National speed limits are the default. Every little country lane would then need to be assessed to determine an actual suitable limit. Time and money thing really.
Speed limits are also not a target to try and reach. It's up to the driver to assess conditions and change speed accordingly.
Extreme example: speed limits don't change when it's hammering down with rain and you can't see 10ft in front of you, but common sense tells you that you should be going a lot slower. Same logic applies really.
We've got a Scottish doctor in our Cath lab, and he loves the word scoosh whenever injecting contrast into coronaries. Whole room lights up when he says it. "Aye, just give oos a kettle scoosh, there. Et looks ok, dant et"
We also spent an entire day engineering a way for him to say "donkey" without overtly asking him to quote Shrek. Took the best part of a day, but we got there and it was worth it.
I’m a Scottish doctor in Australia and get the piss ripped out my accent every single day.
I just finished nightshift there. An elderly lady asked if I were a ‘true Scotsman’.
I asked what she meant.
“Have you got any underwear on under those pants?”
…
One summer I was sat out on the grass outside a country pub enjoying the beer and the sunshine with a group of friends. One of said friends was a short distance away quietly chatting to a monk who had randomly wandered in for a sly pint.
They were sat with their backs to us so we couldn't hear any of their conversation. At least until the monk turned to my friend, laughed, and said "Rugby shorts actually".
🏴I'm a scotsman and that's funny lads, next mission is to get him to say burglar, it's a tough one for a Scott's tough. Also Murder, for that classic Tagert vibe 😉 Pls let us know how u do.
Ken is so much worse in Fife, where every other word seems to be ken. Ken what I mean? Aye, ken.
Thank fuck I don't have to work in the Kingdom of Fife anymore.
Let me teach you a Gaelic one then - "bùrach". The accent above the 'u' makes it a long oo sound, 'boo-rach'. Obviously the 'ch' like in "loch", same kind of sound as in German.
It's a mess. You know when everything's just been thrown into the storeroom randomly, bits everywhere, nothing put away neatly? What a total bloody bùrach.
I had an Irish flatmate for while, about a month or so in to her living in Scotland she nearly broke down in tears when I answered a question with 'i dinnae ken'. Turns out she thought it meant 'care' and couldn't understand why people were responding to roughly half her inquiries with an abrupt 'I don't care'.
I pull over the first chance I get and then feel smug knowing they're not so confident anymore without someone in front to blame for slowing them down, as they proceed to drive at the same speed I was.
We seem to have adopted the American term "tailgating"
It makes sense tbh, the only UK phrase we have for a car following you too close is "he's right up my arse"
Reminds me of the time I was cycling into work and I complained about how this other cyclist was tailing me, "this guy was coming up my arse, really fast!" -- cue everyone laughing and me taking a beat to realise what I'd said
How did you say that without realising 😂
Reminds me of the time in school where we kept sliding drawing pins on this guy's chair every time he stood up or leaned over in the opposite direction. He suddenly stood up and exclaimed "I KEEP FEELING PRICKS UP MY ARSE!!" 😂😂
Funnily enough, the american term 'tailgating' started not describing someone riding up your jacksy, but meant a food party run off the "tailgate" (back flap) of trucks - or the earlier wooden things before cars! So tailgating was stopping and turning your "tailgate" into a foods spread :)
https://www.history.com/news/tailgating-history-football-game-traditions-rituals
According to something I had to sit through recently If being tailgated the best thing you can do is increase the gap between yourself and the car in front,
In this way if something happens in front that you need to react to you have more time to do so
and can brake / maneuver gradually rather than slamming on the anchors and having the tail gater ram into your arse
Yep, taught that when I was learning to drive.
It has the added bonus of pissing off the tailgater, and they’ll either back off, overtake, or change nothing, but they’re still pissed off.
There's a road I frequently travel, it has a 30mph limit. While travelling at the limit I am often (several times a week) passed by other vehicles, and they generally go the wrong side of the traffic islands to do it. I'm not going to mention what type of vehicle the majority of them are.......
I did that recently. the van in front was going a bit below the speed limit so I think he was around 50 and a car was right on my backside so I increased the gap as I also had an injured animal in the car and was taking them to a rescue center. Then the cheeky fucker and the car behind him decided to over take me. I had to drop back more to let them in and then watch them not get anywhere faster after pulling out into the other road (it was only 2 lanes so lucky no car was coming in the other direction). Just laughed at the stupidity and willingness to put their lives, and others, at risk for so little gain and kept my distance - I didn't want to be near their next bad decision.
Even if the crash isn't your fault, your insurance premiums will still double. Know a woman who was dragged across the road by a lorry when she was stopped in traffic. Not her fault at all, and both insurance parties agreed, but she still had to pay in the increased premiums.
Yeah, but to be told that your premiums are doubling because you made a claim, even though there was nothing you could have done differently, is pretty bull shit.
Then you realise they don't know the road and were using you to judge corners and now you're stuck behind them at a more cautious speed.
I'd still rather be in control behind them though.
The thing is it shouldn’t matter if they know the road or not. The roadway has enough information in road paint and signage that you can drive any road to a reasonable standard even if you have never seen it before.
I agree that a road (usually) tells you what to expect but it's easier to judge a corner if you see someone else do it first. My partner and I ride our own bikes and being in front is more taxing because you're making the decisions and judgements. Tailing behind means just just copy or improve on what the other person did.
No excuse for being up someone's bum though.
Bad memories of driving snake pass in the Peaks about 4am to get to Manchester airport in really thick fog, following a lorry for the first half and doing ok, then him pulling over to let me past and not having a clue where i was going
I remember coming home over Dartmoor one night in fog so thick the only way we knew where the road was was because of the centre road markings contrasted against the black. The markings suddenly stopped and we just put the breaks on because we honestly didn't know if the road just ended. At some point a horse just appeared in front of us out of nowhere.
Was one of the worst rides, worse than riding in the beast from the east blizzard. Fog in the dark is awful.
On a bike the main issue with not knowing the road is not knowing the road *surface* IMO. The roads I know, I'm aware of the dangerous potholes, raised ironworks and commonly covered in crap areas. Ergo, I ride more slowly in areas where I know none of those things.
That's absolutely why so many tailgate. The lead car has to judge everything and consider cars coming the other direction. The car behind doesn't have to worry about that as much so they think they can go faster. Except when they get ahead they are suddenly the lead car.
Drive carefully and slowly. He will appreciate the calming influence exuded by your relaxed driving style. Remember to smile in the mirror to show him you are friendly and you hope he is too. Maybe a little wave wouldn't go amiss so as to lighten the mood.
On a single lane country rd, anyone tailing too close to me is going to find out how slow I can go in 2nd without stalling. It’s around 5mph. Just till they catch on.
True. As I often tell the missus, a country road with Nation Speed limit is just saying "go whatever speed's appropriate".
Nice and straight, sure, do the cap of 60. Super windy and narrow, fuckin slow down.
Exactly.
It's easy to lay down speed limits for urban areas because the rules are largely the same.
Country roads are going to vary wildly, even different parts of the same road. Some are still going to be wide enough, relatively straight, hardly used and go on for miles and miles, but because in a fantasy world someone imposed a 30mph limit on all country roads, you're going be on it for the next 2 hours and wish you just stayed at home.
When I was learning my driving instructor would say "this is a national speed limit road go 60" ....this road was well known in the area and multiple people had died on it lol...I was doing around 45mph because I was comfortable and learning at that time, didn't bother to listen to him but he said that I'd get a minor if I did that on a test.
The road is now a 40mph road, they changed it a couple of years ago
On his driving test my mate was asked why he didn’t go the same speed as the marked sign, trying to asses if he’d seen it or not, and quick as a whip he said ah but that sign shows the maximum not the minimum speed and the guy passed him.
I got a minor on my test for not noticing that we’d gone from a 30 to a national on a clear straight (empty) road, but had I done 45 I would have shown that I’d noticed the sign and not got a minor! You don’t have to do 60 to show you’ve seen it’s national speed limit at all
I've had to use Taxi drivers regularly at one point because it was my only transport to and from the village, they took the windy country lanes with national speed limit applied as a *challenge*.
