Motorways

[imamartian]

One very annoying problem is when an HGV overtakes another HGV but is only travelling about 0.5 mph faster than the one its overtaking. A lorry driver once told me that this practice was done on purpose in protest of the 60mph speed restriction.

spot on squeaky (although i never thought i'd type those three words in sequence !! ).

HGV's on a motorway are a complete pain...they should be limited to lane one only.

Also the speed limit should be unlimited. 70 MPH is an archaic throwback... cars these days are capable of 100MPH quite safely....and the drivers, typically will drive at the speed they're comfortable at... a bit of lane respect, i.e. moving over to let faster vehicles pass, and everyone is happy.

As for the barrier gaps.. they'd cost very little and if placed every 5/10 mile, they help out massively in the case of a smash.

 

[Alarm]

As before, how would you get the contra flow working without head on collisions?

 

[sooey]

One very annoying problem is when an HGV overtakes another HGV but is only travelling about 0.5 mph faster than the one its overtaking. A lorry driver once told me that this practice was done on purpose in protest of the 60mph speed restriction.

spot on squeaky (although i never thought i'd type those three words in sequence !! ).

HGV's on a motorway are a complete pain...they should be limited to lane one only.

Also the speed limit should be unlimited. 70 MPH is an archaic throwback... cars these days are capable of 100MPH quite safely....and the drivers, typically will drive at the speed they're comfortable at... a bit of lane respect, i.e. moving over to let faster vehicles pass, and everyone is happy.

As for the barrier gaps.. they'd cost very little and if placed every 5/10 mile, they help out massively in the case of a smash.

You are such a fool, Your last two paragraphs are a recipe for complete carnage on the motorways.

 

[cantaloup63]

1/. On the whole it seems to be a reasonable view that an accident at 70 is likely to cause less carnage to yourself and others than one at 100.

2/. Since a limit of 70 tends to allow a bit of a blind eye to be turned to those who slip up to the 75, 80 mph mark, then a limit of 100 would seem to mean a leeway of up to 115. Too fast IMO

3/. The cars may well be able to handle faster speeds, but this doesn't automatically mean that humans can.

 

[imamartian]

3/. The cars may well be able to handle faster speeds, but this doesn't automatically mean that humans can.

I can... Lewis Hamilton can.... those that can't don't !! IMO

 

[cantaloup63]

3/. The cars may well be able to handle faster speeds, but this doesn't automatically mean that humans can.

I can... Lewis Hamilton can.... those that can't don't !! IMO

Which may be up to 90+% of the population, in which case you're proposing that motorways have 2 lanes for 95% of the population with the outside lane for 5% who will be steaming along at 100+mph next to a barrier that might suddenly decide to move to deal with the huge number of increased accidents that will no doubt occur by testosterone freaks in their fast motors ploughing into a load more cars.

Apart from that, and the fact that cars at that speed will guzzle fuel more, I think you're onto something

 

[sooey]

Right then, here's why it's tripe....

Also the speed limit should be unlimited. 70 MPH is an archaic throwback... cars these days are capable of 100MPH quite safely....and the drivers, typically will drive at the speed they're comfortable at... a bit of lane respect, i.e. moving over to let faster vehicles pass, and everyone is happy.

Line of cars doing 70ish in the middle lane, some blurt coming up the outside lane at about 110ish. car pulls out in front of blurt without looking properly. Blurt smashes into car, and both cars take out half the innocent traffic in the middle lane. Result...carnage.

As for the barrier gaps.. they'd cost very little and if placed every 5/10 mile, they help out massively in the case of a smash

I'd guarantee that for every gap in a motorway central reservation there'd be about four or five idiots a day trying to do a u turn through it. Result...more carnage.

I can... Lewis Hamilton can.... those that can't don't !! IMO

Lewis Hamilton does it on a racetrack If he was the blurt doing 110 in the outside lane when someone pulled out right in front of him, he'd be dead as well as other innocent people. As for "I can"....yeah, sure you can...d,head.

 

[cantaloup63]

Back to topic. How long do you think it will be before cars have automatic flow control software which means that for example you wouldn't be able to drive too close nor at excessive speeds, and that in the event of an accident up ahead, you would be "forced" to move into an appropriate lane and not (as some selfish characters seem to feel appropriate) leave it to the last possible moment to join the filtered lanes.

Such GPS controlled technology could also lead to the concept of a car being rendered useless (driver forced to police pound before engine cuts out) if reported stolen, which seems quite an attractive one to me.

 

[cantaloup63]

Sooey - just read your post. Pretty definitive and flawless reasoning.

 

[sooey]

To do all that you'd need a lot more than just software. You'd need to enable the software to drive the car. That's a lot of extra weight in electric motors etc.

 

[cantaloup63]

To do all that you'd need a lot more than just software. You'd need to enable the software to drive the car. That's a lot of extra weight in electric motors etc.

True. Maybe some of the power than currently enables cars to do such excessive speeds would be better spent lugging this lot around

What about the concept of it though - good idea or bad? Sock it to me

 

[sooey]

To do all that you'd need a lot more than just software. You'd need to enable the software to drive the car. That's a lot of extra weight in electric motors etc.

True. Maybe some of the power than currently enables cars to do such excessive speeds would be better spent lugigng this lot around

What about the concept of it though - good idea or bad? Sock it to me

Some of it is already on the way I believe, I suppose it's the future of motoring.

 

[cantaloup63]

Some of it is already on the way I believe, I suppose it's the future of motoring.

The main argument will be from the anti-nanny state and pro-freedom quarter I suppose. These are people who are, ironically, quite happy to acquiesce to the laws of wearing a seatbelt for safety purposes

Sometimes the powers that be really do have to jump in and make a decision that is unpalatable but in the interest of the general public, epecially where so many of our driving colleagues seem hell bent on driving selfishly and like madmen.

 

[nickso]

We should have used the German/Austrian system years ago and perhaps now the lazy and selfish British driver may have become educated enough to understand it. Driving on the autobahn is a joy compared to the motorway here. Decent lane discipline, variable speed monitoring on the vast majority of the network.....sadly we live in a backward country in many ways.

Also I note that some are moaning about drivers not moving to an open lane from a closed one quick enough. While that is the correct thing to do as soon as possible where a motorway electronic sign is telling you to do so by a red X marker above your lane, it is entirely incorrect to do so when the lane is merely closed by roadworks or whatever and there is a merge in turn sign telling you to move to another lane. The correct procedure is to move the the end of the closed lane and merge in turn....hence the name. The british way of Queuing and not doing that properly merely makes the queue longer and more frustrating.

 

[Mw Roofline]

Back to topic. How long do you think it will be before cars have automatic flow control software which means that for example you wouldn't be able to drive too close nor at excessive speeds, and that in the event of an accident up ahead, you would be "forced" to move into an appropriate lane and not (as some selfish characters seem to feel appropriate) leave it to the last possible moment to join the filtered lanes.

Such GPS controlled technology could also lead to the concept of a car being rendered useless (driver forced to police pound before engine cuts out) if reported stolen, which seems quite an attractive one to me.

Some cars already have distance monitoring and speed control. It's a start I suppose.