Safe Speed Forums

Explain it.
Hmm.
The "85th percentile" is used [basically] to justify higher speed limits [on here anyway]
I doubt that if the speed limit was 50, and drivers travelled at 40 habitually, the 85th percentile would be enacted and the limit reduced to 40.
Personally, I long ago got fed-up with bunches of flowers marking the spot where another idiot thought that it was safe to take a corner at 60 because it was legal.
Now the village has a 30 limit...with a 40 limit leading into it....from a s/c nsl.
Oh, and I got overtaken this evening in the village....while sedately driving at the legal speed of 30....by a jaguar that was travelling so fast that it had to pass road-centre bollards on the wrong side because it did not have time to make it back to the nearside lane.....85th percentile....still, at least he was flashing his lights....
Maybe it was my fault for proceeding along at a slow [but legal] speed.
Anyway, back to common sense....
I note that the taxpayers alliance has priced-up road/rail spending.....

£11.11 on roads
£138.66 on rail

http://www.taxpayersalliance.com/transportspending.pdf

Obviously the polos' are paying great attention to the taxpayer/car-owner-driver.
Still, after the election we'll........still be sheep: Different shepherd.

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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

But common sense driving has nothing at all to do with a speed limit. The 85% rule is what the MAJORITY of SENSIBLE drivers class as a SAFE speed for any road, it has nothing to do with how fast you can take a corner and get round it. Until people like yourself and the people who set ridiculously low limits, on the pretence that everyone who stays below that limit and is magically "safe", realise this, then road safety in this country is dead and buried. As someone who says they drive for a living, you of all people, should be half way to realising this.

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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 Jaguar overtaking you on the other side of the island demonstrated extremely poor judgement. However, did you previously drive at 40mph when the limit was at that higher level or did you always drive at 30mph having regard to the hazards presented to you? (I am assuming nothing has changed significantly, only the speed limit.)

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Malcolm W.
The views expressed in this post are personal opinions and do not represent the views of Safespeed.

Wait, so what you're saying is that you don't understand what the 85th %ile is? What you have described is not it.

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Regulation without education merely creates more criminals.

Yes - it's the way they USED to set speed limits and I think most people on here wouldn't have aproblem with it. I certainly wouldn't!


I think that's pretty much exactly how it would work! Obviously, there would need to be some perceived requirement for a different limit to start with - say a petition by the villagers. Once that had happened, they would do a speed survey and if they found that 85% (or more) of the drivers were doing 40 or less, then it would be reduced to 40. Unfortunately, these days, they're increasingly using the 50%ile speed, so it would only have to be 50% or more drivers doing 40 or less. And even then, as the 85% isn't "law" - it was just one of the tools they used to assess it, they could impose a lower one again if they felt like it.


Now that's odd! I get to see lots of bunches of flowers but none of them ever seem to have the cause of death marked on them! The nearest ones to our house were because someone tried to overtake on the approach to a hidden dip (that had an oncoming car in it). Not sure how fast anyone was going at the time. If you saw the road (NSL rural, SC) I think you'd agree that it's pretty unlikely that the speed limit was being exceeded by either party.
There's another few bunches (and now, an unimaginable clutter of road furniture!) where someone doing about 80 tried to take a bend in a 60 limit that you can't really take at much more than about 40. However, I'm not completely convinced that (as he wasn't complying with the 60 limit), he'd have complied with a 50, 40, 30 or any other kind of lower limit, but you never know... ).

Unless 85% (or more) drivers are overtaking you when you're doing 30, I think your existing 30 limit is safe ! In fact, with the current anti-motorist climate, I dobut that if 100% of vehicles exceeded the limt AND all the villagers signed a petition to increase it, they'd raise it! (I expect they'd plant a camera there and make lots of lovely money instead!