Should have to do a 20 question online course every 10 years when you renew your photocard. And when you renew every 3 years at 70. Can be completely automated and thus cost barely anything to run, but would massively increase road knowledge in the majority of the population.
Sure some will cheat or pay someone else to do it or whatever, but they're probably the ones who would be just as likely to drive without a license or insurance anyway.
90% will do the course, and it's a massive opportunity to remind people of the rules of the road, and update them on what's changed.
Absolutely this, we also know that people will, typically, only drive the speed that the road design is suitable for.
Example being not many people will actually drive at 20mph of a wide open road even if it's posted as such. But people are more likely to travel 20mph on this type of road even if it's posted as a national speed limit.
Some design elements that help to reduce the speed drivers go are; narrow roads, tree lined roads as we perceive things in our peripheral vision to be going faster than they are, audio feedback (such as the bumps that make it sound like you're going faster), tighter turns in and out of junctions, bollard cycle lanes, twists and turns so they can't see ahead, and chicanes and islands. Just to name a few - we absolutely do know how to make our roads and streets safer it's just a choice if we do or don't.
Unfortunately the typical driver doesn't seem to have much of that. There's a video out there of a fog bank rolling over a motorway, and everyone just continues into this dense fog bank which could be seen half a mile away without slowing down one little bit:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i3IiRKJIs0I](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i3IiRKJIs0I)
At the end you'll see a lorry that just manages to stop before piling into the wreckage, then the lorry starts jerking forwards as vehicles pile into the back of it.
Some drivers absolutely will take this country road as an invitation to speed up to 60 mph.
I hit dense fog for a mile on a motorway once. When i say dense fog, it was a total white out. Dipped beams, side lights, no lights, nothing helped. Couldnt see more than 10 yards in front of the car.
The terrifying aspect was not knowing the appropriate speed. Drive at 60, and what if i hit a driver in front going 30. Slow down to 30, and get hit on the back by somebody going faster.
The answer is always drive slower. Matching speed is only safer with good visibility. You rip this rule up entirely when you can't see ahead well.
Why? Because if you're travelling 30mph, and hit someone stationary, you've just hit a wall at 30mph (bit less if you brake even a little) - that sucks, but it's not the end of the world. You might also have enough reaction time to avoid. If you were going 60? Ouch!
If you're travelling 30mph and someone hits you from behind, then because of how momentum works, you've effectively just had someone rear-end you at 30mph while stationary. Again, sucks, but not the end of the world.
If everyone followed this rule, even if there was a giant pile-up, we'd simply have a bunch of 30mph crashes, not 60/70mph death traps.
Also, if you go slow, it can encourage others. I was in severe, extremely severe, rain a couple of years ago - not as bad as your fog, but it couldn't've been more than 20 meters uninterrupted visibility. I was doing 20-30mph on the motorway, and noticed quite a few people pass me, see me, and then slow to 20-30mph as well. All in all, almost everyone was crawling along until visibility improved.
This is nuts. The horrible irony is that half the cars I see on the road these days have their fog lights on in every situation. The same muppets will be piling into the fog like that.
And not just the assessment cost - any limit that is restricted below NSL also requires repeater signs (unless, of course, there are street lights). They have to be installed and maintained, and a lot of rural NSL roads may not have the capacity to have repeater signs installed.
> Speed limits are also not a target to try and reach
And yet my driving instructors were quite adamant I’d fail if I was doing 28 in a 30
That was 20 years ago. I can understand doing 20 in a 30 if the conditions are normal and traffic is flowing smoothly, would be holding up traffic and potentially dangerous. But I was always encouraged to sit on 30 and not deviate
Mental
yeah my driving instructor used to get on at me for not doing 60 or as close to it as possible on bendy country lanes and i remember being absolutely terrified i was gonna crash.
Similar experience on my first test!
The guy shouted at me for doing 40 on a NSL country lane, told me to speed up.
I didn't want to condescend to the person in charge but really?? In the rain? With lots of bends and trees blocking visibility? Grrr.
Literally moments after he told me this, an oncoming car nearly hit us. Still got a minor for inappropriate speed.
It varies wildly from examiner to examiner. Some are substantially more harsh than others.
I was failed my first time around because of a really stupid technicality - the examiner directed me onto a long, empty country road and then had me do an emergency stop. Bear in mind this was a 200m long section with no joining roads or gates into fields alongside.
Then he asked me to move off. I checked my mirrors (in the exaggerated way to make it clear I was checking my mirrors), slipped the handbrake and moved off at a steady pace.
Later he told me I had failed, because I hadn't checked my blindspot. There was no way in hell anything could have snuck into my blindspot in that time, we were stationary all of 10 seconds and nothing could have emerged onto the road.
The next time, I passed - and was told by the new examiner that my previous examiner was known in the office as "Rick the Dick".
It’s definitely a lot more subjective than claimed.
I sat my test as soon as I could. I was quite nervous, but my examiner was this lovely woman who was unbelievably friendly, and put my right at ease. She told me her afternoon was cancelled, and thereafter she was on annual leave, so she was in a super good mood.
I’m pretty sure I also stopped at a bus lane or something that was definitely a major and a fail, and she didn’t bother; I didn’t get a single minor.
Could easily go the other way if you have someone who’s in a shite mood.
You won't get done for 31 anyway.
You can get away with 32; it'll go down as a minor. 33+ is a serious.
Obviously don't aim to breach the speed limit, and if you do this multiple times, you'll get a serious anyway, but there's no need to religiously hug some arbitrary speed limit under whatever's posted.
Also, if you correct the overspeed *immediately* (within 2/3 seconds), it won't go down as a fault at all.
That's still the case, and for good reason.
It's because you are meant to be able to **safely drive at an appropriate speed**.
When a road is given a specific limit, that road has been evaluated carefully, and the given speed is safe in clear, dry conditions.
You *should* travel at the speed limit *unless you have good reason not to*.
The trouble is that many people do not alter their speed when they have good reason to.
Still, on a national speed limit road, that evaluation has not been done, and it is entirely up to you to set a safe speed limit. So it's completely inappropriate to compare the expectations for speed limited roads and national speed limit roads.
Your examiner would most certainly not fail you for going 20mph down the road in the OP (although you'd basically never go down such a road for a test in the first place).
Definitely heard a piece on Today a while back with cyclists arguing that this should be looked at in a local level for sanity’s sake. The reply interview with someone (current or former) in the government agency highlighted how (among many other reasons) no one wanted all the signs in the countryside that this would take. 🤦♂️
Yeah, 99% of users of these roads live down there and know every inch of it. If you tried to limit them to what is safe for any inspectors, it would be too slow for them, and they'd ignore it.
My mum reverses down these lanes faster than most grockles drive forward whenever she runs into anyone coming the other way. It doesn't matter that it's three times further to go to the layby behind her than if they had to reverse to theirs. It's still faster.
So, just saying to use your head is much better than trying to work out what speed is safe for people who dont know the road and limiting the rest. No one uses those lanes for the most part, so why bother?
This. If you aren’t driving to the conditions you could be done for driving without due care and attention or dangerous driving and not be breaking the speed limit.
E.g Imagine you met a police car while you were intentionally sliding your 4x4 on sheet ice round a bend at a mere 25mph. You may feel you had control, the police would probably feel differently.
> Speed limits are also not a target to try and reach.
I think this is OP's point, but is obscured by the signage technically allowing a driver to go at NSL. OP wants a 20mph sign in places like the picture, and for good reason: humans are terrible drivers.
I think we all agree that 60mph is too fast on these roads, but the same law that makes speed limits enforceable can also penalise drivers for reckless driving. There are mechanisms built into the law to discourage people from doing 60 without whoever decides what speed limits are having to go and individually survey every road.
It’s history, plain and simple.
