Cutting speed limits for cleaner air?

[saaby93]

Has this pic been posted up yet

[Rostfritt]

saaby93 said:

Would it help to think about planes
Is there an optimum speed that a plane travels?
If I remember Concorde was more economical travelling above the speed of sound than below it
Below a few hundred mph it wouldnt fly

It wouldn't help at all. The speed a plane travels at will affect the lift it gets from the wings, too slow and it will go into a stall and then fall out the sky. This is not an issue with cars.



There is an optimum cruising speed for each aircraft, but most these days are designed around Mach 0.88. The graph above shows the drag at different air speeds which is the same for all aircraft. As you see, the drag increases dramatically near Mach 1. So you are not going to fly an aircraft at that speed. 0.88 is a tradeoff of efficiency and getting somewhere. Concorde was not more efficient at supersonic speeds compared to typical cruising speeds but had to get up to Mach 2.02 to bring the drag back down again.

What this has to do with cars driving past a steelworks in Wales I have no idea.

[techguyone]

Exactly the 55(ish) mph optimum speed is also the same, it's a trade off between drag and getting somewhere.

Otherwise you could probably put 30 mph as optimum (for drag) but not so much for getting any distance in a sensible timeframe, what mayday mayday! pan pan pan doesn't seem to get is that cars are not planes and fuel burn over time and stall speeds are completely irrelevant.


Super duper gearing and better streamlined bodies do not stop the equation that 2x the speed = 4x the drag, and therefore more fuel is used to keep the vehicle travelling at the higher speed.

As a very famous engineer once said 'ye cannae breek the laws of physics lad'

[skyrover]

So the yanks are busy scrapping the 55mph limits they were ridiculed for by the Brits, while introducing up to 85mph limits instead.

Meanwhile back in blighty...

[Willy Nilly]

skyrover said:

So the yanks are busy scrapping the 55mph limits they were ridiculed for by the Brits, while introducing up to 85mph limits instead.

Meanwhile back in blighty...

every day the national fleet of vehicles gets a little cleaner as an old one is scrapped and replaced with a new Euro 6/7/8 model. They're getting more economical too, my car is stupid economical, a real-world 48mpg for a 100hp petrol car with all of the things a modern car design has to have is pretty impressive. Even big, diesel, SUV's are doing 80's hot hatch fuel economy now.

There are the odd pre-catalyst cars knocking about and when they drive by there is a noticeable stink they leave behind and the whole national fleet was like that 20 years or so ago. Now you can hardly smell and fumes.

We seem to be facing a tide of reducing speed limits for any reason whatsoever. It's "safety" or noise or emissions, any reason will do. But the people that want speeds reduced simply will not be reasoned with.

[anonymous-user]

Willy Nilly said:

We seem to be facing a tide of reducing speed limits for any reason whatsoever. It's "safety" or noise or emissions, any reason will do. But the people that want speeds reduced simply will not be reasoned with.

I honestly believe there are many on the left who hate all cars as a symbols of freedom and wealth. Freedom to travel for work, to get an education, to move away from home, to better your lot in life, god forbid to enjoy. We dream of that freedom, we work hard and buy a car and are proud of it, no matter how crap; it's a great big lump of metal that shows that having ambition, working and saving does work. Amazing. It's a poke in the eye to the miserable losers who sit on their arse complaining that no one has given them a house or a job or a life. Fvck em.

[Pan Pan Pan]

techguyone said:

Exactly the 55(ish) mph optimum speed is also the same, it's a trade off between drag and getting somewhere.

Otherwise you could probably put 30 mph as optimum (for drag) but not so much for getting any distance in a sensible timeframe, what mayday mayday! pan pan pan doesn't seem to get is that cars are not planes and fuel burn over time and stall speeds are completely irrelevant.


Super duper gearing and better streamlined bodies do not stop the equation that 2x the speed = 4x the drag, and therefore more fuel is used to keep the vehicle travelling at the higher speed.

