A5 Edgware Road over Staples Corner (over the A406 North Circular Road) with West Hendon to the north and Cricklewood to the south is a dual carriageway, central barrier, no pavement, urban clearway, no traffic lights, most of it up in the air so pedestrians can't even vault a fence when they're not supposed to....and it's a 30mph limit, for the whole length........absolutely ridiculous
50mph would be reasonable, because there are 30mph limits either side and they are needed (a 70mph limit would have people still driving fast through the 30's)
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The more speed limits are introduced whose rationale most motorists find difficult to understand, the more all speed limits will be ignored.
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The more speed limits are introduced whose rationale most motorists find difficult to understand the more all speed limits will be ignored.>>
I agree. There were several stretches on these roads where it was very difficult to keep to 50. Many drivers just treated the limits with contempt anyway.
Next I suspect, more speed cameras of some description will appear.
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There's a 4-lane dual carriage-way near me which is 30mph for its entire length and has a speed camera. What's bonkers is that there are very few pedestrians along the road and they are separated from the road by crash barriers and wide pavements. What's even more bonkers is that several hundred yards past that bit it goes into a 40 zone, and there are houses, shops and a school close to the road. Makes no sense!
Also the local council recently built a new ring road, which has more traffic lights and junctions than the road it replaced, and despite being a 4 lane dual carriageway is again 30mph for its entire length.
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(over the A406 North Circular Road) ....and it's a 30mph limit for the whole length........absolutely ridiculous
Haven't you ever hit 60 on that flyover Westpig? I certainly have.
But the carphounds and their pathetic open-mouthed acolytes have got us so cowed and terrorised these days, I don't know that I'd dare...
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> Haven't you ever hit 60 on that flyover Westpig? I certainly have.
Lud,
I'm pretending to be American..and pleading the fifth
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Northants isnt suffering unduly with cameras and silly speed limits - there are plenty of tight twisting 60mph stretches for spirited driving if that floats your boat.
We have the odd one though not so much a bad limit but creates bad drivers.
I was harrassed by some utter fool in a Focus today who seemed enraged by my unwillingness to do more than 40 on a long, straight stretch that has a 40 limit. I stuck to the limit because I know the road, I know that it runs through a parking area for walkers where they are often crossing the road, kids/dogs inc, so it is justified.
He even stuck on my back bumper on a twisting 60 section before nearly mounting my car alltogether when I slowed from 60 to 30 on entering the village.
I tell you, if I could launch objects rearwards legally, I would :-)
Most people who object to the limits would object whatever they are and then break them regardless. Make it 100 and they will do 110, law and order isnt for everyone.
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Coming back to the original post. I used to enjoy those roads until the 50s came in.
But they did have a lot of head on collisions and the number of fatalities on them has fallen. Perhaps the changes are not so bad after all.
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I drive to what the road conditions dictate, I see roadspeed signs as advisory rather than compulsory ... same on the motorway - a 70MPH limit is far to low IMHO.
I have the greatest respect for commercial vehicles, of all shapes & sizes, as I've been there - stuck behind the wheel day in day out, year in etc., etc.,
Whilst I will treat a kid in a Fiesta sitting on my RHS mirror with the contempt they deserve, I will always try to be less of a mimser (hehehe - Ilike that word) to a true Knight of the Road.
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I see roadspeed signs as advisory rather than compulsory
Does that apply to all the other laws of the country, road and otherwise? Or are you just selective to what suits you and pick and choose - just wondering if you include murder under those you feel are "advisory"?
Anarchy here we come, eh! ;-)
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>>>Anarchy here we come, eh! ;-)<<<
I congratulate you on your correct assumption comrade b308, I am an Anarchist in the true sense of the word = Rule without rulers.
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Just simulated the OP's route in Garmin Mapsource with a 70 mph limit and a 50 mph limit (so it's been a slow day at the Olympics so far), and it shows a 3 minutes difference in the journey time - discuss.
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Journey time was no concern for me on this journey. I expected that the time gained at the higher limits would be quite small but am surprised it is as little as 3 minutes. I just feel that we are increasingly being reduced to 50 on all but some dual carriageways and motorways.