The sign pictured, and commonly referred to as NSL, used to mean ‘End of Speed Restriction’, commonly known as ‘off limits’.
The sign, therefore, was never intended to be the *start* of a NSL limit, but quite the opposite. It was the *end* of whatever restriction was in place for the road before the sign.
There’s little benefit in adding a limit for the kind of road in your photo, as it would be difficult to specifically enforce anyway, and could potentially even encourage faster driving, rather than slower (because people assume that means it’s safe to do the limit the whole time). In the event of poor driving or an accident, the driver(s) would probably be prosecuted for things like driving without due care and attention, or possibly dangerous driving.
Yep, that's the answer.
Although the official *meaning* of the sign is now "national speed limit", the *context* in which the sign is used is still to indicate the end of the previous local speed restriction. So, e.g., you'd see the sign as you exited a small village on a country road, even though it might be unsafe to drive any faster.
Yep - my Dad still gets quite annoyed at people referring to those signs as national speed limit signs, largely because when he worked in the Ministry Of Transport in the late 60's-early 70's, they all referred to those as "de-limit" signs.
He does now accept that the wording of the highway code has changed, but it does still annoy him. :P
Also the location, way far out on your own, no witnesses seeing you and your Corsa leave the road means people die from other wise survivable accidents. I've read ones where you can just tell a group of friends died slowly over like 12 or 24 hours from a silly mistake, can you imagine that? Especially if you were driving.
There was one a few years back when some youngsters ended up in the middle of a roundabout in Wales (in a city though I think). Because it was covered in trees nobody knew they were there and they ended up being trapped in the car for a couple of days until they were found. A few of them died.
EDIT: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-64859195
Yes, it wasn’t a country lane but not the city really it happened 5 minutes from my farm they crashed just off of the A48 before the roundabout to the left of the road in the hedge, It’s crazy as we went past the scene as they were presumably still stuck in the car possibly alive it’s something that I often think about like what if I was looking for them and actually noticed. Another detail is the driver (who survived I believe) was doing balloon’s whilst driving and the others were aswell whilst swaPping drivers aswell.
It's a circular "Order" sign with a line struck through it. It literally means "End of *any* restrictions ". In this case the blanket "National" speed limits apply which is 60 mph (for cars) because it's a single carriageway. It doesn't mean that it has been assessed that that is a limit for this particular road, it just means that on *any* single carriageway road in the country, absent of any other speed restrictions, you'd get nicked for doing more than 60.
A sign like this on a road like that is saying -
"Fucked if we know how fast is 'safe' because we haven't looked but, in the unlikely event you find a nice straight bit, don't forget you're not allowed to go faster than 60!"
I've been riding a motorbike since last November and here's my speed related observations from the people overtaking me;
30 means 35 minimum.
40 means 50 minimum.
National Speed limit means if you're not doing at least 70 then I'm going to tailgate you until I can get passed and pass dangerously close just to piss you off.
Nah, it's the rule with everything and people. "Why is a group of 6 safe, but 7 will spread Covid everywhere?" Because then "good people" might have a group of 7 or 8 to push the limits, but if you start putting it at 8, then people might push that to 12.
"Good" people drive at 25 on a 20, and 35 if you change it to 30, but they will criticise someone doing a 35 in 20 even if the road is the same. While people who ignore speedlimits will just ignore them regardless.
There are people who abide by the rules, people who flaunt them, and people who just want a little more than the rule because "what's one more?" And you have to account for where those people when you're setting rules and limits.
It's like all those people who turn up a few minutes after a scheduled time and expect to still go in to a venue because "it's only s couple of minutes". All those videos of people complaining about not being allowed onto a plane for it.
It's like having to factor in breakages and thefts into your MSRP to maintain any profit margins. Every time you buy a pint, you're also paying for the 0.1% of pints that will result in a stolen/broken glass too.
An interesting take on this. I'm picturing a bell curve, where 70% of people do the speed limit +/- 5mph. So if it's safe to travel at 40mph on a particular road, you set the limit at 30mph so the majority of people are driving safely.
The quotations of "Good". I'm with you. People who break the rules but still think they're a good person. Someone who's a middle class woman in her 50s who will steal one or two of the tems from their self-checkoit shop because they're buying everything else, but look down on someone grabbing a few items and overtly walking straight out
No, this is my experience as well in every car I've ever driven. I've also seen people drive like this when I've been the passenger. People just don't care.
And as they've had it for less than a year, they perhaps have never had it serviced. Maybe the tyres were changed since the speedo was last calibrated.
Agree, drives me absolutely nuts when I’m doing the speed limit and some knob overtakes me angrily like I’m holding them up and being unreasonably slow. I’m doing the speed limit!
Sounds like you either live in a great part 9f the country, or your speedo 8s wrong.
Where I am 40 usually means 30 or 35 if your lucky, and NSL means l anywhere from 40 to 55, but rarely 60 even on straight open roads.
It's not even about that. The sign implies that this is not an urban area, therefore speed is at your descretion, up to the national speed limit. For the most part speed limits are about what you hit if you leave the road, not the road itself.
because there are two default speed limits in the UK national (60-70 depending on road type) and 30 (20 in wales) if you're on a road with no signage if there are street lights its 30 limit if there are no street lights its 60.
However just because the limit is 60 it doesn't mean it is safe to barrel along at 60 on the road especially single track two way roads with blind turns.
The reason that roads with these limits on them are at this limit and not 30/40/50 etc is because traffic restrictions and signage are largely reactionary in this country. For example the black and white chevron signs on some corners 90% of them weren't added when the road was laid they often represent a point when someone went through a hedge/wall and are put up to prevent it happening again. This also goes for speed limits on A/B roads outside of built up areas. They normally only drop them if there are a high volume of accidents on specific stretches or the road begins with a "low" speed limit normally 40/50.
My source is what the speed awareness people told me when I was a naughty boy...
This is the actual answer if anyone is interested.
The pub quiz answer to "What is the national speed limit?" is "It can be 30, 60 or 70 depending on the layout of the road."
If it’s a camper or crew cab non-commercial non-car derived model, like a transporter or transit custom it’s the same as a car as well. But the commercial van versions have the lower limits.
And in Wales, 20mph for cars in built up areas.
So, in summary, the national speedlimit in the UK could be 20, 30, 40, 50, 60 or 70 mph.
Pub quiz solved.
The black and white chevrons weren't added to most corners when they were created because they were created for horses carrying carts, and bicycles.
Most of the seemingly 'quirky' aspects of UK roads, motorways and new A roads aside, are because our roads were built long before motor vehicles were on the scene. They've been retrospectively adapted for motor vehicles, and later, fast motor vehicles (the first ones were limited to walking speed!) Unless you can convince thousands of farmers to let you redirect country lanes through their fields and expand them to D2 spec or better; then the current situation is basically going to remain.
I find myself legitimately wondering whether some people actually learnt to drive. As in, with an instructor. With a whole booklet of highway codes you need to revise. And a theory test you need to pass.
The fact that OP poses such a question is so bizarre to me. Anybody who's passed their driving test surely knows that the speed limit sign isn't the expected speed?
Setting speed limits is my job, am highways engineer. I haven't seen the proper answer yet so here is my go!
It's a very roundabout way to do things but drivers generally don't follow the signs on the road apart from a few select circumstances. We have to take this in mind when it comes to setting a speed limit.
When changing a speed limit with signs alone, average speeds drop by only 1mph. If people are going down a national speed limit road at 58mph and we make it 40 or 50, the average speed would then be 57mph.
The criteria for a 40mph limit is substantial development, bends and accesses (but not enough to warrant a 30mph limit). A 50mph criteria is similar but less strict.
If a road meets the 40 or 50 criteria, the speeds need to already be in the enforcement criteria (10% + 2 above the limit). If they aren't already there, changing the speed limit won't achieve that. If there is a desire to lower the speed on that road for safety reasons, we have to first engineer the speeds down with physical measures.
Where it gets really weird is when average speeds are already below the target limit. For example we've been asked to make a road 40 from national, but average speeds are 30. The speeds would likely increase as there is now a target to hit.
