Not so much now, but I still use the above principles

Yeah, me too and yet I've still had many a seat in the back of assorted Volvos and been invited to have a quick formal chat with a chap at Taunton Magistrates Court...

Given up now... cruise control... 75mph.

If you had been applying the above principles properly you would not have had those issues...

I concede none of us are perfect or driving gods. I have had a few close calls I have twice had tellings off but no enforcement both occasions were what I considered near miracles but at the same time my local force are actually interested in road safety rather than speed enforcement and both times I got "caught" it was on local ground.

One for near on 100 in a 50 and on second occasion a few years later and wiser for 90 in a 70. With the 100 in a 50 I got the most massive riot act and was convinced I had lost my license but it seems I spotted plod fast enough he could not get a reading of my speed and admitting I was being a tool helped.

Second time round I was just deeply unlucky as it was nightime and the car i was in had an auto dipping rear view mirror and as i joined the carriageway I could remember seeing a plod car but glanced in the auto dipped mirror and could only see a 4x4 outline so booted it and then pulled into a services a mile or so up the road for fuel and saw the 4x4 follow me and as it came into the light saw it was a police car.

Edited by frankenstein12 on Sunday 2nd October 00:52

[Ozzie Osmond]

frankenstein12 said:

my local force are actually interested in road safety rather than speed enforcement

I have twice had tellings off but no enforcement. One for near on 100 in a 50....

[smileymikey]

Yep NIP for 81mph J15/16 M5 Bristol no speed restrictions in place dry sunny light traffic

[jogger1976]

I pretty much stick to 70 now, as it's so easy to accumulate points, due to the amount of cameras and unmarked plod looking to hit targets.

I can't be alone in finding driving in this country (particularly at peak times) is an increasingly unpleasant and soul destroying experience

[vonhosen]

Unpleasant & soul destroying is sitting in stationary traffic going nowhere, not doing 70 on a motorway.

[frankenstein12]

Ozzie Osmond said:

frankenstein12 said:

my local force are actually interested in road safety rather than speed enforcement

I have twice had tellings off but no enforcement. One for near on 100 in a 50....

I was quite young and stupid at the time and truth be told it was a huge lesson for me about appropriate use of speed. It was pointed out to me why my speed was inappropriate for that section of road and it made me acutely aware that while my action may or may not have killed me had I caused an accident I would likely have killed anyone hit. The speed limit was there for an extremely good reason.

That has stuck with me ever since must be 13-15 years now if not 20. I suspect if I had simply been caught on camera or given a summons to appear in court I would simply have been annoyed at being caught and would possibly have killed myself or someone else by now.

I have always believed that education is better than simply punishing someone. Its why I am so anti speed camera. It teaches you not much more than resentment and that so long as you are under the speed limit you are driving safely which is as far from truth or reality as it is possible to get.

I have a spotless driving record in no small part due to what I was taught in those two incidents about appropriate use of speed and situational awareness and I am very grateful to the officers for what they taught me.

Even if one of them had given me points or sent me to court I would still be thankful they stopped me. I dont care if I kill myself by being an idiot its all I would deserve but I could think of nothing worse than injuring or killing someone innocent by driving like an idiot.

Edited by frankenstein12 on Sunday 2nd October 15:24

Edited by frankenstein12 on Sunday 2nd October 15:28

[Baldchap]

I've taken to chucking the adaptive cruise on for about 75 and letting it just do its thing. So much automated policing these days we can't win.

[Mikeyjae]

I was always under the assumption that unless other wise stated on the matrix signs, the speed cameras where not turned on.

Has anybody been caught on say the M42 where it has had speed cameras for years without the Matrix being displayed showing a lower speed limit?

[g3org3y]

smileymikey said:

Yep NIP for 81mph J15/16 M5 Bristol no speed restrictions in place dry sunny light traffic

Was this via one of the new HADECS cameras?

[Willy Nilly]

vonhosen said:

Unpleasant & soul destroying is sitting in stationary traffic going nowhere, not doing 70 on a motorway.

I do most of my motorway driving off peak. Christmas morning for instance, there is no reason to do less than 100mph other than the cameras, which have added a significant amount of time to a lot of the journeys I do.

I often use the M25 late at night and there is more often than not a 40mph limit when the road is empty. I believe it is something to do with the traffic sensors sensing the only vehicles on the road which are LGVs, assuming this is the dense traffic and lowering the limit. 4 fking empty lanes on a "high speed , like fk is it) and I can only do 40. Which ever tt is responsible for that, wants dragging from their office and clubbing to death with an iron bar. Utter. fking. Morons.

2 hours south of here I can roll along at 85mph without a care in the world and keep a decent average speed. A little further on from this in the summer my brother and I were rolling along on the motorway, his bike way wide open on the throttle stop, mine was just getting into it's stride, so I thought I'd have a casual glance at the speedo to see 160kp/hr. Lovely, nice and steady, no worries. If I did that here children would have been murdered, kittens would have died and global warming would have been my fault and my fault alone.

There is a dual carriageway into town. Used to be NSL. It's now 50 with Specs. That is the worst road I have ridden on in Europe, entirely because of the cameras. A fking nightmare on my bike. The people responsible should be shot. Again, I use it mostly off peak. There is no excuse what so ever for these ridiculously low speed limits.

[vonhosen]

160kph or 160mph?
Surely you mean the latter.
Your post doesn't really challenge what you quoted, or are you saying you'd rather sit stationary than travel at 70mph?

[Willy Nilly]

vonhosen said:

160kph or 160mph?
Surely you mean the latter.

