The Student Room Group

No speed limits in non-pedestrian areas - good idea?

I was chatting about this with my mate earlier. We were both talking about how areas in which there is no pedestrian footpath should be free of speed limits. Sure, if pedestrians are around then it's generally likely to be quite a busy area anyway, so not only for the pedestrians' safety but also for the sake of not driving fast in trafficky areas, speed limits are very sensible. However, on more open roads where you're not stopping and starting, no pedestrians or crossings etc., do we really need speed limits? Most people don't stick to them anyhow and people just tend to drive at whatever speed they're comfortable driving at.
Maybe with some roads, like country roads, there should be limits, because some people are too ****ing stupid to realise how sharp corners are until it's too late, but with general open pedestrian-free roads, what's the need?

For example, there's a road near me - it goes on for several miles, nice and open, no footpath, no crossings, no reason to stop apart from unusual circumstances... yet it's a 40mph road and there are speed cameras every half a mile. It just doesn't make sense, let me put my foot down and get to where I want to be FFS. Roads like this all over the place. What's the sense?

Discuss.
(edited 7 years ago)
Most people do stick to limits

Loads of roads with no footpaths exist yet have pedestrians
Original post by domonict
Most people do stick to limits

Loads of roads with no footpaths exist yet have pedestrians


How ****ing naive/ignorant are you :rofl:
Original post by WoodyMKC
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With this my concern would be if everyone was driving at different speeds due to the lack of upper defined limit the potential for more accidents would be increased. Not only that but any accidents that would happen would be that much more fatal because of the nature of the speeds being driven. So some people could be going at 100mph and others at 80mph and I can just imagine more crashes happening
There's more to worry about than pedestrians

e.g. cyclists, horse riders, farm vehicles (possibly dropping crap all over the road). wild animals e.g. Deer

people tend to use the speed limit as a recommendation imo...

afaik it's full of speed cameras because it's an accident blackspot and it might be an accident blackspot because it's more dangerous than it looks... though I'm happy to admit councils do some fairly bizarre speed camera placements as well.
Original post by WoodyMKC
I was chatting about this with my mate earlier. We were both talking about how areas in which there is no pedestrian footpath should be free of speed limits. Sure, if pedestrians are around then it's generally likely to be quite a busy area anyway, so not only for the pedestrians' safety but also for the sake of not driving fast in trafficky areas, speed limits are very sensible. However, on more open roads where you're not stopping and starting, no pedestrians or crossings etc., do we really need speed limits? Most people don't stick to them anyhow and people just tend to drive at whatever speed they're comfortable driving at.
Maybe with some roads, like country roads, there should be limits, because some people are too ****ing stupid to realise how sharp corners are until it's too late, but with general open pedestrian-free roads, what's the need?

For example, there's a road near me - it goes on for several miles, nice and open, no footpath, no crossings, no reason to stop apart from unusual circumstances... yet it's a 40mph road and there are speed cameras every half a mile. It just doesn't make sense, let me put my foot down and get to where I want to be FFS. Roads like this all over the place. What's the sense?

Discuss.


That's just asking for an accident to happen :naughty:
Nah too many crazy people to not enforce a limit tbh.
I get where you're all coming from, but people just tend to drive at what speed they want to drive at from what I see (and I drive pretty much every day on varying routes). They drive at what speed they feel safe. For example, there's a 50mph road near me, very much a pedestrian-free zone. Sure, some folk stick to the speed limit, but very few do. I get on that particular road and 50 just seems a bit slow to me and I just drive on it at what speed I feel is good, but not at a speed at which I feel uncomfortable. Sometimes I end up coming up behind a slower driver, common sense tells me to slow down. The speed difference between drivers isn't a major issue, we see speed differences between drivers all the time.

As another example, there's a road near me, it's a 60mph road. However, it's very tight and windy - nobody does 60mph on this road or even close on this road, pretty much everyone sticks to about 30-40ish. Again, I believe that most drivers will just drive at what speed they feel is appropriate, only thing stopping them would be the presence of law enforcement and/or speed cameras. Just like loonies that zoom past you at 150mph on the motorway, while another driver is poodling along at 60 in the left lane. I don't think that simply removing the speed limit would change that - the drivers that drive fast will drive fast regardless, whilst the ones that feel comfortable driving at a slower speed will do so.

Sometimes, I feel like I'm more likely to have an accident through lack of concentration where I'm constantly watching my speedo to make sure I'm not over the limit, than I would if I was driving at my normal pace and concentrating on the road. All the speed limitations seem to do in many cases is cause a longer queue of traffic.

Original post by Joinedup
afaik it's full of speed cameras because it's an accident blackspot


It's 100% not though. I've lived in the same area all my life, the road is right near me - if there's an accident on a road near you, you inevitably become aware of these things, especially if there had been numerous accidents over a given time period. The council just out of the blue decided to put the cameras up, I assume because it's the sort of big, straight, open road on which people like to put their foot down and the council saw it as an opportunity to hand out some tickets and raise some funds.
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