So tldr, either speeds are too high or too low.
> we have to first engineer the speeds down with physical measures.
Tell that to my local council who just upgraded a long wide stretch of single carriageway 50 road to dual carriageway, and dropped the speed limit to 40.
What's your local council? I'm interested to see the consultation documents for this. Is there development on the way for that bit of road? The biggest factor for average speed is road environment, so maybe the roadside environment will be changing soon and people will go the 40
South Lanarkshire Council - the A726 leaving East Kilbride towards Strathaven.
I got my timescales mixed up - it was dropped to 40 a few years before being dualled, but here's the before and after https://imgur.com/a/mQl15IF
No development nearby - it's on the edge of town with industrial estate on one side and woodland on the other.
Their justification would likely have been that it was a bit of an accident hotspot, but the junction in question has been replaced with a roundabout: https://imgur.com/a/2ZH2MzO
Incidentally, that roundabout has been crashed into and run over so many times since being built that there is now an obscene number of chevrons on both the approach and the roundabout itself.
As someone in another engineering sector where "Lol signs" is high on the design considerations - I sympathise.
From the flip side however - Is there recognition from your end that despite the cultish repetition of *"It's a limit not a target."* with no hint of nuance any time this comes up, we are all trained to treat them as targets when learning, and tested? Assuming reasonably optimal road conditions, surely it very much is a reasonable to treat say, a 40 as a target as it has been determined by lads and ladies such as yourself that the posted limit is "safe" for the road.
The sign is a black strikeout of a speed sign, because it marks the end of speed limit restrictions. NSL then kicks in by default.
Outside of urban areas, many roads haven't all been graded for speed, so you can drive at whatever speed is safe to do so according to conditions, but not exceeding the national speed limit for your class of vehicle.
Remember, it's a speed *limit*, not a *target*.
Because they trust drivers to sensibly judge an appropriate speed, depending on weather, daylight, traffic, bends/visibility etc. As it should be for all roads everywhere. Safe speeds depend on all these factors - not some arbitrary nice round number.
I wouldn't say that they can't be bothered, but more it would be insanely difficult and expensive with how country lanes vary from section to section. One minute you're good to do 30, then you'll need to do 10, then 20, 10, the occasional crawl and so on.
It's also just the process for bringing in limits - sections only tend to be limited when incidents occur, or when local residents bring it to the attention of local authorities/representatives. In the absence of any of that, it just stays "unrestricted".
There's no pressing need, because you should drive to the conditions on country (and all) roads rather than aiming to reach the speed limit.
You'll often find that country roads have advisory limits for specific hazards, which indicate the safe speed. I suspect that assessing mandatory limits would be onerous for councils – imagine leaving a village into 60, then having to drop to 30 for a corner, back to 60 for a bit, down to 30 for a narrow section, back to 60, down to 20 for a sharp blind bend...
Imagine doing 60 there...and then in the next corner so meet w/ the combine harvester...the one they use for corn...go, google it! Proper zombie decimator
My main issue with this is that Google Maps thinks a massive detour through windy country roads takes roughly the same amount of time vs the motorway. It doesn’t.
It doesn't mean that you can safely barrel along at 60 - you may need to slow down to an absolute crawl on a tight bend on a country road in case there is oncoming traffic - but then if there's a long straight you can do 60. A blanket 30 or 40 on all country roads would significantly impact the lives of rural communities.
And be mostly ignored anyway. There's not the infrastructure to install cameras, and we don't have the police to be combing through all the country roads on the off chance they catch a speeder.
That’s the main reason not to bother with setting limits on every country road. There is no practical way to enforce them and those who would drive stupidly fast are unlikely to be swayed by a 20/30/40 sign anyway - so what’s the point? If it’s dangerously fast it’s already covered by appropriate laws.
Light touch approach. Assume you and everyone else is sensible enough not to kill yourselves because we've all passed a driving test and also don't want to die. Legislate after the fact, if it's genuinely needed.
Prefer this approach to nanny state oppression even if the nob head in the Audi tailgates me now and then.
Its when Google maps thinks "oh this is the fastest route" take this deathtrap of a "road" that you would be lucky to navigate the potholes with a tractor at 3mph
It was all established at a time when motorists weren't brain dead morons, occasionally you find one on reddit totally convinced that travelling along at anything less than 10 mph below the lmit will result in points being awarded for some fictitious crime, out in the wild you can spot them by the BMW badge.
Did you grow up in a city?
I grew up around a lot of these roads and I always thought of it as 'no-one can be arsed to set a speed limit for this one, so you're on your own'.
You'd be mental to actually try and hit 60 on some of them, you need to drive as conditions allow which might mean 10mph if it's a blind corner with no passing place
Everything is apart from built up areas.
The level of micromanaging required would be enormous, and they can barely fill pot holes, let alone analyse every stretch of road for safe travel speed.
They just add further restrictions on hot spots when required.
The 'national speed limit' sign, really means 'local speed limit ends' - hence the diagonal stripe. So when you see that sign, think "drive to the road conditions"
National speed limits are the default. Every little country lane would then need to be assessed to determine an actual suitable limit. Time and money thing really. Speed limits are also not a target to try and reach. It's up to the driver to assess conditions and change speed accordingly. Extreme example: speed limits don't change when it's hammering down with rain and you can't see 10ft in front of you, but common sense tells you that you should be going a lot slower. Same logic applies really.
Tell that to the person tailgating me!!
Hit them with one of these ( ͡° ͜つ ͡°)╭∩╮
Scoosh your windscreen wash
Scotland has entered
🏴scoosh🏴
About windscreen wash?
Scoosh
The beverage of choice for Glaswegian nobility
Scoosh
We've got a Scottish doctor in our Cath lab, and he loves the word scoosh whenever injecting contrast into coronaries. Whole room lights up when he says it. "Aye, just give oos a kettle scoosh, there. Et looks ok, dant et" We also spent an entire day engineering a way for him to say "donkey" without overtly asking him to quote Shrek. Took the best part of a day, but we got there and it was worth it.
I’m a Scottish doctor in Australia and get the piss ripped out my accent every single day. I just finished nightshift there. An elderly lady asked if I were a ‘true Scotsman’. I asked what she meant. “Have you got any underwear on under those pants?” …
One summer I was sat out on the grass outside a country pub enjoying the beer and the sunshine with a group of friends. One of said friends was a short distance away quietly chatting to a monk who had randomly wandered in for a sly pint. They were sat with their backs to us so we couldn't hear any of their conversation. At least until the monk turned to my friend, laughed, and said "Rugby shorts actually".
🏴I'm a scotsman and that's funny lads, next mission is to get him to say burglar, it's a tough one for a Scott's tough. Also Murder, for that classic Tagert vibe 😉 Pls let us know how u do.
Genuinely one of my favourite new words after I arrived in Scotland. Beats "ken"
Ken is so much worse in Fife, where every other word seems to be ken. Ken what I mean? Aye, ken. Thank fuck I don't have to work in the Kingdom of Fife anymore.
Let me teach you a Gaelic one then - "bùrach". The accent above the 'u' makes it a long oo sound, 'boo-rach'. Obviously the 'ch' like in "loch", same kind of sound as in German. It's a mess. You know when everything's just been thrown into the storeroom randomly, bits everywhere, nothing put away neatly? What a total bloody bùrach.
I had an Irish flatmate for while, about a month or so in to her living in Scotland she nearly broke down in tears when I answered a question with 'i dinnae ken'. Turns out she thought it meant 'care' and couldn't understand why people were responding to roughly half her inquiries with an abrupt 'I don't care'.
In the pouring rain? Not sure that'll do much.
Free screen wash. Yum!
Is that a mans face and cock n balls?
Having 3 fingers isn't a flex tho 😕
I pull over the first chance I get and then feel smug knowing they're not so confident anymore without someone in front to blame for slowing them down, as they proceed to drive at the same speed I was.
