If there was no speed limit on the motorway, what speed would you do?

Kev Greenhalgh

68.4 mph - Imagine trying to stick to that exact speed while in the rain, surrounded by idiots and driving on the wrong side of the road.. Vote Brexit

un1eash

From a recent trip down the M1 and around the M25 there wasn't really much time to do more then 70mph.
Worse thing I noticed was with all these smart 4 lane motorways, why is it everyone sticks to lane 3. I was passing so much traffic while in lane 1/2 at 70mph and when you did gain on traffic in lane 3 they just sit there with empty lanes to the left.

Iain42

And also, why are a lot of drivers not prepared to drive in the hard shoulder when it is opened as the left most lane?

Matt_C

Whatever is safe for the conditions. Clear, dry, empty motorway, say 2am? No problem doing 100 . 5/6pm on a weekday, traffic building up? Much less. Rainy, overcast/dark? Also less.

Greg Hook

That's the problem with a speed limit. The morons think it is safe to do 70mph on a motorway regardless of conditions because that is what the speed limit says.

In thick fog, heavy rain etc you should be doing a lot less. In bad conditions you often see numptys flying past you going far too fast.

anticlaus105

In bad weather/conditions or in a naff car or passengers or other vehicles present then slow. In good conditions on my own with a capable and mechanically sound car that I'm familiar with and an empty road then poss 150 .

noiseboy72

Most cars seem to have a maximum cruising speed before it feels like you are pushing them. For my old Volvo V50, it was 85, for my Passat, 90 and the wife's EcoSport, about 85 as well.

My little Z4 tops out at about 140, so cruising at 100-120 is well within the car's limits. It certainly feels like it's still got a lot to offer at current motorway speeds.

Unfortunately the huge increase in CO2 , NOx and other nasties at high speed means that limits are more likely to decrease - just to improve air quality.

Kev Greenhalgh

"Most cars seem to have a maximum cruising speed before it feels like you are pushing them. For my old Volvo V50, it was 85, for my Passat, 90 and the wife's EcoSport, about 85 as well."

And this is the problem, you think it's all about you and how inconvenient it is for you and your wife, yet you have zero knowledge of the very vehicles you operate, let alone the law, and your grammar sucks nuts.

mij

If everybody left a safe gap and drove smoothly at a speed safe for the road conditions, the actual speed wouldn't be so important, the constant braking due to drivers not reading the road and conditions causes most of the problems including traffic jams on motorways.

The ideal speed for some seems to be just a bit less than the BMW/Audi drivers trying to see what is in their boot, until they try to undertake them when they suddenly find a sudden burst of speed.  This type of lunacy is what has made me avoid motorways as much as possible and enjoy the scenic routes.

There are far too many under-qualified/skilled speedsters that seem to have no comprehension of the danger they put themselves and others in when driving at speed, which is why I would lower it to 55 in most places.

Iain42

I would agree with this.  My understanding of "managed motorways" is that if the speed limit is set to 50mph, the motorway can handle the current volume of traffic if they all sit at 50mph.  An increase on that leads to the problem of bunching and associated braking.

That said, the amount of times I've been on one, inside lane, cruise control set to about 53mph (so real speed pretty much 50mph) when the speed limit is 50 mph, and there's some idiot in a HGV a few feet off my bumper, trying to force me to accelerate.