Safe Speed Forums

The first one is a dual carriageway. Cars parked, but there are usually many more crammed into every available space the whole length of the road outside work hours. There are shops and houses on both sides so hundreds of pedestrians, children too, are crossing the central reservation during the day as indeed you can see after only being there for a minute. There is a path across the central reservation but often people, (young people), will run across where there is no path in between the parked cars.

The second one is of a big open single carriageway with no parked cars, less traffic and rarely do you see a pedestrian on the path to the right. Sorry about the mist but if I wait for a clear day I could be days. I wanted to take both pictures close to each other, in time, to be fair about visibility.

So then, what speed would you do in these circumstances and what do you suppose the speed limit is?





No peeking before you have decided what's the limit is and what's safe now

Scroll down for the answer.


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Well, it may, (not), surprise you to know they are exactly the same.

The first one is the road I was done for speeding on back in 1977. Back then, there wasn’t a single car ever parked on that road and of course there were far less pedestrians. It was a back then but was changed to shortly after I was done for speeding and remains a to this day even though the circumstances have completely changed. I carried on down that road today at about 30 mph because 40 is too fast IMO. It’s misty, the roads are wet, there are parked cars and people trying to cross the road.

The second one used to be a but was reduced some years ago to So in the eyes of the law, I could be doing 40 mph in the first case, which is dangerous IMO, but be done for speeding in the second case for doing 50 mph which is far safer.

How did you do?

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The views expressed in this post are personal opinions and do not necessarily represent the views of Safe Speed.
You will be branded a threat to society by going over a speed limit where it is safe to do so, and suffer the consequences of your actions in a way criminals do not, more so than someone who is a real threat to our society.

I assumed evil intent and that they were both 30! The top one would be 30 round here. The bottom one looks like it would possibly be a 50 or a 40 locally. Just depends on how miserable the council is.

Know what you mean Teabelly

Here they are side by side if it helps. Am I winning? Point proved, or is it proven how absurd and often meaningless the posted speed limits are?

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The views expressed in this post are personal opinions and do not necessarily represent the views of Safe Speed.
You will be branded a threat to society by going over a speed limit where it is safe to do so, and suffer the consequences of your actions in a way criminals do not, more so than someone who is a real threat to our society.

I would agree that the first would be suited to a 30MPH and a NSL on the second but it just goes to show how infrequently any sort of common sense is put into " road safety" these days

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My views do not represent Safespeed but those of a driver who has driven for 39 yrs, in all conditions, at all times of the day & night on every type of road and covered well over a million miles, so knows a bit about what makes for safety on the road,what is really dangerous and needs to be observed when driving and quite frankly, the speedo is way down on my list of things to observe to negotiate Britain's roads safely, but I don't expect some fool who sits behind a desk all day to appreciate that.

I’d go along with you there too Graball.

If someone had said to me 33 years ago, after I was ripped off for the first time, that these two roads would both one day be made into a without any radical change to the roads themselves, I would have called them barking mad! They are as different as chalk and cheese.

Can you imagine trying to explain it in court or to a police officer. All you would get is“That’s the law and speed kills”. You just can’t reason with some people. One or two posters from here spring to mind. I wonder if they will chip-in to defend the illogical?

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The views expressed in this post are personal opinions and do not necessarily represent the views of Safe Speed.
You will be branded a threat to society by going over a speed limit where it is safe to do so, and suffer the consequences of your actions in a way criminals do not, more so than someone who is a real threat to our society.

Tone I can so beat you with ridiculous speed limits. Tomorrow I will photograph the straight dual carriageway with excellent visiblity that carries a 40 mph limit, and the one car wide lane that lead off it that is NSL! I am so convinced now that the
SCP are all about safety and not fines!

There are loads of NSL road that it would be dangerous to drive at at 30mph, or even 20, I don't get it, do you want these signed up?

I think the point Odin is trying to make, weepej, is that people are expected to make and mainly achieve, to make safe judgements on an appropriately safe speed on these narrow NSL roads so why aren't we allowed to make such safe judgements on wider, safer dual carriageways....do dual carriageways really need a MAXIMUM safe speed of 40mph?, I have yet to find one.

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My views do not represent Safespeed but those of a driver who has driven for 39 yrs, in all conditions, at all times of the day & night on every type of road and covered well over a million miles, so knows a bit about what makes for safety on the road,what is really dangerous and needs to be observed when driving and quite frankly, the speedo is way down on my list of things to observe to negotiate Britain's roads safely, but I don't expect some fool who sits behind a desk all day to appreciate that.

That is exactly what I meant.


No you miss the point. Signing up these minor roads would simply enforce the incorrect perception that in order to be safe all one has to do is obey the speed limit. Perhaps returning the dual carriageways to NSL would be more effective?

