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Anyone here have the same experience as me that high speed driving on motorways and autobahns is perfectly safe, perfectly acceptable and that you're experience and common-sense is just a bit contrary to the factless scaremongering of blinkered political hyperbole everytime the issue is raised?

I have alot of experience of driving across Europe for 3-6hr stretches at 120-140mph with blips up to 160, 180 and on 2 occasions (during the last 6yrs) an indicated 200mph because I felt secure to do so on a public road. My car is built for the job and wouldn't be on sale if it wasn't capable of its top speed. 

Anyone used to track days knows driving at 100% 'on-the-limit' is risking a potential 'off'. But take your foot off the metal just a little and take your car to 98% of it's limits and anyone with experience knows you can drive around a track completely safely all day at that very high speed.

I don't advocate driving on public roads at 98% where conditions have dangers but I certainly feel 60-80% is well within any serious safety boundary and I'm better to judge than some mandatory gray suit with a mind on the lowest common denominator of imagined safety limits!

That is the biggest frustration with transport policy. Its not flexible enough to meet different human requirements and its speed limits feel very restrictive and counter to your intelligence that you should be going a certain speed. Except for the odd Kev that drives recklessly or Harold that's late for a wedding most drivers fit 3 groupings - i). fast/sporty ii). efficient to get A to B and iii). pottering and in no particular hurry.    

Speed limits seem to try to lump us into Group 3 and it just doesn't work. If feels oppressive, nannying, heavy handed with a big dollop of no common-sense. It's time to ban speed limits on motorways and let traffic flow at its natural rate.  

I don't think that there should be no limit per say although it has worked to a great extent in Gernany but even they are clamping down.

There would have to be a much greater police presence in order to clamp down on dangerous drivers as opposed to fast and safe drivers much like I belive they do in Germany - they are not so bothered about the speed but they come down on you really hard if they think you are unsafe.

JJBoxster:

Anyone here have the same experience as me that high speed driving on motorways and autobahns is perfectly safe, perfectly acceptable and that you're experience and common-sense is just a bit contrary to the factless scaremongering of blinkered political hyperbole everytime the issue is raised?

I have alot of experience of driving across Europe for 3-6hr stretches at 120-140mph with blips up to 160, 180 and on 2 occasions (during the last 6yrs) an indicated 200mph because I felt secure to do so on a public road. My car is built for the job and wouldn't be on sale if it wasn't capable of its top speed. 

Anyone used to track days knows driving at 100% 'on-the-limit' is risking a potential 'off'. But take your foot off the metal just a little and take your car to 98% of it's limits and anyone with experience knows you can drive around a track completely safely all day at that very high speed.

I don't advocate driving on public roads at 98% where conditions have dangers but I certainly feel 60-80% is well within any serious safety boundary and I'm better to judge than some mandatory gray suit with a mind on the lowest common denominator of imagined safety limits!

That is the biggest frustration with transport policy. Its not flexible enough to meet different human requirements and its speed limits feel very restrictive and counter to your intelligence that you should be going a certain speed. Except for the odd Kev that drives recklessly or Harold that's late for a wedding most drivers fit 3 groupings - i). fast/sporty ii). efficient to get A to B and iii). pottering and in no particular hurry.    

Speed limits seem to try to lump us into Group 3 and it just doesn't work. If feels oppressive, nannying, heavy handed with a big dollop of no common-sense. It's time to ban speed limits on motorways and let traffic flow at its natural rate.  

You might be a competent driver - many more than you are not and it's this point you are missing. If a tyre blew at that speed and the closing speed to traffic was 100mph at the indiocated 180mph you've alluded to, then we are talking about carnage quite clearly. Your emphasis on speed has just killed and injured a number of people around you. If the road was clear, then your body parts will need picking up by those dispatched to clean you off the road. Either way, you are imposing yourself on others.

Ask anyone who rides a bike about the idiots around them.

You say you are a better judge of this notion than a grey suit - may I ask how you are better qualified and what level have you taken your study and practice of driving to?

