Entrapment or necessity of the nanny state?
 

Out on the ‘onda Sunday morning in an unfamiliar area when it suddenly dawned on me I wasn’t sure what the speed limit was.
Dimwit you may say, but, in the course of a few miles I’d gone from a 70mph motorway, through some road works posted at 30, a 60 mph national speed limit, a posted 40 mph limit in a more built up area, a 30 mph limit near a junction, etc

That got me thinking. We seemed to have gone from having a well defined speed limit structure of 30 mph in town and national speed limit elsewhere (for bikes 50 for singletrack, 60 for two way, and 70 for Dual carriageway + motorway) to a maze of 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s and 70s with no intuitive connection between the type of road and the speed limit set by well known national speed limits.

A national scheme of entrapment?? Festoon the roads with a wide range of various non intuitive posted limits and just wait for the cash to roll in ??

Ray

Nail hit on head. Logic doesn't come into it anymore.

The problem was caused when the Government handed over control of speed limits to local councils - they've all interpreted the rules differently which leads to different standards around the country.

Obviously they must all stick to the law required for signage of the roads, but you can no longer rely on the "dual = 70, single = 60, built-up = 30" rule-of-thumb.

This would require good planning and I doubt they are intelligent enough... :rolleyes::rolleyes::alien::lol:

Rule of thumb I use - look for street lamps, are they pretty close together ie 100m, then always do 30 mph unless there are repeater signs to the contrary.

Absolutely.:mad:
The Kimbolton to Bedford section of the B660 has been completely ruined by stupid limits.There is one 40mph section between two villages for about 3 miles for no apparent reason.:confused:

My daily commute in rural Lincolnshire goes like this
60 - 30 - 40 - 60 - 30 - 60 - 30 - 50 - 40 - 30.
Total distance 6 miles!!!

Not a bad overview:

http://www.trafficsignsandmeanings.c...mits-vary.html

F

We frequently travel up the A12 between Essex and Suffolk which over the last 10 years has been turning into a 30mph crawl-fest.

It seems that Essex into Suffolk is fine; you can travel on this main trunk road along dual carriageway (and sometimes 3 lanes) for all of it. It is when you get north of Ipswich that it becomes a joke - almost as if the council ran out of money!

I used to travel that bit of road every single day during my youth, and it used to take 40 mins as it was ALL signed as NSL. Now the majority is 50mph with 30mph limits through every single village (population: 3 + 1 dog) with 40mph sections extending either side. We're lucky now if we can do the same run in 1hr 15mins.

I remember a case a couple of years ago where the county coroner put someones death down to the fact that some bright spark in Suffolk CC had decided that if there was ANY dwelling within about 100 yards of the road it had to be a 30 limit-extending for several 100 yards either side of any dwellings. The coroner made the point that drivers got so frustrated by unnecessary limits that they would overtake as soon as there was any possibility. The overall result was that there had been a significant increase in head on collisions-mostly fatals-whereas in the past most accidents were at junctions and survivable.
Of course the road safely nazi's will say it is the drivers fault and they should all keep in line like good little sheep.

John