As a very famous engineer once said 'ye cannae breek the laws of physics lad'

55mph may' be the optimum speed for `some' vehicles in terms of fuel consumption, but it is most definitely not the optimum speed for vehicle use generally. especially when the main point of vehicle use is to get from one place to another faster than is possible by other means.
This is why in the US with its `current' low speed limits, low road speed limits simply result in the use of air travel being far greater, and more convenient (But even the US has begun to realize the folly of imposing ridiculously low road speed limits where people are forced to travel by air, if they want to get anywhere in the country in a reasonable time frame, and what does that do for air quality?)
Artificially reducing speeds for spurious improvements in air quality, without taking into account the knock on effects these limits will have on journey times, and businesses, and people lives is pointless. By slowing the traffic down artificially it means that drivers will have to be on the roads for longer to complete a given journey, meaning that more, not less cars will be on the roads at a given point in time thereby increasing the likelihood of congestion.
In reality whenever the overhead gantry speed limit signs are switched on at speed less than the NSL, all that happens is that cars bunch up, and then start crawling for miles at speeds far lower than the limit posted up on the gantries,
Anyone can focus solely on aerodynamics, but cars don't operate all their lives in a wind tunnel, they have things like full loads, gradients, and traffic to deal with. I can state categorically that my car burns nearly 3 mpg more when travelling at 50 mph, than when it is travelling at 70 mph, How about the effects that artificially reducing vehicle speeds would have on business and deliveries, and peoples ability to get to a certain number of places, and complete a certain number of tasks in a day? these would be negatively impacted by introducing artificially low speed limits
Reduced speed limits are generally supported by low mileage luddites, who have, or never have had to cover long distances, for work, or life in general, and who don't understand the impact that an artificially reduced speed limit would have.
Some it seems, either want us to go back to a man with a red flag walking in front of cars, or want to make car use so time consuming, inefficient and tedious, that people give it up, in favour of faster (but not necessarily less polluting) means of transport.
Lets have a Piston heads poll and see how many people would vote for a 50 mph speed limit in support of (improved??) air quality that would put this proposal to bed one way or another.

[turbobloke]

Pan Pan Pan said:

...make car use so time consuming, inefficient and tedious, that people give it up, in favour of faster (but not necessarily less polluting) means of transport...

Air travel may be faster over length-of-UK journeys, but overall public transport is the slowcoach.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/cars-beat-publi...

"cars are at least half an hour faster into city centres than public transport"

The Times article states that cars the faster option into city centres compared to public transport according to official figures. Data shows that a morning commute by car beats public transport in England by an average of 36 minutes (Department for Transport). In some areas, the difference stretches to almost an hour. Figures also show that the margin between the two forms of travel widened over the past three years, with cars increasingly seen as the quicker option.

Even in London it's touch and go for many journeys, though there are obviously some trips where public transport remains way ahead.

https://londonist.com/london/transport/is-it-quick...

Ideological anti-car bocks is losing out to the reality of day-to-day experience.

Edited by turbobloke on Monday 16th July 09:02

[turbobloke]

Car journeys are also better for health than public transport. This research (below) relates to the transport user / traveller but with public transport belching out the most mutagenic carcinogen known to science it's hardly great for others.

Research rvidence for this, which would be unlikely to see the light of day in 2018, was reported by the Medical Research Council’s social and public health sciences unit in Glasgow. Ironically, the purpose of the report was to reduce reliance on private cars and to promote public transport. However it found that car drivers benefited from increased self-esteem, sense of security and control over their lives.

All these factors lead to increased psychological wellbeing, which has been linked to better general health and happiness. The report allowed for different economic factors, so this is not simply about car owners being wealthier and therefore happier.

Anne Ellaway, the psychologist who wrote the report, said "research has shown that car owners are healthier and live longer. This has been explained away by saying that car owners come from a higher social class and have bigger incomes, which are connected to better health, [but] after eliminating the effects of age, social class and income, we found drivers to have better general health and less depression than people who used public transport”.

Ellaway says she was surprised by the findings and intends to continue her research into what she sees as an important and under-reported truth.

“It showed that there is something about cars that is fundamentally good for people’s health and we should know more about that”.

Under-reported truth - that won't be lonely these days, as per the ~50% NOx from natural sources rather than transport and industry combined, air in UK buildings being on average 10x more polluted than outdoor urban air, and the epidemiological fallacy as used to synthesise the 40,000 deaths per year due to outdoor air quality claptrap.

[anonymous-user]

Willy Nilly said:

every day the national fleet of vehicles gets a little cleaner as an old one is scrapped and replaced with a new Euro 6/7/8 model. They're getting more economical too, my car is stupid economical, a real-world 48mpg for a 100hp petrol car with all of the things a modern car design has to have is pretty impressive. Even big, diesel, SUV's are doing 80's hot hatch fuel economy now.

