I was seeing on last nights News at Ten the Government is planning to reduce the motorway speed limit to 60mph on a section of the M1 to in their words ‘Improve Air Quality’. Have you ever heard such a load of nonsense■■?. I know in our day jobs it won’t affect us as most trucks are limited to 56mph but what is this all about?? the original motorway limit of 70mph came in at a time when 7/10 cars would be near flat out at such a speed as well as not have any of the safety features enjoyed by today’s motorists such as airbags or anti-lock braking.Modern cars whether petrol or diesel have such clean running engines they barely emit anything these days a fact highlighted by a psychologist on a radio interview that less & less depressed people try to end their own lives by the hosepipe on exhaust method as it is not effective enough due to clean engines!!!. The 70mph limit was supposed to be temporary which makes you wonder the legality of it ( no doubt it was sneaked through some parliamentary recess to make it permanent just like when they passed the legislation that made speed cameras legal) however despite as many attempts to raise this grossly outdated limit to 80mph it always falls flat on its face. There is no doubt on my mind this is a sinister ploy by the government to raise even more revenue from the motorist by an increase in the issue of speeding fines. It certainly is not an idea to save fuel the way all road users are shafted by fuel taxes in fact only recently they were complaining expected revenue was down as people were not using their cars as much. What a cheek eh??
I remember back in the days of the Labour Government when the worst chancellor we ever had Gordon Brown ( probably the worst Prime Minister too!!) made road fuel in the UK the most expensive in the western world and to justify this, Big Mouth Prescott said this was an ‘Enviromental Tax’ Funny how they changed their tune when the hauliers blocked the refineries.I would have thought if it was to help the enviroment they would have been pleased but no!!! all of a sudden the Propaganda machine was spewing lie after lie that the NHS was in crisis due to this blockade. Well tell me like I am a 3yr old, since when were hospitals diesel powered■■?
Anyway returning to the original point as far as I am concerned this is another sinister ploy to shaft the hard pressed British Motorist once again. Over to you guys…
I would have thought that the slower you go, the less emissions you throw out, so in other words, at 60mph, you would emit less than if going at 70mph, so if thats their excuse, theyre welcome to it, but at the end of the day, they are the law makers, the the law enforce it. All it will do in my opinion, is bunch up the traffic a bit more, causing more accidents, and giving Mr Plod something to do, and also will allow them to produce a bit more revenue from the speeders.
be good to see what would happen if you went to court for “speeding” doing 70-75mph in the 60mph section,. How would it stand up in court■■? Getting 3 points on your licence just because it was a “clean air” section of the moterway ■■■■ em all!
does not really bother me as i only do about 60 mph in my car when i go places in it and as stated a majority of hgvs only do 56 anyway but i reckon in time if the government have their way we will all be reduced to 5 mph and have a man/woman walking in front with a red flag [only joking but nothing would surprise me with this country]apparently the highways agency also said it would ease congestion,REALLY,thats what was said about the M25 when they bought in the different speed limit signs,and all these years later it is still bxxxxxxs trying to drive on the M25,on a similar subject to do with transport i read today that TFL are putting the congestion charge up to £11.50p a day,this government [past and present]must think we the public are a bottomless pit of money,absolutely disgusting
del949:
I don’t recall the 70 mph limit ever being described as temporary.
DECEMBER 22, 1965: Britain’s 70mph top speed limit was imposed on motorways on this day in 1965 — in what was supposed to be only a temporary measure.
The trial was introduced due to the high number of accidents while drivers were free to go as fast as they liked after the first highway — the M1 — was opened in 1959.
The two-year experiment by the Department of Transport was deeply unpopular and led to protest campaigns by motoring groups such as the RAC and AA.
But by 1967 — when Transport Secretary Barbara Castle made her decision to make the speed limit permanent — polls showed 61 per cent of Britons were in favour.
This was due to studies by the Government’s Road Research Laboratory that showed casualties had been cut by 20 per cent and 60 lives had been saved.
However, motoring groups and manufacturers still doubted the report’s finding and demanded the speed limit was scrapped.
Lord Chesham, executive vice-chairman of the RAC, then said: ‘There are enough red herrings in this report to fill the hold of the largest Grimsby trawler.’
Today, Britain’s top speed limit is one of the slowest in Europe and there have been repeated calls to increase it.
For example, France, Holland, Austria and Denmark are among 17 countries on the continent where motorists can legally drive at 80mph (130km/h) on their motorways.
As for that London Congestion Charge, I remember when Red Ken introduced it , He was on TV bragging how effective it was on the first day it started which just so happened to be a public holiday so a piece of bull propaganda there, I always said the Haulage Industry should have stood together and said ‘Drop the congestion charge right away or we do not deliver to London’ That would have fair threw the cat among the pigeons. They are not happy with road tax, petrol duty ,VAT on everything, they have to dream up other ways to shaft all road users, not just hauliers
Let’s face it the highways agency don’t give two f&@ks about air quality etc. as you all know over the last couple of years that stretch of motorway has been upgraded to a fully managed motorway, or as they call it “active traffic management”.
So in order to justify the implementation of this technology they need to think up new ways of using it, also how many cars per hour/day/week will exceed the speed limit and get a nice big fat fine.
Modern engines are cleaner and greener than ever, and this 10 mph drop won’t do nothing.
Also in my opinion if the matrix signs were switched off and drivers left alone to make their own dessisions motorways would run a lot faster and flow easier.
Totally agree Rivits. The UK has become a country of immense bureaucracy, regulation, punishment, patronisation and jobsworths who over see and promote the whole thing. No doubt this latest restrictions to peoples freedoms will be enforced by yet more speed cameras that will catch out tens of thousands every month, see huge revenues and see countless people lose their licences over something so trivial and over what right now is fine, but at the click of a button will suddenly be an offence.
When it comes to crime and punishment I don’t trust the UK government or any form of local authority any further than I could thrown them. The whole country is lost in a maddened craze of surveillance, spying and prosecution the most minor thing, often on technicalities. By today’s standards in the UK, the former East Germany is starting to look like quite a nice place to live, away from the prying eyes of government and the so called police.
This M1 idea may have started off as an environmental idea, but I’m absolutely certain that at every stage of development since then, the motivations have been quite different. The endless amounts of SPEC’s speed cameras that have sprung up all over the countries motorway networks are proof of that, in my opinion.
■■■■ em all! 