Safe Speed Forums

I've seen it reported elsewhere that the limit on the A38 through the centre of Birmingham from the Middleway to the Aston Expressway has recently been reduced from a reasonable to a ridiculous

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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

All in the name of congestion( oh sorry,,,safety), no doubt. What next a congestion charge?

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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've had the misfortune to have to travel most of the length and breadth of Telford, several times today due to work commitments and what a painful drag it's been. Apart from seeing every example of bad driving possible, such as turning left at roundabouts with a right signal to stopping a 4WD and trailer on a busy roundabout entrance to check the load when they could have gone twenty yards off the roundabout onto a deserted country lane.

What really made it so painful though was the sheer volume of traffic crawling along at about 35MPH on what used to be straight NSL roads that are now 40MPH roads with collision obstacles every 100yards to prevent safe overtaking.

The other interesting feature is the sudden appearence of a load of VASs, which I would guess have appeared due to the recent (just before Xmas) speed survey which was done on every main road in the area.

Now my guess (based on travelling the roads daily and mainly at off peak times) is that these speed surveys showed that the mean speeds were still in excess of the present 40MPH limits (the only time I see anyone sticking to these limits is at peak crawl time when the office workers come out) and Telford Highways instead of realising they are wrong to set such ridiculously low limits in the first place (which traffic engineers and the police said were too low without further work and money being spent) are trying to get over their (lack of ) embarassment by wasting more money on endless VASs.

WILL THEY EVER LEARN?.....NO

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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.

You have my complete and utter support on this, see my (long I'm afraid) post, towards the end, my experience of this joke, legislation. How the h are you supposed to integrate streams and flows of traffic at volume below this speed, you can see it now, at this minute, cars at walking pace, trying to go round each other as they try to leave or join the tunnel flows while traffic backs up like punters at a Christmas sale. Of course, lowering the speed is an attempt to lower injury in case of an accident, this is punitive because of the nature of the tunnels, the fact that once underground people drive to the conditions, etc etc, I cannot be drawn any further, read my post if you get a chance.
edited Mod.

I actually brought this up some time ago Peter, maybe you allude to me as one of those whom mentioned it.

It's rediculous! I could use more superlatives but I'll stick with that for now.

They haven't put a scamera there yet because it's not easy to erect one or place a £raffic £olice armed with pop gun - yet. But if they did even Weepej would get pinged; it's that absurd!

I can provide my link to this pathetic situation later...

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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 guess approaches to Council members, MP's and petitions plus a media push from Safe Speed to show the figures and help them to make sense of them is very likely to help perhaps revert some of these 'Slow 4 No Reason Roads.
Perhaps start a thread to list 'Slow 4 No Reason Roads' (or a lot better title !)?
Ican start to obtain all figures for each road and the recent figures out should help with this.

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Safe Speed for Intelligent Road Safety through proper research, experience & guidance.

are we saying 30 isn't an appropriate speed limit for the tunnels ? (particularly those that aren't straight!)

The tunnel section with a sharp bend in it was 30 beforehand. And the vast majority of the road isn't in tunnel.

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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

That’s right; the only sharp bend has always been a , quite rightly IMO. But the rest is perfectly navigable at 40mph safely and I have never ever heard of an accident along that stretch apart from when some goof has overcooked it in the tunnel on a bend, not on the other parts. It gets cordoned off and you have to use the roundabouts while they scrape them off the sidewalls.

Also, even if there was an accident on the straights you have to ask yourself is the answer to every and any accident one of lowering the limit or instead looking at the reason for the accident.

We know their stupid answer is to reduce all the time but it’s like prohibiting water from ever being heated above 50 deg because there are too many scold victims turning up at A&E. You need to look at who is getting it wrong and why, not dumb everything down to the worst driver.

Not aimed at you of course ed, just me sounding off

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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.

so the answer to my question is ?

30 was an appropriate speed limit in the one tunnel where it was previously 30; for the rest of the section between the Middleway and the A38(M), 40 was an appropriate limit.

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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

Came back that way today. AFAIK it’s now from the start of the Aston Expressway, end of A38(M), right up past the lights on the Bristol Road.

Had two/three lanes to myself at one point. It felt like being on a airplane runway riding a kids tricycle but since my licence depends on it I usually try and keep it low resulting in drivers stuck up my or being constantly overtook. Whoever came up with that needs an skipfull of ink thrown in his dumb face.

Once again, most drivers wouldn’t have a problem with appropriately set limits but these are now pathetically inappropriate, stupid and not based on safety. If they wanted to make £30K a month they couldn’t pick a better place to park a ‘horse box’ and prosecute competent safe drivers for doing what they have always done safely.

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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 know the road , having driven it a few dozen times in the past. It must cause awful congestion now at peak times, it was never a very good road before, when busy but 30 must really cause a lot of bunching even when not at it's busiest.

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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.

Not a problem at the moment Graball because everyone sees it for what it is, including police I have followed, and just ignore it.

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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.

yep , Telford's the same, if you stick to the new 40MPH limits you WILL be in the minority.

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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.