In not-Tony Blair’s Britain:
Speed limit on motorways to rise to 80mph
On the 401 in Ontario–limit 100 KPH–120 is a normal speed that will rarely get you busted, even a bit higher. But anything over 100 on an 80-limit two-lane highway and you’re fair game.
After 25 years of enormous cost to the nation, NHTSA created an Urban Myth that equated lower speed limits with safety. The evidence at every stage of the process was indicating neither speed limits, nor that enforcement had any meaningful effect on traffic speeds and accident rates.
Speeds have been going up since the automobile was invented in the 19th century. Accident and fatality rates have been going down and they have continued to do so since the beginning of the last century. The public after 25 years accepts the basis for the myth; but assume it is targeted at the other crazies because when they drive over the posted limit, they are driving safely – which they are.
FROM:
http://tinyurl.com/6x9bbld
What Oz said.
If safety was the concern they’d be far more effective by going after drivers who choose to follow too closely.
“If safety was the concern they’d be far more effective by going after drivers who choose to follow too closely.”
True, unless one is following someone intent on travelling at 80k on a 110k road. Too close in this case simply means get the hell out of the way, roadblock!
There are so many dangerous practices out there that are not used as cause to pull people over. The police (brass) like it easy; radars and cameras which don’t catch those who swing across lanes without signalling, who stop while attempting to merge onto a 100km highway, who clog traffic by insisting on driving slow in the “fast” lane etc.
They also use misleading “statistics”. For instance, if one is driving 15 km/hr over the speed limit and someone else T-bones them they will list the accident as being related to excessive speed though it had nothing to do with the actual driving error that caused the crash.
Safety isn’t the issue so much as using “safety” as a reason to raise revenue.
Funny how 70 mph translated to 100 km/h…
I would guess a good start would be scrapping the whole Pierre Elliot Trudeau measurement system.
My farm is still 9 miles from town.
If safety as a real concern and is really affected by speed, cars would have governors on them at 100KPH.
As I recall, one of the reasons Canada spent billions to switch to metric back in the 70s was that everyone else (except the evil Americans) was metric. So, how come the UK which has been under the EU’s thumb for a while apparently still thinks in miles?
“If safety was the concern they’d be far more effective by going after drivers who choose to follow too closely.”
Exactly!! Drivers who follow too closely generally have low IQs and not much else going for them. They are by *far* the worst menace on the road. Following too closely should get you jail time where you are forced to be holed up with other similar losers. Even better you should have to go in with the general population of murders and rapists, because that is where tailgaters belong.
What about all the additional global warming this will cause?
re TJ’s: ” … in with the general population of murders and rapists, because that is where tailgaters belong.” Forgot slowpokes cruising in the left lane.
I never tailgate because I’m the guy that tends to slow down suddenly when someone tailgates me (works great with a standard transmission – no brake lights when you downshift). I would hate to tailgate me. However, I tend to not do things like that anymore. Insurance rates and age and maturity are catching up with me….
Following too closely should get you jail time where you are forced to be holed up with other similar losers.
I’ve had the experience of being tailgated by RCMP cruisers(a ghost car on one occasion), at night when all you can see is car headlights behind you, back in the day when the Trans Canada from Calgary to Banff was a 2 lane.
Apparently they used to do it to imtimidate drivers into speeding so that they could pull them over and ticket them.
I once saw a newspaper story about a town that was increasing speed limits in order that the people who drive the speed limit are closer to the speed of the people who don’t.
oneblankspace 2011 2:25 PM
If speed is any significant factor in vehicular accidents at all it is because of the disparity between individual vehicle speeds on the same stretch of road.
A vehicle that merges onto a highway/freeway at a speed 40km below the general traffic pace is almost as dangerous as having a parked vehicle in the slow lane.
Yet there are no minimum speed limits that I’ve ever seen on Canadian roads.
Here in metro south ontario, the roads are so crowded, even if you try to leave the appropriate room someone will fill it anyway.
making the transition between kph and mph still has people buffaloed….and it’s been 40 years now
I finally gave up and asked someone a few years ago why they were crawling along up the busiest street in town, backing traffic up and causing chaos and she glared at me and said “the speed limit’s 30” to which I had to reply “it’s been 50 since 1972…” she didn’t make the connection between 30mph and 50kph so she drove…. 30
and the I-95 in Maine just increased it’s speed limit to 85mph….which most tourists were driving anyway
As one who drove the motorways in the UK for many, many years, this latest upward change to the speed limit simply represents an admission of reality.
Why don’t we regulate the Bureaucrats right out of their jobs & let people run their own lives , business, plus our families. Including education with Hospitals. It was much better when churches or Religious organizations ran them before the Great theft from the Government in the guise of safety.
You know like our grandparents did.
Relying on government for safety, is like playing with a Lion with a a steak in one hand.
Look it up. Countries that don’t even have traffic lights, have less accidents. This is all about fines, money for police, with collectivist authoritarianism. At one time Britain had free ways where there was no speed limit. Sure they had accidents. Life is an accident waiting to happen.
We all die in the end.
When Government regulates anything it is never for the people, its for revenue.
Driving 100kph on the QEW between Hamilton and Toronto is considered an act of war by most drivers. I like to drive in the fast lane, 120kph will get you tailgated. 125k is about normal.
People driving in the new (and utterly idiotic) car-pool lane at anything less than 120kph are an accident looking for a place to happen. Irate drivers are coming up on them at speed, hammering the brakes at the last minute and them flashing the headlights and blowing the horn. I’ve seen tailgating at a distance of under three yards while leaning on the horn, as the stupid old woman in the car ahead can’t decide if she should cry, die or wind her watch.