160km/hr so 100mph a nice cruising speed. There is no reason not to do that in this country other than the cameras.

[vonhosen]

Willy Nilly said:

vonhosen said:

160kph or 160mph?
Surely you mean the latter.

160km/hr so 100mph a nice cruising speed. There is no reason not to do that in this country other than the cameras.

I disagree, Police officers are another reason not to cruise at that speed in this country too.

[Willy Nilly]

vonhosen said:

160kph or 160mph?
Surely you mean the latter.
Your post doesn't really challenge what you quoted, or are you saying you'd rather sit stationary than travel at 70mph?

I don't fking sit in fking stationary fking traffic on Christmas fking morning. The roads are fking empty and I want to crack on, not creep along at speeds the lorries should be going at.

Every time anything road related comes up, the answer is lower the speed limit. People driving fast cause me no issues. People driving fast are not the ones squeezing against a curb on my push bike, they don't cause me any issues in my car, or on my tractor or where I live, or when I am walking or when I am running. We both know that the reasons for lowing limits is that it is easy to measure. You do the sum total on nothing about people on phones or the people not keeping left on motorways which are causing the congestion, much easier to set a speed limit a bit lower than is comfy and rake in the cash. If you took the limiters on LGV's we could all make a bit more progress, but no, we can't do that, think of the children.

[Willy Nilly]

vonhosen said:

Willy Nilly said:

vonhosen said:

160kph or 160mph?
Surely you mean the latter.

160km/hr so 100mph a nice cruising speed. There is no reason not to do that in this country other than the cameras.

I disagree, Police officers are another reason not to cruise at that speed in this country too.

The speed limit is too low.

[vonhosen]

Willy Nilly said:

vonhosen said:

160kph or 160mph?
Surely you mean the latter.
Your post doesn't really challenge what you quoted, or are you saying you'd rather sit stationary than travel at 70mph?

I don't fking sit in fking stationary fking traffic on Christmas fking morning. The roads are fking empty and I want to crack on, not creep along at speeds the lorries should be going at.

Every time anything road related comes up, the answer is lower the speed limit. People driving fast cause me no issues. People driving fast are not the ones squeezing against a curb on my push bike, they don't cause me any issues in my car, or on my tractor or where I live, or when I am walking or when I am running. We both know that the reasons for lowing limits is that it is easy to measure. You do the sum total on nothing about people on phones or the people not keeping left on motorways which are causing the congestion, much easier to set a speed limit a bit lower than is comfy and rake in the cash. If you took the limiters on LGV's we could all make a bit more progress, but no, we can't do that, think of the children.

OK so you don't personally sit stationary in traffic, but that doesn't alter 70mph being far from unpleasant & soul destroying compared to sitting stationary in traffic.

[vonhosen]

Willy Nilly said:

vonhosen said:

Willy Nilly said:

vonhosen said:

160kph or 160mph?
Surely you mean the latter.

160km/hr so 100mph a nice cruising speed. There is no reason not to do that in this country other than the cameras.

I disagree, Police officers are another reason not to cruise at that speed in this country too.

The speed limit is too low.

Again I addressed what you specifically said, but you then talk about something quite different.
Any limit you want to go faster than you might consider too low, that's their nature, to limit your choices.
I'd personally go faster than virtually any speed limit a lot of the time & it's the threat of sanctions that causes me in the main to not do it.
If that threat weren't there I would do it far more.

[Willy Nilly]

vonhosen said:

Willy Nilly said:

vonhosen said:

160kph or 160mph?
Surely you mean the latter.
Your post doesn't really challenge what you quoted, or are you saying you'd rather sit stationary than travel at 70mph?

I don't fking sit in fking stationary fking traffic on Christmas fking morning. The roads are fking empty and I want to crack on, not creep along at speeds the lorries should be going at.

Every time anything road related comes up, the answer is lower the speed limit. People driving fast cause me no issues. People driving fast are not the ones squeezing against a curb on my push bike, they don't cause me any issues in my car, or on my tractor or where I live, or when I am walking or when I am running. We both know that the reasons for lowing limits is that it is easy to measure. You do the sum total on nothing about people on phones or the people not keeping left on motorways which are causing the congestion, much easier to set a speed limit a bit lower than is comfy and rake in the cash. If you took the limiters on LGV's we could all make a bit more progress, but no, we can't do that, think of the children.

OK so you don't personally sit stationary in traffic, but that doesn't alter 70mph being far from unpleasant & soul destroying compared to sitting stationary in traffic.

When I use the roads, 70mph is too slow. It is perfectly safe to roll along at 90mph in just about any car built in the last 20 years. If you are not skilled enough to drive at that speed, then slow down, but those of us that are would like to get a shift on. For me, 90 is the sweet spot between covering ground, staying alert and not driving out of my comfort zone.

The bulk of the reason for traffic bunching is lorries travelling at 56 and people not keeping left. Sort those problems out before you start messing with the speed limits.

High speed trains are supposed to be the saviour of the world, high speed internet is miles better and every body wants things in life to happen quickly. But you keep telling people that driving "fast" is bad. Not its not, it gets you to you destination in less time, which is good.

[mondeoman]

vonhosen said:

Unpleasant & soul destroying is sitting in stationary traffic going nowhere, not doing 70 on a motorway.

No, travelling on the m25 and my South of Northampton is a generally very unpleasant experience. Lane discipline is fking awful.

I had to drive round the m25 on Saturday, and the number of times the outside two lanes were nose to tail and the inside lanes were totally empty was scary. But I'm sure everyone was sanctimonious proud of themselves because "not speeding"