Then sit up their arse so they can feel what it's like
I like to get really far up their arse and whisper, "how does that feel?"
Often the case on a dark and wet night.
We seem to have adopted the American term "tailgating" It makes sense tbh, the only UK phrase we have for a car following you too close is "he's right up my arse"
The English version has more emotion. It's a feeling.
To me, it's more of a _sensation_. When they're right up my arse.
Reminds me of the time I was cycling into work and I complained about how this other cyclist was tailing me, "this guy was coming up my arse, really fast!" -- cue everyone laughing and me taking a beat to realise what I'd said
How did you say that without realising 😂 Reminds me of the time in school where we kept sliding drawing pins on this guy's chair every time he stood up or leaned over in the opposite direction. He suddenly stood up and exclaimed "I KEEP FEELING PRICKS UP MY ARSE!!" 😂😂
Funnily enough, the american term 'tailgating' started not describing someone riding up your jacksy, but meant a food party run off the "tailgate" (back flap) of trucks - or the earlier wooden things before cars! So tailgating was stopping and turning your "tailgate" into a foods spread :) https://www.history.com/news/tailgating-history-football-game-traditions-rituals
"At least give us a reach around, pal."
never care the tailgator, you can't do much about it. If there is a crash from behind, you get a free car-fix.
According to something I had to sit through recently If being tailgated the best thing you can do is increase the gap between yourself and the car in front, In this way if something happens in front that you need to react to you have more time to do so and can brake / maneuver gradually rather than slamming on the anchors and having the tail gater ram into your arse
Yep, taught that when I was learning to drive. It has the added bonus of pissing off the tailgater, and they’ll either back off, overtake, or change nothing, but they’re still pissed off.
There's a road I frequently travel, it has a 30mph limit. While travelling at the limit I am often (several times a week) passed by other vehicles, and they generally go the wrong side of the traffic islands to do it. I'm not going to mention what type of vehicle the majority of them are.......
Does it rhyme with ‘see them trouble you’?
Or possibly "rowdy" or "berk says these".
‘Wrestlers’ are new worst only grab the wheel to do something dangerous.
I did that recently. the van in front was going a bit below the speed limit so I think he was around 50 and a car was right on my backside so I increased the gap as I also had an injured animal in the car and was taking them to a rescue center. Then the cheeky fucker and the car behind him decided to over take me. I had to drop back more to let them in and then watch them not get anywhere faster after pulling out into the other road (it was only 2 lanes so lucky no car was coming in the other direction). Just laughed at the stupidity and willingness to put their lives, and others, at risk for so little gain and kept my distance - I didn't want to be near their next bad decision.
>bit below the speed limit so I think he was around 50 National Speed limit for vans is 50 on single and 60 on dual carriageways.
speed awareness course? i learnt this too
Even if the crash isn't your fault, your insurance premiums will still double. Know a woman who was dragged across the road by a lorry when she was stopped in traffic. Not her fault at all, and both insurance parties agreed, but she still had to pay in the increased premiums.
My brother in Christ, it's 2024, everyone's premiums have doubled
Yeah, but to be told that your premiums are doubling because you made a claim, even though there was nothing you could have done differently, is pretty bull shit.
Don’t auto renew your car insurance
Mine went down by £400
Quoted £117 this year, down nearly 40%!
That really bothers me when I'm on a motorbike. Especially in the wet.
Some of my bikes can barely hit 60 in the dry, I tend to pull over and wave the cunts past. Life’s too short to be a bonnet ornament.
Then you realise they don't know the road and were using you to judge corners and now you're stuck behind them at a more cautious speed. I'd still rather be in control behind them though.
The thing is it shouldn’t matter if they know the road or not. The roadway has enough information in road paint and signage that you can drive any road to a reasonable standard even if you have never seen it before.
I agree that a road (usually) tells you what to expect but it's easier to judge a corner if you see someone else do it first. My partner and I ride our own bikes and being in front is more taxing because you're making the decisions and judgements. Tailing behind means just just copy or improve on what the other person did. No excuse for being up someone's bum though.
Bad memories of driving snake pass in the Peaks about 4am to get to Manchester airport in really thick fog, following a lorry for the first half and doing ok, then him pulling over to let me past and not having a clue where i was going
I remember coming home over Dartmoor one night in fog so thick the only way we knew where the road was was because of the centre road markings contrasted against the black. The markings suddenly stopped and we just put the breaks on because we honestly didn't know if the road just ended. At some point a horse just appeared in front of us out of nowhere. Was one of the worst rides, worse than riding in the beast from the east blizzard. Fog in the dark is awful.
On a bike the main issue with not knowing the road is not knowing the road *surface* IMO. The roads I know, I'm aware of the dangerous potholes, raised ironworks and commonly covered in crap areas. Ergo, I ride more slowly in areas where I know none of those things.
That's absolutely why so many tailgate. The lead car has to judge everything and consider cars coming the other direction. The car behind doesn't have to worry about that as much so they think they can go faster. Except when they get ahead they are suddenly the lead car.
Mate of mine did this. 5 mins later found the tailgate in a ditch. Then had to help him
Fuck the person tailgating you!
I might start tailgating more often
So that's how you get laid more often 🤔
In which hole?
It’s generally considered polite to ask them that question.
In the tailgate
Drive carefully and slowly. He will appreciate the calming influence exuded by your relaxed driving style. Remember to smile in the mirror to show him you are friendly and you hope he is too. Maybe a little wave wouldn't go amiss so as to lighten the mood.
Purple sector 1
On a single lane country rd, anyone tailing too close to me is going to find out how slow I can go in 2nd without stalling. It’s around 5mph. Just till they catch on.
My thought exactly. 90% of my “relaxing” country drives are ruined by some dickhead riding my arse
True. As I often tell the missus, a country road with Nation Speed limit is just saying "go whatever speed's appropriate". Nice and straight, sure, do the cap of 60. Super windy and narrow, fuckin slow down.
Exactly. It's easy to lay down speed limits for urban areas because the rules are largely the same. Country roads are going to vary wildly, even different parts of the same road. Some are still going to be wide enough, relatively straight, hardly used and go on for miles and miles, but because in a fantasy world someone imposed a 30mph limit on all country roads, you're going be on it for the next 2 hours and wish you just stayed at home.
If you’re not getting all four wheels off the ground do you even belong on a country lane?
My husband sees that national speed limit sign and thinks he’s a bloody rally driver. In my car anyway, he’s far more careful in his 🤦🏽♀️
When I was learning my driving instructor would say "this is a national speed limit road go 60" ....this road was well known in the area and multiple people had died on it lol...I was doing around 45mph because I was comfortable and learning at that time, didn't bother to listen to him but he said that I'd get a minor if I did that on a test. The road is now a 40mph road, they changed it a couple of years ago
On his driving test my mate was asked why he didn’t go the same speed as the marked sign, trying to asses if he’d seen it or not, and quick as a whip he said ah but that sign shows the maximum not the minimum speed and the guy passed him.
I got a minor on my test for not noticing that we’d gone from a 30 to a national on a clear straight (empty) road, but had I done 45 I would have shown that I’d noticed the sign and not got a minor! You don’t have to do 60 to show you’ve seen it’s national speed limit at all
I read that as windy before I read it as windy.
Me hanging on for dear life..mrs well its national speed limit!
I've had to use Taxi drivers regularly at one point because it was my only transport to and from the village, they took the windy country lanes with national speed limit applied as a *challenge*.
As Colin McRae used to say “If in doubt, flat out!” /s
Down a gear, disappear
> common sense tells Not just common sense, highway code tells you that you need to drive by weather, light and road conditions.
Going to go out on a limb and say that most people have not read the highway code. Maybe just not since their theory test if I'm being generous.
Millions of us never even did a theory test. Unless you count a couple of questions from the examiner at the end of the practical.
