Keeping to the speed limit

[Albie]

Hello everyone, this is my first post although I have been lurking for quite awhile so please be gentle with me. I just wanted your thoughts and input please about sticking to speed limits. Whilst I'm not an advanced driver I have been driving for nearly thirty years and have trouble sticking to the speed limit. This is not due to an over enthusiastic driving style but more to do with the pressure I feel from other road users to go faster. I know part of advanced driving is making good progress but I am not sure in todays day and age what good progress is as eweryone seems to want to exceed the speed limits. Take for example my commute to work, which is a mixture of cross country B roads and town driving. If I stick to the various speed limits I seem to be holding everyone up and feel this pressure to increase my speed. I have tried sticking rigidly to the designated speed limits but feel I am driving too slow with a big stream of traffic growing behind me! Any ideas on how to improve in this area? Many thanks in advance for any ideas and advice you may have.

[Horse]

Could you check your speedo with a GPS to find out whether it's inaccurate?

As an interesting aside (of no use to you), I read the the guy in charge of the Google driverless car's software has said that it will, under certain circumstances, 'voluntarily' exceed the speed limit!

[Albie]

Many thanks for your reply Horse, but not sure my speedo is that inaccurate. just wondered if you guys who are advanced drivers had encounter the same thing with a build up of traffic behind you whilst sticking to 30mph in a 30 zone.

[trashbat]

Yes, I do encounter this, but it's balanced out by how it often quickly disappears in the mirror once the speed limit rises.

That's a serious point - use brisk acceleration to reach higher limits and buy yourself some space to use later.

Also, frankly, a lot of it may be borne of your own insecurity. The average driver likes to follow other people, without particularly thinking about it, so will catch up. Just because they're there, and will follow you to higher speeds if you go faster, doesn't mean you've significantly inconvenienced them. Think of some average drivers you sometimes passenger with, and their reactions when 'stuck' behind someone doing the speed limit. What do they say or express? I imagine it's often nothing.

Again if you get far enough away quickly enough, it sometimes produces a disconnect where the following driver will subconsciously give up on trying to copy you and start driving their own drive.

[martine]

Welcome Albie!

Yes it's a common affect of being an advanced driver...especially in 30s.

Yes, I do encounter this, but it's balanced out by how it often quickly disappears in the mirror once the speed limit rises.

That's a serious point - use brisk acceleration to reach higher limits and buy yourself some space to use later.

And it shows the driver behind you are not a numpty who will continue to drive slowly when conditions allow. I honestly believe once you've shown you accelerate promptly on entering a higher limit, they often back off.

If you do some driver development with a local group of the IAM or ROSPA, you'll probably find tailgaters are less of a problem and you won't feel 'pushed' to drive faster. Go on, you know you want to really!

[exportmanuk]

As already been said many drivers are like sheep, you see them every day on the motorway focused on the tail of the vehicle in front.(usually all sat in lane three going nowhere fast) We are communal animals we like to be with others if there is a big space to the next person we will move forward to fill it.

Progress too is not necessarily about speed, it is more about reading the road and the traffic situation and making best use of it. For example when following a bus on a single lane road, being far enough back to see past it, anticipate it stopping for passengers then being in a safe position to overtake it when the opportunity presents , approaching traffic lights planning early and selecting the lane that is appropriate and likely to move quickest when they change so you end up in front of slower moving traffic easily.

Also many drivers find it easier to go quickly when following someone else, they work on the principle well they managed that so I can, Often if you pull away from the briskly through a series of bends ( because you have read the road and planned correctly and driven safely) they end up being a little further back and seem to loose the pull so much at least until you are on a long straight section of road.

Just dont be intimidated drive for your self and to your own limits. Better safe than dead.

[triquet]

From the Daily Mail (of course):

Labour’s shadow transport secretary Mary Creagh said: ‘Road safety and law enforcement should be a top priority for any Government. Sadly, more than 10,000 frontline traffic police posts have gone since 2010.