There are the odd pre-catalyst cars knocking about and when they drive by there is a noticeable stink they leave behind and the whole national fleet was like that 20 years or so ago. Now you can hardly smell and fumes.

We seem to be facing a tide of reducing speed limits for any reason whatsoever. It's "safety" or noise or emissions, any reason will do. But the people that want speeds reduced simply will not be reasoned with.

Emissions per mile may have reduced (I'm assuming they have?), however I'd wager the number of miles traveled has also risen dramatically.

Is a small gain in average speed an acceptable trade-off for poor health due to road traffic pollution?

[RDMcG]

Been decades since I drove in the UK but it is about the last place in Europe I want to drive in. Camera infested, 20 mph limits in some towns , public indignation over speeding. I go there often and never even hire a car. Based on the numerous threads here it sounds like a nightmare.

I know, I know- early morning hoons in Caterhams on some remote country roads, lower powered cars driven hard ate more fun etc. These seem to be guilty exceptions to a daily trudge.

Off for my annual trip to Germany and Italy in the autumn. Seems as if car enthusiasm there is not regarded as some kind of quaint perversion.

I love the madness of somewhere like Sicily where people will turn a three lane road into five given the chance. Great fun. I love the predictability of proper driving in Germany where I can get up early for a 280km/h run on a Sunday morning.

Don’t want to get into endless MLM indignance, rage against speeders, tailgaters,people going too slow,merging incompetence ,mobile cameras and the like. As PH once proclaimed, speed matters. The UK seems to be grinding to a diesel-fumed halt.

Funny thing is, it used to be quite good fun.

[techguyone]

Pan Pan Pan said:

techguyone said:

Exactly the 55(ish) mph optimum speed is also the same, it's a trade off between drag and getting somewhere.

Otherwise you could probably put 30 mph as optimum (for drag) but not so much for getting any distance in a sensible timeframe, what mayday mayday! pan pan pan doesn't seem to get is that cars are not planes and fuel burn over time and stall speeds are completely irrelevant.


Super duper gearing and better streamlined bodies do not stop the equation that 2x the speed = 4x the drag, and therefore more fuel is used to keep the vehicle travelling at the higher speed.

As a very famous engineer once said 'ye cannae breek the laws of physics lad'

55mph may' be the optimum speed for `some' vehicles in terms of fuel consumption, but it is most definitely not the optimum speed for vehicle use generally. especially when the main point of vehicle use is to get from one place to another faster than is possible by other means.
This is why in the US with its `current' low speed limits, low road speed limits simply result in the use of air travel being far greater, and more convenient (But even the US has begun to realize the folly of imposing ridiculously low road speed limits where people are forced to travel by air, if they want to get anywhere in the country in a reasonable time frame, and what does that do for air quality?)
Artificially reducing speeds for spurious improvements in air quality, without taking into account the knock on effects these limits will have on journey times, and businesses, and people lives is pointless. By slowing the traffic down artificially it means that drivers will have to be on the roads for longer to complete a given journey, meaning that more, not less cars will be on the roads at a given point in time thereby increasing the likelihood of congestion.
In reality whenever the overhead gantry speed limit signs are switched on at speed less than the NSL, all that happens is that cars bunch up, and then start crawling for miles at speeds far lower than the limit posted up on the gantries,
Anyone can focus solely on aerodynamics, but cars don't operate all their lives in a wind tunnel, they have things like full loads, gradients, and traffic to deal with. I can state categorically that my car burns nearly 3 mpg more when travelling at 50 mph, than when it is travelling at 70 mph, How about the effects that artificially reducing vehicle speeds would have on business and deliveries, and peoples ability to get to a certain number of places, and complete a certain number of tasks in a day? these would be negatively impacted by introducing artificially low speed limits
Reduced speed limits are generally supported by low mileage luddites, who have, or never have had to cover long distances, for work, or life in general, and who don't understand the impact that an artificially reduced speed limit would have.
Some it seems, either want us to go back to a man with a red flag walking in front of cars, or want to make car use so time consuming, inefficient and tedious, that people give it up, in favour of faster (but not necessarily less polluting) means of transport.
Lets have a Piston heads poll and see how many people would vote for a 50 mph speed limit in support of (improved??) air quality that would put this proposal to bed one way or another.

i'd agree given the vastly larger distances the US has, that 55 vs say 80 mph makes little sense, the again given the size, anyone with any sense who has to do more than 5 or 6 hrs travelling would fly in any case. In broad terms the UK doesn't have this issue, for a start it's a damn sight smaller, you can pretty much travel over half the country in 6 hrs via motorway. I'm not endorsing a 55 mph limit, I'm just stating that it is the optimal speed for getting somewhere with getting the best economy if that kind of thing floats your boat because - well Aerodynamics and physics.