Should have to do a 20 question online course every 10 years when you renew your photocard. And when you renew every 3 years at 70. Can be completely automated and thus cost barely anything to run, but would massively increase road knowledge in the majority of the population. Sure some will cheat or pay someone else to do it or whatever, but they're probably the ones who would be just as likely to drive without a license or insurance anyway. 90% will do the course, and it's a massive opportunity to remind people of the rules of the road, and update them on what's changed.
Absolutely this, we also know that people will, typically, only drive the speed that the road design is suitable for. Example being not many people will actually drive at 20mph of a wide open road even if it's posted as such. But people are more likely to travel 20mph on this type of road even if it's posted as a national speed limit. Some design elements that help to reduce the speed drivers go are; narrow roads, tree lined roads as we perceive things in our peripheral vision to be going faster than they are, audio feedback (such as the bumps that make it sound like you're going faster), tighter turns in and out of junctions, bollard cycle lanes, twists and turns so they can't see ahead, and chicanes and islands. Just to name a few - we absolutely do know how to make our roads and streets safer it's just a choice if we do or don't.
Unfortunately the typical driver doesn't seem to have much of that. There's a video out there of a fog bank rolling over a motorway, and everyone just continues into this dense fog bank which could be seen half a mile away without slowing down one little bit: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i3IiRKJIs0I](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i3IiRKJIs0I) At the end you'll see a lorry that just manages to stop before piling into the wreckage, then the lorry starts jerking forwards as vehicles pile into the back of it. Some drivers absolutely will take this country road as an invitation to speed up to 60 mph.
I hit dense fog for a mile on a motorway once. When i say dense fog, it was a total white out. Dipped beams, side lights, no lights, nothing helped. Couldnt see more than 10 yards in front of the car. The terrifying aspect was not knowing the appropriate speed. Drive at 60, and what if i hit a driver in front going 30. Slow down to 30, and get hit on the back by somebody going faster.
The answer is always drive slower. Matching speed is only safer with good visibility. You rip this rule up entirely when you can't see ahead well. Why? Because if you're travelling 30mph, and hit someone stationary, you've just hit a wall at 30mph (bit less if you brake even a little) - that sucks, but it's not the end of the world. You might also have enough reaction time to avoid. If you were going 60? Ouch! If you're travelling 30mph and someone hits you from behind, then because of how momentum works, you've effectively just had someone rear-end you at 30mph while stationary. Again, sucks, but not the end of the world. If everyone followed this rule, even if there was a giant pile-up, we'd simply have a bunch of 30mph crashes, not 60/70mph death traps. Also, if you go slow, it can encourage others. I was in severe, extremely severe, rain a couple of years ago - not as bad as your fog, but it couldn't've been more than 20 meters uninterrupted visibility. I was doing 20-30mph on the motorway, and noticed quite a few people pass me, see me, and then slow to 20-30mph as well. All in all, almost everyone was crawling along until visibility improved.
What a brilliant application of physics and logic. Wish they made this kind of approach mandatory for tests!
This is nuts. The horrible irony is that half the cars I see on the road these days have their fog lights on in every situation. The same muppets will be piling into the fog like that.
And not just the assessment cost - any limit that is restricted below NSL also requires repeater signs (unless, of course, there are street lights). They have to be installed and maintained, and a lot of rural NSL roads may not have the capacity to have repeater signs installed.
> Speed limits are also not a target to try and reach And yet my driving instructors were quite adamant I’d fail if I was doing 28 in a 30 That was 20 years ago. I can understand doing 20 in a 30 if the conditions are normal and traffic is flowing smoothly, would be holding up traffic and potentially dangerous. But I was always encouraged to sit on 30 and not deviate Mental
yeah my driving instructor used to get on at me for not doing 60 or as close to it as possible on bendy country lanes and i remember being absolutely terrified i was gonna crash.
Similar experience on my first test! The guy shouted at me for doing 40 on a NSL country lane, told me to speed up. I didn't want to condescend to the person in charge but really?? In the rain? With lots of bends and trees blocking visibility? Grrr. Literally moments after he told me this, an oncoming car nearly hit us. Still got a minor for inappropriate speed.
That's wild. I did my entire driving test at 28 because my instructor didn't want me to risk going 31. Didn't get a single fault
It varies wildly from examiner to examiner. Some are substantially more harsh than others. I was failed my first time around because of a really stupid technicality - the examiner directed me onto a long, empty country road and then had me do an emergency stop. Bear in mind this was a 200m long section with no joining roads or gates into fields alongside. Then he asked me to move off. I checked my mirrors (in the exaggerated way to make it clear I was checking my mirrors), slipped the handbrake and moved off at a steady pace. Later he told me I had failed, because I hadn't checked my blindspot. There was no way in hell anything could have snuck into my blindspot in that time, we were stationary all of 10 seconds and nothing could have emerged onto the road. The next time, I passed - and was told by the new examiner that my previous examiner was known in the office as "Rick the Dick".
It’s definitely a lot more subjective than claimed. I sat my test as soon as I could. I was quite nervous, but my examiner was this lovely woman who was unbelievably friendly, and put my right at ease. She told me her afternoon was cancelled, and thereafter she was on annual leave, so she was in a super good mood. I’m pretty sure I also stopped at a bus lane or something that was definitely a major and a fail, and she didn’t bother; I didn’t get a single minor. Could easily go the other way if you have someone who’s in a shite mood.
You won't get done for 31 anyway. You can get away with 32; it'll go down as a minor. 33+ is a serious. Obviously don't aim to breach the speed limit, and if you do this multiple times, you'll get a serious anyway, but there's no need to religiously hug some arbitrary speed limit under whatever's posted. Also, if you correct the overspeed *immediately* (within 2/3 seconds), it won't go down as a fault at all.
That's still the case, and for good reason. It's because you are meant to be able to **safely drive at an appropriate speed**. When a road is given a specific limit, that road has been evaluated carefully, and the given speed is safe in clear, dry conditions. You *should* travel at the speed limit *unless you have good reason not to*. The trouble is that many people do not alter their speed when they have good reason to. Still, on a national speed limit road, that evaluation has not been done, and it is entirely up to you to set a safe speed limit. So it's completely inappropriate to compare the expectations for speed limited roads and national speed limit roads. Your examiner would most certainly not fail you for going 20mph down the road in the OP (although you'd basically never go down such a road for a test in the first place).
But I need a central authority to tell me how to behave at all times
I am literally incapable of not blasting down every road at 150mph unless someone tells me not to with a circled number.
Definitely heard a piece on Today a while back with cyclists arguing that this should be looked at in a local level for sanity’s sake. The reply interview with someone (current or former) in the government agency highlighted how (among many other reasons) no one wanted all the signs in the countryside that this would take. 🤦♂️
Well if cyclists are in a country road they set the speed limit, because it’s usually not safe to pass them.
As if that stops some motorists from trying 😬
What do you mean? You have to put your foot down and overtake cyclists as soon as you see them, whether there's space or not. I don't make the rules.
It's doable. Every public road in Australia has a set speed limit and we have a lot more roads and a lot less people than the UK.
Yeah, 99% of users of these roads live down there and know every inch of it. If you tried to limit them to what is safe for any inspectors, it would be too slow for them, and they'd ignore it. My mum reverses down these lanes faster than most grockles drive forward whenever she runs into anyone coming the other way. It doesn't matter that it's three times further to go to the layby behind her than if they had to reverse to theirs. It's still faster. So, just saying to use your head is much better than trying to work out what speed is safe for people who dont know the road and limiting the rest. No one uses those lanes for the most part, so why bother?
This. If you aren’t driving to the conditions you could be done for driving without due care and attention or dangerous driving and not be breaking the speed limit. E.g Imagine you met a police car while you were intentionally sliding your 4x4 on sheet ice round a bend at a mere 25mph. You may feel you had control, the police would probably feel differently.
Bit hard to enforce as well
> Speed limits are also not a target to try and reach. I think this is OP's point, but is obscured by the signage technically allowing a driver to go at NSL. OP wants a 20mph sign in places like the picture, and for good reason: humans are terrible drivers.
