Suffolk Speed Limits

[Jasandjules]

So far EVERY single day I've driven in the last three weeks I've met with Suffolk Speed limits (40 on the straights but a hair raising [well, wig rising at times] 35 on the bends) - I guess I didn't get the memo.

Oh, and it isn't just old fogies either, it's middle aged men and women too............

[Ten Ninety]

anonymous said:

[redacted]

With respect, surely you're either in a hurry, or you're not? If someone overtakes me then I don't think it's unreasonable for me to expect them to clear the fk out of my way and not be holding me up a few minutes down the road. I certainly don't think it's reasonable for them to start playing Billy Big-bks with me and deliberately holding me up. If they had that much time to waste, they could have hung on behind me.

Let's remember this is Suffolk we're talking about. The vast majority of 30 zones in Suffolk villages are utterly spurious designations based on some non-driving, car-hating council planner's misconceived idea of road safety. The natural speed, especially on the A-road ones, is invariably 40 or above. If you want to be sanctimonious and stick to 30 because it helps you to morally justify your risk-taking in NSLs then of course that's your prerogative. But it's also Mr 40-Driver's prerogative to choose a speed lower than you would like to travel in NSLs because it costs him less in fuel.

[Jasandjules]

Ten Ninety said:

But it's also Mr 40-Driver's prerogative to choose a speed lower than you would like to travel in NSLs because it costs him less in fuel.

If I am not mistaken it is an offence to obstruct the road and travelling at a stupidly low speed counts....

[Dr Jekyll]

Ten Ninety said:

The vast majority of 30 zones in Suffolk villages are utterly spurious designations based on some non-driving, car-hating council planner's misconceived idea of road safety.....

And no doubt festooned with radar traps and unmarked cars. How can you object to someone trying to preserve their licence by sticking to the limit?

[Dr Jekyll]

Ten Ninety said:

Let's remember this is Suffolk we're talking about. The vast majority of 30 zones in Suffolk villages are utterly spurious designations based on some non-driving, car-hating council planner's misconceived idea of road safety.

And no doubt festooned with radar traps and unmarked cars. How can you object to someone trying to preserve their licence by sticking to the limit?

[IROC-Z]

Jasandjules said:

So far EVERY single day I've driven in the last three weeks I've met with Suffolk Speed limits (40 on the straights but a hair raising [well, wig rising at times] 35 on the bends) - I guess I didn't get the memo.

Oh, and it isn't just old fogies either, it's middle aged men and women too............

I think it's a pretty universal issue. I'll see you Suffolk speed limits and I raise you Sussex, as one of the worst counties for the 40mph everywhere brigade. I encountered three today, all on fast 60mph A roads in bright sunshine. All of them totally oblivious to the fact that faster traffic wished to pass them as they weaved about between the verge and centre line.

To make matters worse, such is the amount of traffic on the roads in the daytime in Sussex that when a rare overtaking opportunity comes, there is almost always something coming in the other direction.

What usually happens is these individuals soon pick up a long trail of equally vacuous morons sitting an inch of each other's bumpers, but all totally lacking the ability to overtake. If you catch up with even two or three, just give up. They won’t overtake, and they also won’t leave room for anyone else to overtake.

[Ben Hughes]

There was an utter mong in a Yaris on the A29 to Goodwood on Sunday. She (a early-twenties fugly type) was doing a steady 40 and seemed completely oblivious to all the classic exotica overtaking her on the straights. I even wound up the MGB and went for my first-ever overtake in it!

[Monkeylegend]

It's the way we like it here, it keeps the undesireables away

[Jasandjules]

Dr Jekyll said:

And no doubt festooned with radar traps and unmarked cars. How can you object to someone trying to preserve their licence by sticking to the limit?

Oh I don't object to that at all. I stick to the limits. BUT it's the 30-40 in the NSLs that really f**ks me off especially when there are loads of arbitrarily low limits popping up.

