My musings were partly prompted by something my brother-in-law mentioned, which I believe to be a huge exaggeration.

He claims that he's able to drive from his home near Swindon to the holiday cottage they regularly go to in North Yorks (250 miles on the M1 / A1 and local A-roads) in around 3 hours 30 mins - which is around 72mph point-to-point.

This is in an A6 3.0TDi, and he is a swift driver, but even so I think it would be difficult to make that journey in under 4 hours unless you were VERY lucky with the traffic, roadworks, etc.

Probably the highest average speed I've ever recorded in the UK was a journey from my home in Cheshire to Chertsey, setting off around 7:30pm. I did the 190 miles in 2h55m, an average of 66mph. I live only 20 minutes from the M6, the motorways were near-deserted with no roadworks (amazingly), and the destination was 5 minutes from the M25. I was able to cruise at 85 for pretty much all the time I was on the motorway.

Edited by craig-pd130 on 17/11/2014 at 16:21

Its worked 2 ways for me.

A Sunday morning trip to Cadwell park in the late 80's would take me just under an hour. Door to door its about 60 miles. No cameras, not much traffic, could have some great fun on those sweeping A roads once out of the frequent villages with 30mph or 40 mph limits, but they did tend to be quite a few police motorcyclists lurking with hand held cameras in those villages.

Now the exact same trip takes probably an hour and 20 minutes in a faster car. I know where all the fixed cameras are but there are still mobile ones to catch you and the traffic can be a pain at times.

In the early 90's our bi-annual trip to Aviemore used to take about 8 hours travelling time for the 430 miles. Its still 430 miles but the M74 is much better than the old road and the A9 has been improved in parts. Takes us 7 hours travelling time now.

I used to travel from Salisbury to Carlisle 320 miles regularly in the 80's and often managed average of 75/80. Although the Escort needed a fill up on the way.

Often travel from Winchester to Linlithgow, around 450 miles. No need for refueling on route and possible to average much higher speed. Of course equally likely to be much slower.

The record for driving across America which is 2813 miles is 28 Hours and Fifty minutes which is an average speed of 98mph.

This is worth a read if you're a petrol head jalopnik.com/meet-the-guy-who-drove-across-the-u-s...7