Government warned that proposed 80mph motorway speed limit will put lives at risk

I found Hammond's comment about more strict enforcement of the limits laughable. There is practically no speed enforcement anywhere these days, on or off the motorway. I believe any new 20 limits will be flouted as blatantly as the M-way limit is.

You only matter if you are in a car. That's what Hammond says to me.

I really couldn't care less about 80mph on motorways - I'll continue to limit myself to 60 as that is as fast as I feel comfortable doing anyway.

And I can't ride a bike on them anyway.

The argument about fuel consumption is baloney - there is a far bigger impact from people driving thistier models of car, or making unneccessary journeys, than from the relatively small proportion of mileage where they can actually get to 70 in the first place. What is needed is more aggressive action to discourage larger cars and 4x4s, through higher VED for higher band cars, supplementary parking charges, more duty on fuel etc.

If this gets us the political will to put through more extensive 20 zones, eg making them easier for local authorities to implement, then that seems a fair trade to me.

Without sounding too much of a petrol head the argument on fuel efficiency is lost for any speed above about 50mph (depending on gear box ratios).

I would be happy to see 80mph on the UK motorways to bring us in line with the rest of Europe however I like the idea of reducing it when the road is wet (I think the French reduce it when it is raining however a wet road is more dangerous than one that is being rained on and most drivers don't realise this)

I would like to see a mandatory 20mph speed limit on all housing estates, ie off any through road.

I would like to see cars driving with headlights on all the time. There are plenty of tree branch covered roads along which it is hard to see cars coming.

I would like to see cars using fog lights when it is foggy or likely to be foggy, eg when it is misty or weather conditions dictate. Note to drivers who overtake me when I have my fog light on and flash their fog lights (or worse the ones who try to blind me with their headlights from behind) - it is on for a reason because when you need it to be on and it isn't it'll be too late and the car behind will merge with your car.

Yesterday morning driving down the A1(M) in patchy fog I saw numerous cars without lights on and only two other vehicles with the sense to put their fog lights on. One was a white van! There used to be a public information film about not having fog lights on in daylight however this was due to drivers not seeing your brake lights (and quite frankly you shouldn't be relying on that to decide your braking anyway you should be aware of everything else that's happening). Now that cars are fitted with single fog lights and "CHMSL"s this isn't an issue.

I would also like to see everyone retested every five years (including myself) with a particular emphasis on sight (I am convinced that most of the hesitation you see at roundabouts is because drivers cannot see).

My soapbox has just collapsed under the strain...

Just thought I'd add 2p toward the driving test bit, I'm doing my motorbike test in November, I currently ride with L plates on a cbt (compulsory basic training) the test I have coming up is in two stages both of which I do on my current 125cc bike, the first part is riding around cones in a carpark and the second part is on the road. Once I pass both parts I'll be able to do three things differently, first - be able to ride a bigger bike, second - carry a pillion passenger, third - ride on a motorway. have you guessed how many of those things are in the test? yep none

fwiw I was also surprised to see this on rcc, I'm not really bothered about the speed on motorways I drive at a speed appropriate to conditions (yes sometimes over the limit) and I agree that there should be no them and us mentality - it's not a helpful attitude.

As a cyclist, I don't see how this affects me - motorways are anyway no-go areas for me.

Other than the 'motorist is enemy of cyclist, so anything bad for them is good for us' criteria, I don't know if we should even be covering this on a cycling website.

Actually, I'd even welcome the proposal to increase the legal speed-limits on motorways if it is brought in conjunction with a similar reduction in speed limits in urban areas by 10mph.

I'd call THAT win-win-win: motorists get higher speeds on motorways, cyclists get safer urban roads, government finally gets to some unbiased approval from both sides.

Unfortunately, don't think Mr. Hammond (or his party) will give two hoots about the second party there - us

I'm amazed to see so much support for this proposal on this website! I had to double check I wasn't on the Daily Mail or some petrolhead forum.

I was surprised to see the article on this site at all, but given it is, I don't see anything particularly surprising in the comments.

Personally I don't think a 14% increase in the speed limit on motorways will increase the number of accidents but I don't think I would use it very often myself, these days I look at the consumption gauge more than the speedo when I am driving on the open road

I'm certainly not against the proposal but wonder if it's a missed opportunity. Whilst it would be more expensive to implement I think the majority of stretches of motorway in the UK would benefit from variable speed limits. There are driving conditions which would allow travelling at speed to be very safe and conditions where the present limit is too fast.

The same could be said for urban areas (although even more expensive as there are rarely electronic signs used) to reduce the speed limit to 20mph at times when children are travelling to and from school, and higher when there are likely to be few or no pedestrians and cyclists.

Admittedly all the necessary electronics and management of the systems when they are put in might make this an unrealistic aim for built up areas, but surely not motorways?

I'm amazed to see so much support for this proposal on this website! I had to double check I wasn't on the Daily Mail or some petrolhead forum.

I disagree with it on the basis of pollution and CO2 emissions both directly and because of the message it conveys about those issues. I think those effects are much more significant than the possible increase in road casualties.

I also disagree with it because of the implicit permission to go faster which will affect all roads particularly ones carrying traffic that's come off the motorway. That will directly affect safety of other road users including cyclists.

Sure vehicles are "safer" in certain respects (more to do with protecting occupants than other road users) than they were 50 years ago when this speed limit was introduced. But 50 years ago we didn't understand the effect of pollution and CO2 as well as we do now. If anything the speed limit should be reduced not increased.

I also don't agree that it should be accepted just because 20mph urban speed limits are included in the same legislation, though I do agree with 20mph.

