It's clear that many on this forum, like the majority of drivers in general forget that a speed limit is just that - a 'limit' - not a 'target'. It's the maximum speed at which you can drive if road conditions permit - traffic levels, weather, street lighting, other road users, and it assumes that you position your vehicle correctly - stopping/thinking distance, giving clearance to other users (eg 1.5 Metres if passing cyclists), 'reading the road ahead' (EG not speeding up when traffic lights are on green to try to 'beat the lights' and cross on amber (amber means 'stop unless it's not safe to do so' - it doesn't mean 'go' if the lights haven't turned red.
Last night I drove 40 miles from Selby to Hull along narrow winding country roads at 10PM in the dark and the rain. Single carriageway road, max limit 60MPH, interspersed with 40 & 30 through villages, including over humped back bridges. At no time was it safe to drive at these speeds in the dark, and along the road in the rain. There were several 'wild animal' warning signs, (proof of which was a dead muntjac deer and badger at the side of the road along the journey.
Of oncoming cars, they had lights on full beam and didn't dip them - didn't have time - going too fast when my car came into view (at 70MPH, 15 sec = 0.3 miles). Even if they'd have stuck to the speed limits they'd have been unsafe, given the conditions, but they were clearly exceeding the speed limit. Of those that overtook me, likewise - 70 to 80MPH, brake lights going on at the last minute on tight zig-zag bends, hurtling through villages in excess of 60MPH, never mind about 40 or 30.
Where drivers couldn't overtake because the road was too narrow or too bendy, they were driving far too close if I'd had to brake. Clearly waiting for the chance to 'go for it'. Double white lines? 'Now't coming - give it some wellie'). I guess at that time, some could have also been OPL).
Why do they do this? Because they can, due to lack of speed enforcement, and mile after they do, with apparent impunity till eventually they get caught, and get very uptight about it. Speeding is endemic, yet of 41 million drivers in the UK, only 6.5% have point on their licence. Bear in mind that points stay on the licence for either four or eleven years depending on the nature of the offence, because points relate to many more offences than merely speeding. Its entirely fallacious to conclude that if only 6.5% of drivers have points, therefore, 93.5% are law abiding motorists. As we've seen in this thread, many who get caught don't consider themselves 'offenders' but as 'oppressed victims'.
(Nothing will change, when the headlines scream 'war on motorists' and refer to vociferous politicians who don't support lower speed limits or better enforcement as 'motorists' friends').