There is gong to be a -major- accident because of these earnest morons who belong in the far-right hand lane, driving slow in the car-pool lane. Going to happen. Your Green tax dollars at work, Ontario.
Tailgaiting saves on gas. Mustn’t waste those valuable fossil fuels.
The ultimate solution.
It would cut down on polution
It would save lives
Outlaw the wheel
It would be more to the point if the Brits widened their roads. Going even 40 mph on a narrow two-lane road can be really hairy, particularly when the road narrows to the point that the centre line just disappears. And, of course, one is driving on the wrong side of the road so the normal spatial instincts are screaming “Nooooooo”.
Ten years ago, I spent many Fridays and Sundays commuting between Toronto and Detroit. I can’t tell you the number of times, with my cruise set at 120 km/h, some moron would come up behind and sit twenty feet off my bumper. I would wait a minute for them to pass; if they didn’t, I’d begin to slow down (I’d tap my brakes to let them know).
What happened afterwards would just floor me. They’d slow down too. I’d keep braking until I’d get to something ridiculous like 60 km/h – on the 401! – and they’d still sit on my tail. Finally, when I got to 50 km/h, they’d decide to pass.
After that, it really depended on what type of a week I’d had. If things had been good, I’d let them get a few miles ahead, and then speed back up to 120. But if things had been bad…
I’d get 20 feet behind them, and constantly flick my high beams on and off, while alternately leaning on the horn and letting off it. If they’d slow down, I’d slow down, but the lights kept flicking and the horn kept blowing. I’d keep this up for three or four miles until I cooled down. Then (depending on where I was – you could pretty much predict where the speed traps were), I’d put the pedal to the metal, and blow past them at 140 km/h, leaving them in my dust.
The real problem of course is our tendency to give a driver’s license to someone who has successfully learned how to turn left in traffic and parallel park. If we had a rigorous driver’s license system, such as they have in Germany, we would have far fewer accidents, and no incidents such I described above.
I was clocked at 130 MILES PER HOUR on Alta 501…
was 15 years ago, and I got off with a warning because the RCMP Officer had a slower car.
Times change….
I found this comment funny.
‘Social’ media – one of the most incredible misnomers ever.
(Edited by a moderator)
Haha
Somebody has to be kidding here. In 1974, I took a long distance coach to Hull, Yorkshire from Devon. It went on a freeway which was to old A1.
The driver ran off a poor motorist who was doing 85 mph in the lane ahead. I saw his speedometer and he was doing at least 90mph.
We got to Hull, Yorkshire 40 minutes ahead of the advertised destination time. I waited at the famous Hull Paragon railway station. Thence to the little village where I was sent to avoid the bombing in WW2.
The arrogance of speeders is very obvious. They curse the law and think they have more rights than others.
What is their defence? What is there reason for wanting to get from A to B say, thirty minutes earlier. ?
That highway speed if thought being at 80 mph then was an absolute joke. As is the Trans-Canada Highway limits using my experience Schrieber to Rossport, Ontario.
Trucks trying to do 110 km per hour. Most parts of that highway two lane only.
US Highway 2 far better.
A little time to re phrase my previous post a little more clearly. Since it was said in the newspaper that 14% of motorists exceed 80 mph and over 50% drive at 70 mph, things must have changed.
On that main highway going north,in England, the speed was incredible. There seemed to be no law applied.
Any one driving from White River, Ontario to Thunder Bay, should be prepared to be harassed if they drive just at the speed limit. Heaven help anyone who drives at the expected minimum.
Hardly any place to pull over safely.
“Any one driving from White River, Ontario to Thunder Bay, should be prepared to be harassed if they drive just at the speed limit.”
Well, yeah. Because nobody wants to putter along any slower than they have to, and everybody knows the cops will give you at least 10K-20K over the posted limit. These are the facts of life, invariant and unchanging, no matter where in the country you are driving. Like gravity.
Knowing that, what’s the purpose of crawling along at the posted limit, holding everybody up, p1ssing them off and ruining their day? Death wish?
Your post at 10:40am.
This is very informational as to what seems to be a rift in driving techniques. What is important is to understand the other person- whether right or wrong. (bit of a sermon -grin).
I do not want to enlist the minority persons here who may be on side of speed limit observance. Here is the problem for some of us.
We have an “extension” in Sault Ste Marie, Ontario. It runs about 1.2 km without any stops or lights. A sharp curve is posted 30 kmph, bright yellow sign. Both up and down the “extension”. After that a sharp drop down the hill to the best coffee shop in town, is posted 30 kmph. Again in bright yellow.
Even I find it hard to go below 40 kmpg. Still they get huffy behind me. A large college also has a special wig wag sign, when students are coming out. 40kmph is the limit. One can keep hard left though and let ’em fly down the hill.
I go 55 kmph to get the tail gate people off my back, where one can go 50kmpg. Only on my return with coffee and timbit, can I go hard over to turn left in to a subdivision. Away they go, to the traffic lights at the main highway.
I am reminded of Mr Bumble in a Dickens novel. Bumble said “If that is the law, then the law is an ass”.
I cannot understand the laws of the road and why they are made. Must be some reason! (laughs).
PS When the “extension” first opened it was used as a speed way. Three deaths and one car through someone’s front room.
Whoops! Third paragraph correction.
One can keep hard right!.
Whoops! Third paragraph correction.
One can keep hard right!.