Majority of UK drivers back raising motorway speed limit to 80mph, survey finds
Majority of UK drivers back raising motorway speed limit to 80mph, survey finds
Posted by pppppppppppppppppd
Majority of UK drivers back raising motorway speed limit to 80mph, survey finds
Majority of UK drivers back raising motorway speed limit to 80mph, survey finds
Posted by pppppppppppppppppd
30 Comments
Sure. This has always been the case. Probably isn’t a good basis to change it mind, but most of us will support it
With the massive increase in energy needed to overcome increasing drag at higher speeds then this will be worse for EVs.
Doesn’t sound like a good idea, the roads are too crowded and there’s too many bad drivers.
don’t know how I feel about this, Ive never felt the need to drive faster than 70mph, with an 80mph limit people will absolutely chose to break the limit and hit 90+
80 is perfectly acceptable in daylight but should be 70 at night to address the nationwide problem of ultra bright headlights.
Yeah, just as soon as UK drivers learn how to _use_ the motorway.
Living in the Midlands I’d love to even reach 70 on the motorway nowadays.
I’m on the fence with this one. I’m sure nobody would personally choose to limit themselves to 70 given an option, myself included, but it’d be risky considering the quality of driving in this country appears to be on a noticeable steady decline.
Most seem to travel at at least that speed anyhow.
Balance it out by reducing all urban roads to 20mph.
Well 80 is pretty much the minimum speed for half the m40. Rest of the network it’s hardly going to be possible to get to 80 outside of nighttime hours is it
Lane discipline is too poor in the UK imo. In France they pull back in after passing and they diligently indicate for both maneuvers.
We’re not disciplined in the UK to deal with an 80mph limit.
Once people work out which fucking lane to use then we might start thinking about it.
How about we just make sure motorways can actually handle 70. Wild how in Wales I’m having to do 50 on the motorway
Sure but do it alongside compulsory black boxes linked to every road. You can do 80 or even 100 on motorways when safe but have the car enforce variable speed limits everywhere. Road only allows 40 – thats as fast as your car can go.
Save a fortune on “Smart” motorways and you could even dynamically alter the maximum as the weather changes.
Us, and a few other countries like Norway and Latvia are the only ones with a speed limit of 70mph in Europe. The vast majority of countries are 75mph, 80mph or 85mph.
I’d gladly welcome and accept an increase to 80mph (or higher), but I think they need to crack down on stuff like middle lane hogging and I’d even suggest as far as forcing learner drivers on motorways like they do in Germany to force higher driving standards by enforcing better lane etiquette.
Obviously not everywhere in the UK is near a motorway, so that would create a challenge.
The link doesn’t say how the question was phrased, to get this answer. Pity.
It was only about twenty years ago that the traffic would move on the motorway at around 85mph, more in places.
Probably just not worth it given the slow decline of standards on our road , I wouldn’t trust most with 80mph
No chance that this gets implemented. Regardless of how popular it is, raising the speed limit would reduce fuel efficiency and increase deaths, so there’s absolutely zero incentive for government to raise it (other than populism).
Will it actually change how fast people drive though? People are already flying past at 85 or setting up a 60mph road block.
When there’s an increase in Lane Discipline and the Road Policing budget – absolutely fine.
Driving in Australia recently from Brisbane to Melbourne, where most motorways have a limit of 100 kph (62 mph), and only a small minority are 110 kph (68 mph), it was surprising how easy it was to get used to, as all the traffic was obeying the limit, so you didn’t feel the need to ‘keep up’.
I expect that’s the result of better enforcement vs the laissez-faire policing here.
So keep it at 70, and actually enforce it. Average journey times will reduce. I don’t give a shit about people who value their time over my life.
The limit should be higher at night. Let’s say 90mph between 11pm and 5am. During the day it should stay 70.
In my experience, a very large proportion of drivers go over 70 if conditions allow. Far greater than he portion who exceed the 30 mph limit.
Rightly or wrongly, if the limit was raised and people carried on driving as they currently drive, it would make absolutely no difference.
Of course, if the limit was 80 you would probably see an increase in the number of people doing 90, which I think would be a bad thing. I could easily imagine that causing more accidents.
But I suspect many drivers would not automatically speed up. 90mph is pretty fast, most people aren’t going to feel comfortable doing that speed, even if they might routinely break the 70mph limit. Quite a lot of cars aren’t going to like that speed much either.
I’d rather see an expansion of better planned roads in housing areas.
Accept the reality that 80mph is the normal crossing speed already!!
The story that this links to has no mention of the poll.
It’s not going to happen.
Well, good thing we don’t enact laws by referendum then.
Some of the behaviour I’ve seen on motorways makes me want the limit lowered not raised
**Benefits:**
maybe an increased average speed
**Negatives:**
Increased braking distance
Increased fuel consumption
Increased kinetic energy in the event of a crash
(All disproportionately higher than the 14% speed bump)
Sure, people will support it because they want to feel faster but if the question is asked again with all these qualifiers mentioned I’d wonder what the support would be after.
The last time they looked at this, various bits of modelling indicated that the number of people who would die as a direct result through an increase in collisions would be 8 people per year.
Doesn’t sound like a lot, but consider this. If you drive from London to York, presuming you can do the speed limit all the way, your 195 miles of motorway travelling will get you 21 minutes of savings for 80mph over 70mph. If you make that journey 6 times a year to visit some family, your return journey saving time for the year will be 4 hours and 12 minutes.
If you’re they type of psychopath who thinks the lives of 8 people are an entirely justifiable cost for gaining an extra afternoon all to yourself per year, I don’t trust your opinion on whether the speed limit should be increased.