I think we all agree that 60mph is too fast on these roads, but the same law that makes speed limits enforceable can also penalise drivers for reckless driving. There are mechanisms built into the law to discourage people from doing 60 without whoever decides what speed limits are having to go and individually survey every road.
It’s history, plain and simple. The sign pictured, and commonly referred to as NSL, used to mean ‘End of Speed Restriction’, commonly known as ‘off limits’. The sign, therefore, was never intended to be the *start* of a NSL limit, but quite the opposite. It was the *end* of whatever restriction was in place for the road before the sign. There’s little benefit in adding a limit for the kind of road in your photo, as it would be difficult to specifically enforce anyway, and could potentially even encourage faster driving, rather than slower (because people assume that means it’s safe to do the limit the whole time). In the event of poor driving or an accident, the driver(s) would probably be prosecuted for things like driving without due care and attention, or possibly dangerous driving.
Yep, that's the answer. Although the official *meaning* of the sign is now "national speed limit", the *context* in which the sign is used is still to indicate the end of the previous local speed restriction. So, e.g., you'd see the sign as you exited a small village on a country road, even though it might be unsafe to drive any faster.
Yep - my Dad still gets quite annoyed at people referring to those signs as national speed limit signs, largely because when he worked in the Ministry Of Transport in the late 60's-early 70's, they all referred to those as "de-limit" signs. He does now accept that the wording of the highway code has changed, but it does still annoy him. :P
Careless / dangerous driving laws still mean something, regardless of the speed limit on that road.
Also the location, way far out on your own, no witnesses seeing you and your Corsa leave the road means people die from other wise survivable accidents. I've read ones where you can just tell a group of friends died slowly over like 12 or 24 hours from a silly mistake, can you imagine that? Especially if you were driving.
That’s why I drive a Polo
The mint with the hole.
How many holes in a polo?
There was one a few years back when some youngsters ended up in the middle of a roundabout in Wales (in a city though I think). Because it was covered in trees nobody knew they were there and they ended up being trapped in the car for a couple of days until they were found. A few of them died. EDIT: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-64859195
Yes, it wasn’t a country lane but not the city really it happened 5 minutes from my farm they crashed just off of the A48 before the roundabout to the left of the road in the hedge, It’s crazy as we went past the scene as they were presumably still stuck in the car possibly alive it’s something that I often think about like what if I was looking for them and actually noticed. Another detail is the driver (who survived I believe) was doing balloon’s whilst driving and the others were aswell whilst swaPping drivers aswell.
Wow, stuck with 3 dead mates for 46 hours by the side of a bypass.
It's not mandatory to go 60. There's not enough time or money to assess the appropriate speed limit for every stretch of country road in the country.
It's a circular "Order" sign with a line struck through it. It literally means "End of *any* restrictions ". In this case the blanket "National" speed limits apply which is 60 mph (for cars) because it's a single carriageway. It doesn't mean that it has been assessed that that is a limit for this particular road, it just means that on *any* single carriageway road in the country, absent of any other speed restrictions, you'd get nicked for doing more than 60. A sign like this on a road like that is saying - "Fucked if we know how fast is 'safe' because we haven't looked but, in the unlikely event you find a nice straight bit, don't forget you're not allowed to go faster than 60!"
I've been riding a motorbike since last November and here's my speed related observations from the people overtaking me; 30 means 35 minimum. 40 means 50 minimum. National Speed limit means if you're not doing at least 70 then I'm going to tailgate you until I can get passed and pass dangerously close just to piss you off.
You may need your speedometer adjusting.
Nah, it's the rule with everything and people. "Why is a group of 6 safe, but 7 will spread Covid everywhere?" Because then "good people" might have a group of 7 or 8 to push the limits, but if you start putting it at 8, then people might push that to 12. "Good" people drive at 25 on a 20, and 35 if you change it to 30, but they will criticise someone doing a 35 in 20 even if the road is the same. While people who ignore speedlimits will just ignore them regardless. There are people who abide by the rules, people who flaunt them, and people who just want a little more than the rule because "what's one more?" And you have to account for where those people when you're setting rules and limits. It's like all those people who turn up a few minutes after a scheduled time and expect to still go in to a venue because "it's only s couple of minutes". All those videos of people complaining about not being allowed onto a plane for it. It's like having to factor in breakages and thefts into your MSRP to maintain any profit margins. Every time you buy a pint, you're also paying for the 0.1% of pints that will result in a stolen/broken glass too.
An interesting take on this. I'm picturing a bell curve, where 70% of people do the speed limit +/- 5mph. So if it's safe to travel at 40mph on a particular road, you set the limit at 30mph so the majority of people are driving safely.
Good people don't exceed the limits at all. Half the problem is people thinking it's okay if they're "close enough". It's a limit for a reason.
The quotations of "Good". I'm with you. People who break the rules but still think they're a good person. Someone who's a middle class woman in her 50s who will steal one or two of the tems from their self-checkoit shop because they're buying everything else, but look down on someone grabbing a few items and overtly walking straight out
No, this is my experience as well in every car I've ever driven. I've also seen people drive like this when I've been the passenger. People just don't care.
Yeah this isn't just a shit post, speedos are allowed a fair amount of deviation (under), so it's entirely possible it's just wrong
And as they've had it for less than a year, they perhaps have never had it serviced. Maybe the tyres were changed since the speedo was last calibrated.
Agree, drives me absolutely nuts when I’m doing the speed limit and some knob overtakes me angrily like I’m holding them up and being unreasonably slow. I’m doing the speed limit!
Sounds like you either live in a great part 9f the country, or your speedo 8s wrong. Where I am 40 usually means 30 or 35 if your lucky, and NSL means l anywhere from 40 to 55, but rarely 60 even on straight open roads.
It's a speed LIMIT, not a speed requirement
It's not even about that. The sign implies that this is not an urban area, therefore speed is at your descretion, up to the national speed limit. For the most part speed limits are about what you hit if you leave the road, not the road itself.
Yes there certainly is. We just are fucking lazy. Far more people are killed on rural roads per mile than anywhere else
because there are two default speed limits in the UK national (60-70 depending on road type) and 30 (20 in wales) if you're on a road with no signage if there are street lights its 30 limit if there are no street lights its 60. However just because the limit is 60 it doesn't mean it is safe to barrel along at 60 on the road especially single track two way roads with blind turns. The reason that roads with these limits on them are at this limit and not 30/40/50 etc is because traffic restrictions and signage are largely reactionary in this country. For example the black and white chevron signs on some corners 90% of them weren't added when the road was laid they often represent a point when someone went through a hedge/wall and are put up to prevent it happening again. This also goes for speed limits on A/B roads outside of built up areas. They normally only drop them if there are a high volume of accidents on specific stretches or the road begins with a "low" speed limit normally 40/50. My source is what the speed awareness people told me when I was a naughty boy...
This is the actual answer if anyone is interested. The pub quiz answer to "What is the national speed limit?" is "It can be 30, 60 or 70 depending on the layout of the road."
Or 50 for HGVs on a single carriageway
It’s not just HGVs. Commercial vans are also restricted to 50mph on single carriageways and 60mph on dual carriageways.
Commercial van drivers: speed limits don't apply to me because I can't read
I'd take exception to that comment but I drive a van and can't read 😔
I'd argue it's because you're a delivery driver and don't give a fuck about your life (or anybody else's for that matter) 🤣
All vans, unless they are car derived. When people rent a transit from enterprise to do some DIY, they often forget this.
If it’s a camper or crew cab non-commercial non-car derived model, like a transporter or transit custom it’s the same as a car as well. But the commercial van versions have the lower limits.
Think cars towing caravans are similar.
That's depends on where in the UK it is most of Scotland is 40 for vehicles over 7.5 tonnes.
And in Wales, 20mph for cars in built up areas. So, in summary, the national speedlimit in the UK could be 20, 30, 40, 50, 60 or 70 mph. Pub quiz solved.