And all the naysayers saying that Smart (managed) motorways are ste, should go take a look at Brum on the M6, it's miles better than it used to be (ok it's still shocking due to volume) but you haven't got all the asshioles who would come screaming down to about J11 then cause massive congestion and standing traffic down to J8 and beyond, it does seem to work well at keeping moving albeit not at 70 mph.

I don't think anyone's kidding themselves about ar quality bs, particularly around Port Talbot, I remember driving along the motorway in the late 90's and wondering how they got planning to have motorways about 3 feet from the back of some houses. I wonder how the people who live there health's is holding up.

[Pan Pan Pan]

techguyone said:

Pan Pan Pan said:

techguyone said:

Exactly the 55(ish) mph optimum speed is also the same, it's a trade off between drag and getting somewhere.

Otherwise you could probably put 30 mph as optimum (for drag) but not so much for getting any distance in a sensible timeframe, what mayday mayday! pan pan pan doesn't seem to get is that cars are not planes and fuel burn over time and stall speeds are completely irrelevant.


Super duper gearing and better streamlined bodies do not stop the equation that 2x the speed = 4x the drag, and therefore more fuel is used to keep the vehicle travelling at the higher speed.

As a very famous engineer once said 'ye cannae breek the laws of physics lad'

55mph may' be the optimum speed for `some' vehicles in terms of fuel consumption, but it is most definitely not the optimum speed for vehicle use generally. especially when the main point of vehicle use is to get from one place to another faster than is possible by other means.
This is why in the US with its `current' low speed limits, low road speed limits simply result in the use of air travel being far greater, and more convenient (But even the US has begun to realize the folly of imposing ridiculously low road speed limits where people are forced to travel by air, if they want to get anywhere in the country in a reasonable time frame, and what does that do for air quality?)
Artificially reducing speeds for spurious improvements in air quality, without taking into account the knock on effects these limits will have on journey times, and businesses, and people lives is pointless. By slowing the traffic down artificially it means that drivers will have to be on the roads for longer to complete a given journey, meaning that more, not less cars will be on the roads at a given point in time thereby increasing the likelihood of congestion.
In reality whenever the overhead gantry speed limit signs are switched on at speed less than the NSL, all that happens is that cars bunch up, and then start crawling for miles at speeds far lower than the limit posted up on the gantries,
Anyone can focus solely on aerodynamics, but cars don't operate all their lives in a wind tunnel, they have things like full loads, gradients, and traffic to deal with. I can state categorically that my car burns nearly 3 mpg more when travelling at 50 mph, than when it is travelling at 70 mph, How about the effects that artificially reducing vehicle speeds would have on business and deliveries, and peoples ability to get to a certain number of places, and complete a certain number of tasks in a day? these would be negatively impacted by introducing artificially low speed limits
Reduced speed limits are generally supported by low mileage luddites, who have, or never have had to cover long distances, for work, or life in general, and who don't understand the impact that an artificially reduced speed limit would have.
Some it seems, either want us to go back to a man with a red flag walking in front of cars, or want to make car use so time consuming, inefficient and tedious, that people give it up, in favour of faster (but not necessarily less polluting) means of transport.
Lets have a Piston heads poll and see how many people would vote for a 50 mph speed limit in support of (improved??) air quality that would put this proposal to bed one way or another.

i'd agree given the vastly larger distances the US has, that 55 vs say 80 mph makes little sense, the again given the size, anyone with any sense who has to do more than 5 or 6 hrs travelling would fly in any case. In broad terms the UK doesn't have this issue, for a start it's a damn sight smaller, you can pretty much travel over half the country in 6 hrs via motorway. I'm not endorsing a 55 mph limit, I'm just stating that it is the optimal speed for getting somewhere with getting the best economy if that kind of thing floats your boat because - well Aerodynamics and physics.

And all the naysayers saying that Smart (managed) motorways are ste, should go take a look at Brum on the M6, it's miles better than it used to be (ok it's still shocking due to volume) but you haven't got all the asshioles who would come screaming down to about J11 then cause massive congestion and standing traffic down to J8 and beyond, it does seem to work well at keeping moving albeit not at 70 mph.