The reasons for it are simply vote catching by a government that is too weak to properly address the issues of road safety and car culture, and climate change.

I go for the 80mph speed limits on Motorways. There aren't any cyclists or pedestrians on them. Why should I as a cyclist worry about the speed cars travel on something I'm not allowed on. I might as well worry about the speed cars travel around Silverstone race track at. Motorways are by far and away the safest pieces of road in the country by cars use per mile.

As far as I can see there are two responses to this, either we say 'okay, as long as we get more 20mph zone in towns', which will save quite a few lives, or we say 'selfish Top Gear Bastards' and then we cyclists get treated as moralising odd-bods. Remember we are the minority whilst car drivers are the majority. We don't get to impose our views on them.

I agree with much of the approve. Maybe the 80mph speed limit is an opportunity to gain in other areas? I've ranted on previously on this site about speed limits and how I feel that a 20mph in urban areas is unrealistic.

Councils can now set their own speed restrictions as of this year. I still favour a 25/50mph campaign. If it's made 25mph then people will do 30mph - which is what they should be doing now. 60 mph on country lanes is too fast and a hangover from 50 years ago when there was less on the roads and cars were lucky to sustain 60mph without seizing. Make small B roads and lanes 50mph.

I'll chuck in 80mph on motorways as a swap.

I'm approaching my MP about the 25mph scheme as we live in a suburb excluded from main through roads and it's a fantastic opportunity to see if it can work. Sefton Council are not interested but they soon will be!

Power to the Pedals.

Plenty of people (the 49% who admit it and a whole load more who are simply lying) already break the 70 limit. So where are these time savings to come from if it's what people are already doing?

This has f*ck all to do with economic benefits and everything to do with pandering to the kind of selfish libertarianism espoused by Top Gear.

Moronic.

""Now it is time to put Britain back in the fast lane of global economies and look again at the motorway speed limit which is nearly 50 years old, and out of date thanks to huge advances in safety and motoring technology,” he continued."

Unfortunately the weak link in the system, the standard of driving in this country, has not kept pace

I'm happy for the speed limit to be raised, as long as it is only for motorways.
If people want to pay the extra fuel costs then that is their choice.

A bigger safety factor is that our driving test is too easy and bad driving is not dealt with properley by the police and courts.

I'm more interested in all 20mph zones in residential areas.

Isn't this proposed legislation bundled with 20 mph limits in residential areas? 80 mph limits on motorways is a price I might be happy to pay for that.

Having had to go on an *ahem* awareness course recently I can offer a little more insight in to those 1857 people killed. Approximately half of those were inside a car rather than cyclists / pedestrian. Of the 835 people killed in a car, roughly a 1/3rd were not wearing a seatbelt. These figures are also the lowest incidence of death on the UK's roads ever which considering more cars, more people and more roads than ever is some sort of an improvement when you think about it. I also learned that the motorway network has the least fatalities / accidents of the differing types of road (vs urban / country lanes etc). Apparently (after a quick root around the DoT figures http://www2.dft.gov.uk/pgr/statistics/datatablespublications/accidents/r...) it was 118 deaths on the motorways.

I'm unsure about the speed limit on motorways being changed, certainly it would align us with other countries and as a cyclist it may not make much difference to me (whereas the proposed sop to safety campaigners of a 20mph urban limit might). Of more concern to me is what else I found rooting around in the DoT stats about cyclist fatalities being on the way up, by 7%

Also, what puts people more at risk is the fact that there's no compulsory training for motorway driving. I passed my test a couple of years ago, I could have driven from the test centre out to the motorway and driven to the other side of the country, as I would be well within my rights to as I had passed my test, but I would have never driven on the motorway before.

As it turned out I ended up driving on the motorway 4 days after I passed my test, and as I'm not a total moron and had been used to travelling on the motorway with friends/family, I was able to comfortably drive home without any issues what so ever.

The increase in speed limit is a minor issue when you take into account the pathetic excuse for a driving test, which you can technically pass without ever taking a car above 30mph, but that's beyond the point.

They stated in the article that drivers are already breaking the current 70mph speedlimit, so the stats about the increase in fuel economy, CO2 and accidents seem fairly nullified to me, as people are already driving that speed.

There's not going to be any legislation to say that you MUST drive at 80mph, if you want to drive at 50, 60 or 70mph then by all means go ahead, just pick the lane that is travelling at that speed, which is what people already do.

@sporran, I used to commute from Weston-super-Mare to Bath on the motorway every day for about 18 months, and I spent most of my time at 80-90mph, yet I still had people overtaking me, coming up behind me flashing their lights because they wanted to go faster. I'm of the opinion that on the motorway people should be able to regulate their own speed, the way that the autobahn works in Germany, but the attitude that people have over there is completely different to drivers attitudes here, so it definitely wouldn't work.

I think this is not a bad idea to be honest, but they'll have to enforce it effectively so people aren't driving at 90

Of the 1857 people who died on Britains roads last year how many of those were on Motorways and how many were a result of people going way over 80mph anyway?

The vast majority of those deaths will be a result of collisions in built up urban areas (where there are pedestrians) and on country roads. Those deaths which do occur on motorways are less about speed and more about poor driving. I doubt increasing the national speed limit on motorways will have much effect to be honest. Most people drive at 70-80mph already because it's a comfortable speed and most of those wouldn't then think 'right, I can now go at 80-90mph instead'. Likewise most journeys are affected by congestion at some point reducing average speed so I doubt it'll cut journey times either. It's just a case of legalising what's already happening across the country every day.