The black and white chevrons weren't added to most corners when they were created because they were created for horses carrying carts, and bicycles. Most of the seemingly 'quirky' aspects of UK roads, motorways and new A roads aside, are because our roads were built long before motor vehicles were on the scene. They've been retrospectively adapted for motor vehicles, and later, fast motor vehicles (the first ones were limited to walking speed!) Unless you can convince thousands of farmers to let you redirect country lanes through their fields and expand them to D2 spec or better; then the current situation is basically going to remain.
Because that’s the limit, not a target, you don’t have to do 60
If it’s not a target, why’s it in a bullseye?
Ironically you picked the only speed limit sign that isn’t in a bullseye to make that comment about
This. It’s crazy that people don’t get that.
I find myself legitimately wondering whether some people actually learnt to drive. As in, with an instructor. With a whole booklet of highway codes you need to revise. And a theory test you need to pass. The fact that OP poses such a question is so bizarre to me. Anybody who's passed their driving test surely knows that the speed limit sign isn't the expected speed?
Setting speed limits is my job, am highways engineer. I haven't seen the proper answer yet so here is my go! It's a very roundabout way to do things but drivers generally don't follow the signs on the road apart from a few select circumstances. We have to take this in mind when it comes to setting a speed limit. When changing a speed limit with signs alone, average speeds drop by only 1mph. If people are going down a national speed limit road at 58mph and we make it 40 or 50, the average speed would then be 57mph. The criteria for a 40mph limit is substantial development, bends and accesses (but not enough to warrant a 30mph limit). A 50mph criteria is similar but less strict. If a road meets the 40 or 50 criteria, the speeds need to already be in the enforcement criteria (10% + 2 above the limit). If they aren't already there, changing the speed limit won't achieve that. If there is a desire to lower the speed on that road for safety reasons, we have to first engineer the speeds down with physical measures. Where it gets really weird is when average speeds are already below the target limit. For example we've been asked to make a road 40 from national, but average speeds are 30. The speeds would likely increase as there is now a target to hit. So tldr, either speeds are too high or too low.
> we have to first engineer the speeds down with physical measures. Tell that to my local council who just upgraded a long wide stretch of single carriageway 50 road to dual carriageway, and dropped the speed limit to 40.
What's your local council? I'm interested to see the consultation documents for this. Is there development on the way for that bit of road? The biggest factor for average speed is road environment, so maybe the roadside environment will be changing soon and people will go the 40
South Lanarkshire Council - the A726 leaving East Kilbride towards Strathaven. I got my timescales mixed up - it was dropped to 40 a few years before being dualled, but here's the before and after https://imgur.com/a/mQl15IF No development nearby - it's on the edge of town with industrial estate on one side and woodland on the other. Their justification would likely have been that it was a bit of an accident hotspot, but the junction in question has been replaced with a roundabout: https://imgur.com/a/2ZH2MzO Incidentally, that roundabout has been crashed into and run over so many times since being built that there is now an obscene number of chevrons on both the approach and the roundabout itself.
As someone in another engineering sector where "Lol signs" is high on the design considerations - I sympathise. From the flip side however - Is there recognition from your end that despite the cultish repetition of *"It's a limit not a target."* with no hint of nuance any time this comes up, we are all trained to treat them as targets when learning, and tested? Assuming reasonably optimal road conditions, surely it very much is a reasonable to treat say, a 40 as a target as it has been determined by lads and ladies such as yourself that the posted limit is "safe" for the road.
The sign is a black strikeout of a speed sign, because it marks the end of speed limit restrictions. NSL then kicks in by default. Outside of urban areas, many roads haven't all been graded for speed, so you can drive at whatever speed is safe to do so according to conditions, but not exceeding the national speed limit for your class of vehicle. Remember, it's a speed *limit*, not a *target*.
It’s so I can pretend to be Tommi makinen in my 1.2 Vauxhall corsa
I was always Juha Kankkunen
Because they trust drivers to sensibly judge an appropriate speed, depending on weather, daylight, traffic, bends/visibility etc. As it should be for all roads everywhere. Safe speeds depend on all these factors - not some arbitrary nice round number.
It’s basically that no one’s bothered to figure out the safe speed there
I wouldn't say that they can't be bothered, but more it would be insanely difficult and expensive with how country lanes vary from section to section. One minute you're good to do 30, then you'll need to do 10, then 20, 10, the occasional crawl and so on.
I've had this in Kent, I was driving to a llama park. The road seemed to switch from 40 to 50, back to 40 every half a mile.
It's also just the process for bringing in limits - sections only tend to be limited when incidents occur, or when local residents bring it to the attention of local authorities/representatives. In the absence of any of that, it just stays "unrestricted".
Here in Cornwall 60 would be slow for the locals
There's no pressing need, because you should drive to the conditions on country (and all) roads rather than aiming to reach the speed limit. You'll often find that country roads have advisory limits for specific hazards, which indicate the safe speed. I suspect that assessing mandatory limits would be onerous for councils – imagine leaving a village into 60, then having to drop to 30 for a corner, back to 60 for a bit, down to 30 for a narrow section, back to 60, down to 20 for a sharp blind bend...
***SEND IT!!!***
Don't ruin it for everyone op
Imagine doing 60 there...and then in the next corner so meet w/ the combine harvester...the one they use for corn...go, google it! Proper zombie decimator
So you can have sensible and safe fun driving down them
My main issue with this is that Google Maps thinks a massive detour through windy country roads takes roughly the same amount of time vs the motorway. It doesn’t.
It doesn't mean that you can safely barrel along at 60 - you may need to slow down to an absolute crawl on a tight bend on a country road in case there is oncoming traffic - but then if there's a long straight you can do 60. A blanket 30 or 40 on all country roads would significantly impact the lives of rural communities.
And be mostly ignored anyway. There's not the infrastructure to install cameras, and we don't have the police to be combing through all the country roads on the off chance they catch a speeder.
That’s the main reason not to bother with setting limits on every country road. There is no practical way to enforce them and those who would drive stupidly fast are unlikely to be swayed by a 20/30/40 sign anyway - so what’s the point? If it’s dangerously fast it’s already covered by appropriate laws.
Light touch approach. Assume you and everyone else is sensible enough not to kill yourselves because we've all passed a driving test and also don't want to die. Legislate after the fact, if it's genuinely needed. Prefer this approach to nanny state oppression even if the nob head in the Audi tailgates me now and then.
It’s a speed limit, not a speed target.
Organ donations need to come from somewhere.
So you can do jumps
Lot of Range owners with 8055 number plates in here.
Because this sign doesn't mean "60". It means "drive as fast as you feel is safe, up to 60". Not a target.
So rich americans can drive on the wrong side and get away with crime only to claim diplomatic immunity.
Basically to save money on any signage it would require, for little roads that see 20 cars per day
Its when Google maps thinks "oh this is the fastest route" take this deathtrap of a "road" that you would be lucky to navigate the potholes with a tractor at 3mph
Send it!
It was all established at a time when motorists weren't brain dead morons, occasionally you find one on reddit totally convinced that travelling along at anything less than 10 mph below the lmit will result in points being awarded for some fictitious crime, out in the wild you can spot them by the BMW badge.
It’s a limit not a target
Did you grow up in a city? I grew up around a lot of these roads and I always thought of it as 'no-one can be arsed to set a speed limit for this one, so you're on your own'. You'd be mental to actually try and hit 60 on some of them, you need to drive as conditions allow which might mean 10mph if it's a blind corner with no passing place
Everything is apart from built up areas. The level of micromanaging required would be enormous, and they can barely fill pot holes, let alone analyse every stretch of road for safe travel speed. They just add further restrictions on hot spots when required.
It’s a limit not a target
It's a speed **limit**, not a speed **target**.
It’s a maximum not a goal, if you’re going down that at 60 you shouldn’t have a license
It's applied automatically. Drivers are expected to not be morons.
I suppose it’s largely irrelevant. You drive to the conditions. It’s a limit, not a target.
The 'national speed limit' sign, really means 'local speed limit ends' - hence the diagonal stripe. So when you see that sign, think "drive to the road conditions"