I was actually going to say the first one was and the second one

Is the first one Bell Hill in Northfield, Birmingham?

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"Show me someone who says that they have never exceeded a speed limit, and I'll show you a liar, or a menace." (Austin Williams - Director, Transport Research Group)

Any views expressed in this post are personal opinions and may not represent the views of Safe Speed

Ah, so you know my patch Peter No, it's actually the Reddich road in both cases. One urban, as you can see, the other rural as it heads towards the Hopwood motorway junction 2 of the M42.

Hi weepej

The point I was making is the absurdity of the two speed limits. The first one is perfectly safe to do 40 when there are no cars parked or pedestrians teetering on the edge to cross the road, and on the rare occasion when there isn’t any cars parked along some stretch of it I do indeed travel at that speed. When there are no parked cars it looks completely different, offering a very clear view all around.

The second point is that you don’t actually have to change any speed limit, just the mindset of drivers. is not a target to reach but a guide, (or at least it should be ). It is perfectly acceptable to do less but few seem to realise it going down that road. As I was waiting for a break in the traffic to take that shot the cars were all going past me at at least 40 mph. To my mind, that doesn’t make a case for speed cameras, it makes a case for training and education. They obviously don’t know or understand safe from unsafe. Like I said yesterday, it was wet, misty with cars parked and pedestrians. Never mind the speed limit, that should set alarm bells off in any good safe driver's head!

To put it differently, if it was changed back to a that’s what drivers would all doubtless do when maybe 30 mph is also too fast depending on the conditions. The same goes for the second road: There was absolutely no need to change the limit. It was a 60 mph road but that doesn’t mean you have to travel at 60 mph. I have been going down that road all my adult life at 60 mph perfectly safely but I scrub speed off when going past a farm entrance or side road if I see a car waiting to pull out.

So you see there’s no need to keep changing limits if you use a Safe Speed for the conditions. That’s my point and the two pictures amply demonstrate how unrepresentative the posted speed limits are of a ‘safe speed’. I don't know why you struggle with the concept of a safe speed for the conditions.

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The views expressed in this post are personal opinions and do not necessarily represent the views of Safe Speed.
You will be branded a threat to society by going over a speed limit where it is safe to do so, and suffer the consequences of your actions in a way criminals do not, more so than someone who is a real threat to our society.

I look forward to that Odin and you have reminded me of one which sounds just like the one you describe. It's easy to make a mockery of current 'road safety by speed limits' when you start to compare different roads, or even like-for-like, with different posted limits.

That's what was behind my O/P and it's proof positive that the relationship between posted speed limits and actual safety are worlds apart; more so these days than at any other time! I intend to post more pictures of equally absurd examples...

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The views expressed in this post are personal opinions and do not necessarily represent the views of Safe Speed.
You will be branded a threat to society by going over a speed limit where it is safe to do so, and suffer the consequences of your actions in a way criminals do not, more so than someone who is a real threat to our society.

We have a perfectly good, straight, modern dual that links the M54 to another dual carriageway (60mph) which runs past a large industrial estate. This has recently been dropped to 50MPH although there are country lanes off it at NSL and it also feeds onto another wide NSL.

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My views do not represent Safespeed but those of a driver who has driven for 39 yrs, in all conditions, at all times of the day & night on every type of road and covered well over a million miles, so knows a bit about what makes for safety on the road,what is really dangerous and needs to be observed when driving and quite frankly, the speedo is way down on my list of things to observe to negotiate Britain's roads safely, but I don't expect some fool who sits behind a desk all day to appreciate that.

The more I look at it, the more it bugs me.

Why should someone not be done in the first case for doing an unsafe, but perfectly legal, 40 mph but be done in the second case for doing a safe 50 mph along a road which used to be ?

Anyone who purports to be concerned about road safety and KSI should find it iniquitous in the extreme!!!

Knowing the roads as I do, I would make the first one a unless the road is turned into a red route or something, in which case is fine driving with care.

The second I would probably make into a because there is a side service type road with a few houses and 60mph may make it difficult for a driver to pull onto that road when drivers are coming down at speed. That said, there's never been an accident there so maybe like it was before.

One thing I know for certain: there's no way on God's green Earth the two should be the same, if based on safety, so whoever makes these limits is a moron! By definition: "lacking in good judgement"

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The views expressed in this post are personal opinions and do not necessarily represent the views of Safe Speed.
You will be branded a threat to society by going over a speed limit where it is safe to do so, and suffer the consequences of your actions in a way criminals do not, more so than someone who is a real threat to our society.

