Abolish Speed Limits

[Legnum Lad VR4]

No speed Limits (http://cars.msn.co.uk/carnews/clarke27sep05/)

i quite like the discalimer at the end

Robert's views and opinions are expressed as his own and MSN neither endorses or necessarily agrees with the statements made in Robert's column. MSN disclaims any and all liability for the views expressed in Robert's column.

[I-S]

Idiotic.

On friday evening I was driving home. 30mph, 30 limit. I was overtaken at one point by two cars (RX8 and ST170).

Outside a school.

When there were cars parked up and parents picking up their children.

Since people won't behave responsibly in such a situation even when there is a speed limit, having no speed limit at all would result in carnage. It would not see this claimed reduction in fatalities.

[marmel31]

I agree there would be carnage. Testosterone in teens and fast cars with no speed limits would make for a recipe for disaster. Not that I have any objections to someone speeding if it doesn't affect anyone else but innocent people would end up getting in the way.

[bradc]

There does need to be speed limits in places like that Isaac, and in most suburban areas. I do find it very tedious that I drive on 90km of virtually straight, perfect 2 or 3 lane motorway everyday, and am limited to 100kmh, I can't see any reason why the speed limit can't be increased a little bit on motorways at least.

[EVOLUTION]

When people talk of Germany and no speed limits, it makes me laugh..

How many here have actualy been on a German Autobahn???

For a start, there roads are better kept than ours, they dont dig them up every 5 mins. Also, there are speed limits on most stretches of the road, and when it rains, there were massive overhead signs introducing one, and forward facing cammeras enforcing them.

Secondly, there standard, and the rest of europe's drings is that of a better standard than ours. Would you believe it but i actualy teach people to drive on there roads, not just how to physicly drive a car... No outside lane hoggers, people use indicators, and so on, i could go on all night...

It works over there

So maybe they should rais the standard of driving over in this country, teach people how to drive on a motorway, which they curently dont...

but i do aggree with the first comment, simplly raising it now would almost certainly have an adverse affect...

Well thats my essay for the night


John

[I-S]

I absolutely agree that higher standards should be taught, hence my doing the advanced test.

I also think that the motorway speed limit should be increased in this country. However, the complete abolition of all speed limits is just stupid. There would be carnage and then there would be limits outside schools to sort that out. Then in urban areas where people are at. Then on country roads because too many people are killing themselves.... oh look, that's where we are now isn't it?

[Kenneth]

I absolutely agree that higher standards should be taught, hence my doing the advanced test.

I also think that the motorway speed limit should be increased in this country. However, the complete abolition of all speed limits is just stupid. There would be carnage and then there would be limits outside schools to sort that out. Then in urban areas where people are at. Then on country roads because too many people are killing themselves.... oh look, that's where we are now isn't it?

I am not sure you really get the idea behind the article. No speed limit does not mean you have the right to hoon around and speed past schools etc. at 2am in the morning, driving at 50mph past a school is not exactly going to increase your chances of killing children over doing 50 on the highway.

The idea is that roads are monitored for DANGEROUS USE rather than speed. Someone passing or going silly speeds past a school should loose their license before they kill some people, screw getting a speeding fine.

True, some people would take it as an invitation to do silly things. But you said in your first post that you were overtaken outside a school by 2 cars, and that is WITH speed limits. Obviously speed limits dont work. So why not investigate other ideas for reducing road deaths?

[I-S]

Because who gets to decide what's dangerous? How do you quantify what's dangerous? You can't rely on discretion or judgement because then things won't be applied equally or fairly.

You might think that driving past a school at 8pm at 50mph is perfectly ok.

You might not know that that's the evening of the school play and that there ARE kids around.

The point of my post about being overtaken is that even within a strictly defined structure people can not be trusted to make a sensible judgement about what is safe and what is not. That's why you see people driving within 10 ft of the car in front on the motorway when they should be at least 66 metres back. Trying to get the masses to apply common sense is a fruitless endeavour.