I don't think anyone's kidding themselves about ar quality bs, particularly around Port Talbot, I remember driving along the motorway in the late 90's and wondering how they got planning to have motorways about 3 feet from the back of some houses. I wonder how the people who live there health's is holding up.

The point for me, is that my car uses more fuel trying to keep at 50 mph than it does at 70 mph, with the added disadvantage that at the end of 1 hour, I would still be 20 miles back down the road. so slowing vehicles means that more not less vehicles will be on the roads at a given point in time as they will all take longer and therefore be on the road longer for a given journey length. More vehicles means more congestion
If I do 50 in 4th I am at 1950 rpm, if I do 70 in top I am at 2000 rpm, just 50 rpm less.
When one up It will just about do 50 in top, but it is not happy in that gear at that speed, add passengers and luggage, and a down change (to higher rpm is required) for every slight change in gradient, change in traffic flow etc. (still with the disadvantage of being 20 miles further back down the road from where I want to be in a given hour).
For businesses this means less deliveries, less meetings, and for all else, less ability to get to family far away etc can be done in a working day, reducing the efficiency of business, especially when other countries wouldn't hear of having 50 mph motorway limits being imposed on them. Even in the US (the land of the 55 mph limit) now has 86 mph freeway limits away from built up areas. In France the dry weather limit is 80 mph, because these speeds reflect the distances that people in the real world have to deal with.
I did between 37 thousand and 52 thousand miles a year for work, and just the thought of having to do those kinds of distances at 50 mph is truly frightening. Every time I did very long distances even at 70 mph I would be required to do an over night stop (more expense, and less efficiency for the business, and longer time away from home) That would increase unacceptably if I was required to cover those distances at 50 mph for the spurious benefit of improving air quality, Only reducing the overall number of cars on the road would have any real impact on reducing emissions from vehicles. but because reducing the speed limit to 50 would have the effect of increasing the number of cars (and therefore congestion) on the roads at any one given time, it would have little if any meaningful impact on overall emissions (for those who worry about that sort of thing.).One can not really have any surprise in a country whose population is at a never before seen high, and still increasing at a never before seen rate, that the emissions from all people is increasing, whether it comes from their vehicles, houses, jobs, leisure activities etc.

[dcb]

Pan Pan Pan said:

Even in the US (the land of the 55 mph limit).

False.

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_limits_in_the_...

Most of the country east of the Missisippi has 70 mph limit and most
of the rest is 75 mph or 80 mph.

This has been true for decades.

BTW, concise factually accurate posts preferred over long rambling posts containing
obvious falsehoods.

[Willy Nilly]

janesmith1950 said:

Willy Nilly said:

every day the national fleet of vehicles gets a little cleaner as an old one is scrapped and replaced with a new Euro 6/7/8 model. They're getting more economical too, my car is stupid economical, a real-world 48mpg for a 100hp petrol car with all of the things a modern car design has to have is pretty impressive. Even big, diesel, SUV's are doing 80's hot hatch fuel economy now.

There are the odd pre-catalyst cars knocking about and when they drive by there is a noticeable stink they leave behind and the whole national fleet was like that 20 years or so ago. Now you can hardly smell and fumes.

We seem to be facing a tide of reducing speed limits for any reason whatsoever. It's "safety" or noise or emissions, any reason will do. But the people that want speeds reduced simply will not be reasoned with.

Emissions per mile may have reduced (I'm assuming they have?), however I'd wager the number of miles traveled has also risen dramatically.

Is a small gain in average speed an acceptable trade-off for poor health due to road traffic pollution?

I've been very much in favour of tighter emission controls for engines but am beginning to get a little sceptical.

Exactly who are the people that have poor health that can be pinpointed on engine emissions?

Exactly what are they suffering from?

At exactly what point would the air be clean enough?

How the hell did they manage before engine emission controls got so tight and how did them manage when everyone was heating their house with coal?

[JagLover]

Willy Nilly said:

I've been very much in favour of tighter emission controls for engines but am beginning to get a little sceptical.

Exactly who are the people that have poor health that can be pinpointed on engine emissions?

Exactly what are they suffering from?

At exactly what point would the air be clean enough?

How the hell did they manage before engine emission controls got so tight and how did them manage when everyone was heating their house with coal?

The answer is they didn't and it is estimated at least 4,000 died as a result of the London smog of 1952.