The frustration shown by some drivers on this journey was quite apparent, which surely is not good for road safety. We'll all get used to going at 50 soon perhaps.
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I drove back from Sunderland for 4 hours at 55-60 to save fuel.
Thing is, on the way there earlier in the day, it took me virtually the same time to get there at 70-75 when possible. Driving fast has little to do with journey times, journey times are just the excuse used to justify driving faster.
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Driving fast has little to do with journey times ..... journey times are just the excuse used to justify driving faster.>>
I suspect that this is true.
Whilst I'm sure that Lud (and his acolytes) are excellent drivers, there are many excellent drivers who can't handle a car properly even at 50mph - hence the millions being spent (and the inconvenience) on straightening out the 'Haughley bends' on the A14.
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In today society, I personally have opted out of the rat race as it were. Im capable of driving fast and on a rare occasion I do, but these days, my priority is economy, not progress and if it takes a little longer, that is usually to the benefit of stress levels.
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>>a 3 minutes difference in the journey time - discuss.<<
I commute 13 miles each way to work and back. Rural roads, no dual carriageway/motorway. I have done the one way trip in a best of 10 minutes and a worst of 30+ minutes(mimsers/fog/hgvs/etc) The 20 minutes "saved" is irrelevant to me. It plain, straightforward is irrelevant. The enjoyment of "making progress" is the means and the end in itself. I suspect that most people who enjoy "speed" think the same way.
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My friend is a doctor who lives in Barnstaple and works in a country practise some 35 miles away. He drives a 1.4 Peugeot 306 and the journey takes hime about 1:15. However in his wife's Subaru Imprtezza WRX STi, he can do it in 50 mins.
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Journey times can be radically shortened by driving quickly at times of low traffic density, in extreme cases halved. However it is also possible to work yourself into a white-knuckle sweat over 50 miles and hardly make up five minutes on someone taking it easy. Depends very much on random factors - 'luck' with other traffic and traffic lights etc. - and overall traffic conditions starting with density and considering weather, time of day, direction of travel, day of week, time of year etc. These days of course there are new hazards in the form of lower limits, gratuitous lane closures and other deliberate, often dangerous obstructions inserted into the road system by evil local authority gremlins, cameras and the effect all these things have on other people's driving as well as one's own.
BUT as I and others have said in the past, journey times are not usually what it's about. It's about staying awake, pretending motoring is still possible and resisting the embarrassingly infantile attitudes and practices being foisted on us by government and eagerly embraced by far too many of our fellow car users.
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The best fun these days is on two wheels. Kawasaki Ninja 650R. Great fun.
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To plant a slightly different angle on things, just got back from doing 2000 miles in Blighty 99.9% of which were thoroughly pleasant motorway miles in the good old North West. Nobody speeding, (well maybe the odd white van was almost a little bit naughty at times), no morons, no heavy traffic, no tail-gating, no abuse, no unwanted hand signals. I began to wonder if this was the same land I left 4 years ago.
I got to back to Poland last week, spent 5 and a half hours to drive 200 miles on Friday to the lakes (1 serious head-on collision due to moronic overtaking) went back on Sunday - 11 hours to do 200 miles (lost count of the number of delays due to morons in head on collisions and sickening aftermaths) Dogs learn faster than this don't they? Try and overtake 7 cars in a 700cc Daewoo and you will DIE! Or worse, waste three hours of my time. Idiot.
Count yourselves lucky UK, cheap, great quality used cars and fantastic driving conditions, not to mention a population with a modicum of road craft. Where I live, every lobotomized Rhesus monkey has a driving licence, the entire population is bereft of any road-sense whatsoever and successful sexual selection is dictated by what idiotic male enters the most dangerous bend first or at the highest speed.
Just ranting.
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BBD - try the A65 on a Sunday, it is just like Poland - plenty of fools doing mad overtakes into blind bends. Another biker was killed on there just this weekend.
news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/north_yorkshire/756748...m
I saw the aftermath - not pretty.
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