Damon Hill wants 55mph motorway limit......

[stephend]

Originally Posted by Sailor 64

Many, many years ago I was taught to drive by an ex Met Police instructor. He not only taught me to pass my test but taught me how to drive - two entirely different things IMHO. As I only ever had 2 hour lessons - at least 20 minutes away from the area of the test center - we would cover some miles each week. In built up areas everything was absolutely by the book. Out on the open road, when conditions permitted, the general instruction was "Get your foot down! When you pass your test - which you will do - the first thing you're going to do is see just how fast your dad's car really goes, so you might as well know how to drive at that speed!" I very quickly learned that "Get your foot down" didn't just mean accelerate through the 60mph mark in 5th! It meant dropping down into 3rd and flooring it! Yee ha! Get settled down to a steady ton (or so) and then the random questions would come - what was the colour of the last car that went the other way? How many miles to #####? [moving the mirror] Whats the colour of the car behind? If I got a question wrong, or I hesitated in giving an answer, I had to slow down to 60 / 70, get some more questions right before being told to "Get your foot down". Might not be right but I learned how to observe traffic, road signs and everything else! A habit I maintain to this day.

Not quite as extreme as your guy, but my driving instructor was ex-Police class 1 as well. Mostly, we pootled around town, doing everything by the book. But the one time I persuaded him to take me out on A-roads, that changed. He was really encouraging me to go for overtakes (this in a Mk2 diesel Fiesta, mind!): I wasn't too confident, and he could tell. Eventually, I plucked up courage and blasted (noisily!) past somebody, and got flashed by an oncoming motorbike. "What you flashing for? You got loads of bloody room!", said my instructor. By now I was up to 80 mph in a 60 limit, in his driving school car. "Oops," I said, "I'd better slow down a bit!". "No," he growled back, "you'll be doing this once you pass your test, might as well learn how to do it properly" ...

Edit: the first time I took the RoSPA test, my examiner was a Police motorbike instructor. I happened to be taking the test in a Fiesta 1.0 hire car. It couldn't pull the skin off a rice pudding, and I wasn't familiar with it anyway - and again, the main thing I got ticked off for was not taking overtakes... Fond of their "making progress", that fraternity!

[classicswede]

Lack of training, lack of ability (there are some no matter how hard you try will never take it in) and pure stupidity are what cause the vast amount of collisions.

Drink or drug driving is just pure stupidity. A local lad not long ago died driving home when he could barely stand up! Drink driving is still a big problem in this area.

As per other posts the driving test is not about real driving. Yes it is now a lot harder but all in the wrong direction. The police driving method (with out the high speed) would be the way to go for most. The down side is that not veryone would be capable of taking it in and put the methods into use.

I also agree that it is hard to focus at 55 on main road. For a lot of drivers increased speed does help you to focus and react.

Changing the speed limit to 80MPH for the motorway I see no issue with as a lot of drivers are doing 80+ already. I suspect that the 80 limit if it came in would be strictly enforced however. We don't get anything for nothing.

On the other side of speed stopping distances. High performance cars are built with speed in mind and should stop well at higher speeds. 80mph for a T5 for example is just a steady cruise. A little saxo on the other hand is almost flat out at 80mph and will need a lot more distance to stop in.

Variable limits make sense but would be a complete nightmare to enforce and you would end up with a much more diverse speed range that is used causing more overtaking and lane changing?

Middle lane hogs bug me but I do understand why some drivers do it. The inside lane is often in such a state that is not safe to drive in especialy if towing due to the ruts. However with that said most middle lane hogs just have no awareness of other road users and probably see nothing wrong with what they are doing. Having watch police programs from NZ they have fixed penalty fines for lane hogs and tailgaiting

If you want to solve the problem then the answer as I see it is to replace main roads with a conveyer belt system. Drive onto you your spot and park up till you exit.

[MTerry]

The US had a 55-mph national speed limit from 1974 to 1988 and it turned US drivers into a nation of scofflaws that now totally disreguard any traffic law that they don't agree with, ruined lane discipline, discouraged concentrating on driving, made drivers scared to do anything that might push their cars at all, and worst of all, turned US police departments into modern-day Sheriffs of Nottingham, fleecing innocent people out of money to pay cash-strapped municipalities and turning the perception of police from friendly to adversarial. Incidentally, since speed limits were passed back to the individual states, which have raised them from 65-mph, to "Reasonable and Prudent" on some rural stretches in Montana, the highway death rate has continued to drop along the same curve it had been since the 40's. To quote the 70's move The Gumball Rally: "The 55-mph speed limit is stupid. Fast enough to kill you but slow enough to make you think you're safe."

[Volvo6]

If you want to solve the problem then the answer as I see it is to replace main roads with a conveyer belt system. Drive onto you your spot and park up till you exit.

Perhaps not a conveyer system but ultimately the best way of doing motorway driving would be automation I think. At the moment I find motorway driving very frustrating in all but the lightest of traffic mainly because of the large speed difference between different vehicles. I find this sucks me into often breaking the limit to try and avoid constantly slowing and changing lanes.

For example say I want to cruise at 70; well obviously I can't really stay in the inside lane because it's filled with lorries doing 50-56mph, if I move out to the middle lane I'm either slowed by lane hoggers, 56mph lorries overtaking 50mph ones or my mirrors are filled by people doing ~80. If I go into the outside lane to avoid the lane hoggers etc my mirrors are filled by people doing 85-90mph, usually German cockmobiles that come and sit inches from one's boot. Out of frustration I often find myself joining the cockmobiles and driving even faster...reenforcing the original problem...

The basic source of a lot of motorway problems and accidents is this speed difference. Automation could make everything drive at a constant pace and slow traffic down in advance of a blockage or bottleneck if one occurred so that traffic kept moving at a constant but slower speed rather than speeding up to a jam and then queuing.

Don't get me wrong I would not want to see driving completed automated because I enjoy it so much however I have no love of motorway driving and would quite happily sit in an automated car on the motorway, it would take so much of the stress, fatigue and frustration out of it.

[Sailor 64]

One other thought to throw into the pot - average speed cameras. Yes they are still just cameras and can only do so much to 'police' a speed limit but having been trialed locally they seem to work. Journey times are now shorter and accident rates are much lower. Still upsets some but the evidence is growing.

[gmain1967]

Originally Posted by Marty Dolomite

Damon hill has twice been done and recieved points for speeding on public roads.

Well that's twice more than me... A mate of mine's father in law used to deliver the high performance Mercs to approved customers for "try before you buy" weekends and one such "drop off" was for a Mr D Hill - a Mercedes McLaren. Not the motor I would suggest you want to feel "stressed" in, on a motorway. And a motor that would be rather pointless if you were limited to 55mph, might I suggest.....