[Ten Ninety]

anonymous said:

[redacted]

I thought you did, when you said this:

anonymous said:

[redacted]

That's what prompted my post, to be honest. It made it seem like you were quite happy to put yourself and others in danger just so you could get past someone who was travelling slower than you felt was appropriate in an NSL. Yet you were then getting all high and mighty with them when they had the temerity to catch you up a short way down the road. The fact that you then deliberately started playing silly-buggers with them made me think that your behaviour on this occasion was, on balance, probably worse than theirs. Perhaps I have made too many assumptions there, but that's just how it came across to me. Sorry if I have misjudged you.

Leaving aside the issue of catching you up in the 30, I would still respectfully question your attitude towards people doing less than the speed limit. When Mr 40-Driver is there in the NSL, happily doing the most economical speed because for him that's more important than getting there quicker, do you really have a right to expect him to spend more money just so he doesn't spoil your enjoyment of your admittedly recreational drive? I'm really not sure that you do.

Dr Jekyll said:

And no doubt festooned with radar traps and unmarked cars. How can you object to someone trying to preserve their licence by sticking to the limit?

That's really not the point I was making. Doing 30 in a 30 in itself is not the issue - it's the overtaking someone dangerously and then holding them up by doing 30 which is the problem. If you're prepared to risk your licence by carrying out a 'sketchy' overtake (of what may well be an unmarked car) I don't think you can then rely on the justification of avoiding prosecution when you choose to hold that car up in a 30 zone a few minutes later.

[anonymous-user]

I agree with J+J and Toxic.

5.45AM this morning, driving on the A131 (pretty much on the Suffolk border, as it happens). 60mph limit. This stupid bh in her Pug 206, doing 35mph - with a queue behind her. At that time of the morning.

fking tractors drive faster than some of the s around my way.

[tvrgit]

Interesting that this topic should come up - I was moaning about this last weekend in my blog, where I said this:

" The drive down is great - it's relatively early, the roads are quiet, so we can tick along. Coming back in the afternoon, though, is completely different. The roads are full of the "40mph everywhere" brigade. Members have to pass an entrance exam that involves driving along at 40 mph on single carriageway roads where the national speed limit applies, but being sure to nervously touch the brakes before teetering round the slightest bend at between 30 and 35. Speed cameras also require the same braking caution. They also have to demonstrate a complete disregard for 30 mph speed limits in built up areas, passing through at their top speed of 40, oblivious to pedestrians, parked cars, or anything.

As a result, they potter along in front of you, then disappear up the road when you reach a town, only for you to catch them up again after half a mile or so, and repeat till next town.

Now they are bad enough, but they are inevitably combined with the anti-overtaking club, who will follow for miles, rather than risk an overtake on any straight bit shorter than the Bonneville salt flats. Unfortunately, they also specialise in following at close quarters, so you can't even "hop" past them one at a time.

All of this means that half of the journey home is completed at 40 mph, while everybody follows the slowest car on the road that day.

This is even further exacerbated by a 15-minute queue at the only set of traffic signals, which appears to be caused solely by the inability of half of the drivers in the queue, to co-ordinate pressing the accelerator down with letting the clutch up, less than 10 minutes after the car in front of them has moved away.

There are days, you know, when you start to wonder. Days when driving is no longer a pleasure, just a bleeding chore. This is one of those days.

This blog today has been sponsored by the new wonder anti-depressant drug "Fukitol". When life's a bh, when the milkman brings the wife back for a refund, when you're out of beer and money and there's still loads of month left till pay day, when the car won't start, and when it eventually does, you remember where you were going and wish it hadn't, when you realise that you only go to work to get a rest - you need "Fukitol". Two tablets, twice a day, and you too, won't give a toss."

[the-photographer]

anonymous said:

[redacted]

Get ready for sugar beet season! You'll have those big lorries 'pushing' all this traffic along...