What you also have to remember is these previously NSL roads were in fact 70MPH limits pre mid seventies. (now weepej is bound to pipe up that more people were dying in road accidents pre 70s but then more were dying from syphilis pre mid seventies so what has that to do with anything apart from showing that things change... )

Our wonderful local council have in the last five years dropped virtually all our NSL roads to 40 MPH. I wrote them a strongly worded letter a couple of years ago complaining about their road "strategy" and enquiring on what basis they felt that so many previous NSL should be made 40MPH after 30 plus years of trouble free motoring. Their written answer was that it had nothing to do with accident rates or road safety but they felt that if all the roads in their "circular network" were all made 40MPH, it would be "less confusing" for drivers!

In other words they believe all the local drivers to be such utter morons that we aren't capable of reading individual speed signs and adjusting our speed accordingly or assessing a safe speed for individual roads so they had better "help us out" and make it easy for us.....(or they could be assisting the lowest common denominater driver who doesn't have the skills/inclination or ability to improve) and all this on roads with a LESS THAN HALF nat average accident rate. Now doesn't that make your blood boil because it certain does for me.

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My views do not represent Safespeed but those of a driver who has driven for 39 yrs, in all conditions, at all times of the day & night on every type of road and covered well over a million miles, so knows a bit about what makes for safety on the road,what is really dangerous and needs to be observed when driving and quite frankly, the speedo is way down on my list of things to observe to negotiate Britain's roads safely, but I don't expect some fool who sits behind a desk all day to appreciate that.

It's rediculous! I'm sure you have hung on to that letter Graball, it may be ammo later...

Not that we need it but exactly how much proof is enough, will ever be enough, to show the obvious flaws in current road speed limits and safety???

So let me see if I have this right...

We currently have the most 'switch-on' and educated nation there has ever been with qualifications coming out of their collective ears.

They can text faster than a USB3 port, they can understand games with complicated strategies, they have degrees 'proving' how good they are at getting the equivilent of an old A-Level.

But we'd better make it simple for the masses when it comes to speed and noneroad safety by lowering speed limit signs.

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The views expressed in this post are personal opinions and do not necessarily represent the views of Safe Speed.
You will be branded a threat to society by going over a speed limit where it is safe to do so, and suffer the consequences of your actions in a way criminals do not, more so than someone who is a real threat to our society.

But there have been several post on these forums complaining that a plethora of speed limits is very confusing for drivers.

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When I see an adult on a bicycle, I do not despair for the future of the human race. H.G. Wells
When I see a youth in a motor car I do d.c.brown

And we currently have the biggest liars ever "employed" by the public services.
"less confusing for road users" = "another good excuse to inconvenience people and get them out of cars"
The DfT guidance on speed limits suggests that when the 85th percentile is 45 then attempting to reduce it to 30, by introducing a speed limit of 30, will have little effect.
And in any case: If you went past a line of parked cars at 40 on your driving test (even if the limit WAS 40) your chances of passing said test would be a lot lower than a snakes belly !
But as said: Public servants seem to have an aversion to truth today.

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The world runs on oil, period. No other substance can compete when it comes to energy density, flexibility, ease of handling, ease of transportation. If oil didn’t exist we would have to invent it.”

56 years after it was decided it was needed, the Bedford Bypass is nearing completion. The last single carriageway length of it.We have the most photogenic mayor though, always being photographed doing nothing

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You know what's less confusing still? No speed limits and good drivers

You don’t have reducing speed limit signs as you travel along a road with a bend. You use your judgement to negotiate them just like you would or should use good judgement to travel along any stretch of the road.

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The views expressed in this post are personal opinions and do not necessarily represent the views of Safe Speed.
You will be branded a threat to society by going over a speed limit where it is safe to do so, and suffer the consequences of your actions in a way criminals do not, more so than someone who is a real threat to our society.

I think that the main confusion that drivers have with speed limits, is usually......WHY???......WHY am I in a 40MPH limit when it used to be a NSL and looks like the road in Ton'e's second example?

WHY was some pillock in the council offices, who probably doesn't even drive, allowed to slap a 40MPH limit on a good NSL road?

WHY , when the police object to such drastic drops, they are ignored?

WHY do they have to spend many thousands building stupid obstacles in a perfectly good, straight road to stop you safely overtaking?

I think that the confusion about speed limits is, WHY do they suddenly need to drop over 80% of them, when they have served us perfectly well for decades?

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My views do not represent Safespeed but those of a driver who has driven for 39 yrs, in all conditions, at all times of the day & night on every type of road and covered well over a million miles, so knows a bit about what makes for safety on the road,what is really dangerous and needs to be observed when driving and quite frankly, the speedo is way down on my list of things to observe to negotiate Britain's roads safely, but I don't expect some fool who sits behind a desk all day to appreciate that.