Not for a moment do I believe that speed limits solve all road safety issues. Of course they don't and there's years of evidence to the contrary. They make a significant contribution, and to just say "there's no speed limits anymore, drive safely" will not have a positive impact.

Perhaps if the article is to be believed that speed cameras result in increases in road deaths (and I suspect that the chosen examples were the only ones that showed such a trend.... lies, damn lies and statistics) then perhaps the issue that people really have is with being monitored. In which case, the massively INCREASED monitoring that would be required to prosecute people for "dangerous use" would have a similarly negative effect would it not?

Well, it makes about as much sense as the articles' arguments for no speed limits.

[Kenneth]

The police are (or at least should be) trained to determine what is safest for everyone. They may not always be correct, but then you have the court system to fall back on.

You have good points though, and I DO agree with you in the most part, I am just of the opinion that speed limiting is usually irrelivant to the current conditions.

Most people DO apply common sense when driving, it is a very small minority that do not. you will NEVER get them to drive safe because they have no self control. Sure the masses generally drive far to close on the highway, but then they dont get reminded of the consequences of what they are doing, nor do they get stopped. A camera that gave fines for following too close would generate revenue, AND promote safer driving... people would then be more careful with following distance, but be free to drive at speeds the determine are safe.


In saying that, in the most part (residential areas, roadwork sites etc) I believe there should definatly be speed guidelines. My problem is not with speed limits being inforced as such, but WHEN they should be inforced. as in enforcing highway speeds at 2am in the morning when there is bugger all traffic about.

[Legnum Lad VR4]

did i open a can of worms by posting this :( lol

[The Vee]

QUOTE
Perhaps if the article is to be believed that speed cameras result in increases in road deaths (and I suspect that the chosen examples were the only ones that showed such a trend.... lies, damn lies and statistics) then perhaps the issue that people really have is with being monitored. In which case, the massively INCREASED monitoring that would be required to prosecute people for "dangerous use" would have a similarly negative effect would it not?

QUOTE]

While I agree with a lot of what people are saying here, I do believe at lot of cameras are there for revenue purposes. But it should be noted that yes the above quote may be for selected area trends, but on the other hand the figures we have pushed at us to support cameras are probably selected in a similar manner.

[I-S]

The vee- please distinguish cameras from limits. I haven't said anything about not abolishing cameras. I agree with you that many seem for the express purpose of revenue generation. That's not what this is about, however.

Kenneth - if they came out with a "safe gap camera" then I would support that wholeheartedly. I can't agree about most people using common sense, however. People seem to regard driving as something habitual and think it's ok to use a phone, eat food, read a map or newspaper, etc at the same time. Driving should take 100% concentration (and no, I'm not claiming I give it that all the time... it's fundamentally impossible) or as close as possible, but people seek out distractions it seems. I was talking to an 18 year old who is just about to start learning to drive. He was saying "First thing to go in is a CD player and a hands-free kit". I suggested that perhaps he should consider giving more concentration to the road, which didn't meet with a particularly positive response.

If you saw the edition of Top Gear where clarkson drove the A8 TDI to edinburgh and back on one tank of fuel. He was driving smoothly and gently, trying hard to use as little fuel as possible and applying a lot more concentration than usual. His comment afterwards was "If everyone drove with that much concentration all of the time, no one would ever crash". Dead on

[Legnum Lad VR4]

i posted this up on the SXOC as well,
there are also some good comments on there



http://www.sxoc.co.uk/vbb/showthread.php?t=174828

[strapping young lad]

i used to be a parish councillor in the village i live in and i asked a copper who came to the meeting about installing a speed camera outside our school (its a dead straight road for about 300yds, and used by racers to see how fast they can go)

reply was that there is not enough cars using the road and there havent been any fatalities yet!

right when someone dies we will do something about it.. what logic eh! :S

[Legnum Lad VR4]

yeah didnt u know they only put them on roads where there have been deaths :S sick in some views :(