There is nothing wrong with sensible measures to improve air quality. Everything wrong with an anti-car agenda hiding behind this.

Edited by JagLover on Tuesday 17th July 09:03

[turbobloke]

JagLover said:

Willy Nilly said:

I've been very much in favour of tighter emission controls for engines but am beginning to get a little sceptical.

Exactly who are the people that have poor health that can be pinpointed on engine emissions?

Exactly what are they suffering from?

At exactly what point would the air be clean enough?

How the hell did they manage before engine emission controls got so tight and how did them manage when everyone was heating their house with coal?

The answer is they didn't and it is estimate at least 4,000 died as a result of the London smog of 1952.

There is nothing wrong with sensible measures to improve air quality. Everything wrong with an anti-car agenda hiding behind this.

Quite right - but sensible prioritising would start with indoor air which on average is 10x more polluted than outdoor urban air (USA EPA, UK BRE) and in countries such as the UK and USA people spend about 80% of time indoors, more when they are already ill.

The question raised about 'exactly who are these people' is a pertinent one. The 40,000 annual deaths due to outdoor air quality myth is an example of the epidemiological fallacy at work. Nobody involved in such studies measured what pollutants 'these people' were exposed to nor for how long nor where nor when. They are not otherwise healthy people keeling over in the streets. The deaths referred to are in any case people who died "prematurely" who were already ill and indoors. What premature means in such circumstances invites armwaving of windmill proportions.

Anybody who still thinks there's anything meaningful in the 40,000 annual deaths claim should read the contents of the link below very carefully. The author is a statistician not a car enthusiast.

http://wmbriggs.com/post/13029/

[Pan Pan Pan]

dcb said:

Pan Pan Pan said:

Even in the US (the land of the 55 mph limit).

False.

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_limits_in_the_...

Most of the country east of the Missisippi has 70 mph limit and most
of the rest is 75 mph or 80 mph.

This has been true for decades.

BTW, concise factually accurate posts preferred over long rambling posts containing
obvious falsehoods.

Point taken, but similarly but if you believe in factually accurate statements, you could have included, that in the US the blanket 55 mph limit was rescinded in 1995 rather than the vague `this has been true for decades'

[Digga]

fblm said:

Willy Nilly said:

We seem to be facing a tide of reducing speed limits for any reason whatsoever. It's "safety" or noise or emissions, any reason will do. But the people that want speeds reduced simply will not be reasoned with.

I honestly believe there are many on the left who hate all cars as a symbols of freedom and wealth. Freedom to travel for work, to get an education, to move away from home, to better your lot in life, god forbid to enjoy. We dream of that freedom, we work hard and buy a car and are proud of it, no matter how crap; it's a great big lump of metal that shows that having ambition, working and saving does work. Amazing. It's a poke in the eye to the miserable losers who sit on their arse complaining that no one has given them a house or a job or a life. Fvck em.

This is absolutely the case.

The best example is perhaps Prescott a.k.a. Fatty Two Jags (relax comrade, it's okay for the elite to be more equal) decreeing in the late 90's that there would be limits placed on off road parking. Now we see housing estates built in at the turn of the millennium with roads choked by parked cars.

We bought a 5 bed detached house in 2000 (long since sold) which came with just two off road spaces, in front of the double garage. It was an utter joke, but fortunately I did a deal with the groundworker on site to widen the drive to three cars, prior to the top coat of tarmac on the drives and pavements. Going back to the same road now is hideous - difficult and dangerous, especially for kids or people cycling - and the reasoning behind the legislation was utter, left-wing dogma.

[turbobloke]

Digga said:

fblm said:

Willy Nilly said:

We seem to be facing a tide of reducing speed limits for any reason whatsoever. It's "safety" or noise or emissions, any reason will do. But the people that want speeds reduced simply will not be reasoned with.

I honestly believe there are many on the left who hate all cars as a symbols of freedom and wealth. Freedom to travel for work, to get an education, to move away from home, to better your lot in life, god forbid to enjoy. We dream of that freedom, we work hard and buy a car and are proud of it, no matter how crap; it's a great big lump of metal that shows that having ambition, working and saving does work. Amazing. It's a poke in the eye to the miserable losers who sit on their arse complaining that no one has given them a house or a job or a life. Fvck em.

This is absolutely the case.

Your typical marxist agitator promoting such guff is very generous, they have nothing and want to share it with you.