I saw this article in the Mail Online today. It claims the government is considering raising the motorway speed limit to 80mph “to shorten journey times and help the economy”.
Personally, I wouldn’t have a direct problem with an 80mph speed limit. However, if this Mickey Mouse government thinks it will shorten journey times then it needs its head looking at.
When I’m doing the signals briefing with my pupils, one of the things I cover is the use of the hazard lights. As well as using them to show you are stopped or causing a hazard, you can also use them to show you are slowing down rapidly – as a reinforcement signal to people that something other than just normal braking is taking place.
Most commonly, rapid slowing down is encountered on the motorways. You’ll be driving along quite happily at 70mph, when all of a sudden the traffic is at a total standstill. You might think that there’s an accident, but there isn’t. All it is is a bottleneck effect, and it is caused by people going too fast having to suddenly slow down. Sometimes, you will not move more than a few car lengths for 10 minutes or more – but then everything gets going again and it’s like nothing happened.
What happens is that even if you’re doing 70mph, a huge number of people will be doing 80, 90, even 100mph if they can in the outside lane(s). Conversely, a huge number of other people will be doing 60 or even 50mph in the inside or middle lanes.
Apart from the daily accidents caused by this – and it isn’t necessarily the speeders who are to blame, even if the law considers them guilty of a crime – it means that inevitably someone going faster is going to have to slow down. This cascades down the whole line, and eventually – after all the lane changing to get round it has run out of steam – someone has to stop. Then, this too cascades down the line, and everyone else has to stop, and the further back they are, the longer the wait to get going again.
I call it the caterpillar effect.
It was to get round this very problem that variable speed limits were introduced on some of the busiest motorways. By varying (and enforcing, of course) the speed limit, hold ups due to the caterpillar effect can be minimised.
And now, the imbeciles in Office are going to make things a whole lot worse. The article also says there will be MORE variable speed limits, but quite how they think anyone is going to be able to do 80mph on any of these (except at night) is anyone’s guess.