‘Instead of increasing HGV speed limits, ministers need to take concrete steps to make our roads safe for all users, particularly children, older people and cyclists.’

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... z3BW0EhzTQ
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

I suppose concrete steps would make an interesting alternative to speed humps ....

[martine]

...Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... z3BW0EhzTQ

Good old Edmund King from the AA...normally speaks quite a bit of sense but...

"Driving at 40mph in a 30mph area is incredibly dangerous."

I can think of places where it's safe to do 40 or more...he's reinforcing the idea with this statement that if you stick to a posted limit you will be safe. Thankfully he then contradicts this by advocating variable limits.

[Albie]

Many thanks for the warm welcome and replies,i knew it was the right decision to join. Im not sure i will be able to contribute much as i feel i have so much to learn!

[martine]

You might be surprised - I'm sure you've got valuable and interesting views on driving - feel free to wade-in!

You might like to tell us a little about yourself here

[Horse]

Many thanks for the warm welcome and replies,i knew it was the right decision to join. Im not sure i will be able to contribute much as i feel i have so much to learn!

Go on - ask some questions, give everyone a chance to show off Then sit back and enjoy the arguments

[martine]

Go on - ask some questions, give everyone a chance to show off Then sit back and enjoy the arguments

(but all done in the best possible taste...usually).

[jcochrane]

...Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... z3BW0EhzTQ

Good old Edmund King from the AA...normally speaks quite a bit of sense but...

"Driving at 40mph in a 30mph area is incredibly dangerous."

I can think of places where it's safe to do 40 or more...he's reinforcing the idea with this statement that if you stick to a posted limit you will be safe. Thankfully he then contradicts this by advocating variable limits.

On test, with a serving police traffic officer, I missed a 40 speed limit sign and thought I was still in an NSL. The discs were completed covered by foliage so it was impossible for them to be seen. I continued to drive, let's say, with enthusiasm (foot to the floor) but varying speed smoothly but rapidly between 25mph and 60mph. The examiner's comment was that there was no way I could have known about the speed restriction but he was impressed with the pace of the drive which was, in his opinion, at all times completely safe.

Note:-
Not endorsing the breaking of speed limits but expanding on martine's point.

[exportmanuk]

[quote="j]
On test, with a serving police traffic officer, I missed a 40 speed limit sign and thought I was still in an NSL. The discs were completed covered by foliage so it was impossible for them to be seen. I continued to drive, let's say, with enthusiasm (foot to the floor) but varying speed smoothly but rapidly between 25mph and 60mph. The examiner's comment was that there was no way I could have known about the speed restriction but he was impressed with the pace of the drive which was, in his opinion, at all times completely safe.

Note:-
Not endorsing the breaking of speed limits but expanding on martine's point.[/quote]
Surly if this was over any distance there would have been either repeaters or other indications of the lower limit
(NSL signs on to side roads?)

[jcochrane]

[quote="j]
On test, with a serving police traffic officer, I missed a 40 speed limit sign and thought I was still in an NSL. The discs were completed covered by foliage so it was impossible for them to be seen. I continued to drive, let's say, with enthusiasm (foot to the floor) but varying speed smoothly but rapidly between 25mph and 60mph. The examiner's comment was that there was no way I could have known about the speed restriction but he was impressed with the pace of the drive which was, in his opinion, at all times completely safe.

Note:-
Not endorsing the breaking of speed limits but expanding on martine's point.[/quote]
Surly if this was over any distance there would have been either repeaters or other indications of the lower limit
(NSL signs on to side roads?)[/quote]

Unfortunately not. No repeaters on my road. One of the turnings did have a 30mph sign on turn in which only enforced the point that my road would have a higher limit. Why no repeaters I have no idea and I did not think to ask the examiner but he was quite adamant that I could not have known which is why he said he could not fail me.