With the greatest of respect - you come across as overconfident and that is as dangerous as someone who can't drive at all. You might be this with good reason though so forgive my enquiry but I would like to place some context upon the debate.

Track days don't count - I'd like to hear about your testing at the hands of suitably qualified tester and the bit of officially recognised paper (IAM/police driver etc) which places some credence upon your assertion.

SpecB - you're right German traffic cops don't like to see anything too aggressive or foolish and that's true in any country. Germanys derestricted autobahns work. It's a fact politicians everywhere keep their blinkers on when legislating on speed limits.

In my experience traffic is fundamentally safe. We have inbuilt genetics to avoid danger, crashes etc. There's 30M cars in the UK. Multiply that by 2 trips a day say 310 days a year and do the maths on how many trips there are compared to accidents. Traffic is safe. Fact.

I think you're advocating speed limits but you don't justify their existence. If I'm going to speed I'm going to speed law or no law. So on the premise the law deters it clearly fails to deter. If you say a speed limit is a safety limit for a particular road I'd say depends on many factors, vehicle, driver skill, weather and surface conditions etc. Speed limits are neither flexible or accurate. They fail to determine safety. Have I missed something? 

Scummy

ScummyP - you say '..competent driver - many more are not..'. There are incompetant drivers undoubtedly but they don't show up often in the statistics as the vast majority of them keep well within their limits and never crash. The biggest single sector of danger are young boys (16-21) pumped with the tostesterone street racing. But even amongst this group accidents are pretty rare considering. As I've stated the true facts are motorists are safe and avoid crashes whilst enjoying their motoring. 

I have had the high speed tyre blow out you mention. Within 3 to 4 seconds of coming down from 190mph at approx 130 I felt a wobble in the rear and something felt odd. I  stopped finding my rear left tyre had shredded its inside tyre wall. For your information the motorway was near empty as it needs to be for me to feel passing the 140 mark is ok so the risk to other road users if I'd been mangled was minimal but I can report the car was stable and controllable at 130 as the tyre shred which prooves the excellence of safety features built into modern tyres for these rare occassions.

Why do I believe I'm a better judge of road speed than policymakers in grey suits? Because like 60-70% of other traffic that slows for speed cameras we all then speed up as soon as we're past. Because the majority of motorists drive like me above the national speed limit (57% of RAC's members surveyed said so). And fundamentally because I know my car inside out and the policymaker doesn't. He's designed it for a Kia Hatchoback to travel serenely down to the shops in and to slow those 'pushy BMW drivers just trying to get A to B in an efficient time.

No I don't have any advanced drivers badged. I considered it but I don't believe they could teach much about 120-140mph pan-European roadtrips!  

You have completely failed to comprehend that there are other road users out there. Even on an empty, or nearly empty stretch of dual carriageway or motorway there are still going to be drivers travelling considerably more slowly than you. If you are travelling in excess of 150mph and there is someone ahead of you travelling at say 70mph, the difference in your speeds is such that everybody's skill levels and anticipation would have to be considerably greater than they currently are. I have no idea whether you are a skilled driver or not, but you have to assume that everyone else is an idiot or not paying full attention and act accordingly. The margins for error at higher speeds are so much smaller that I cannot support a campaign to increase the speed limit or remove it completely in the UK.

It's true that cars and tyres are much better engineered than they once were. It's also true that we aren't.
 

Richard Lyle:

You have completely failed to comprehend that there are other road users out there. Even on an empty, or nearly empty stretch of dual carriageway or motorway there are still going to be drivers travelling considerably more slowly than you. If you are travelling in excess of 150mph and there is someone ahead of you travelling at say 70mph, the difference in your speeds is such that everybody's skill levels and anticipation would have to be considerably greater than they currently are. I have no idea whether you are a skilled driver or not, but you have to assume that everyone else is an idiot or not paying full attention and act accordingly. The margins for error at higher speeds are so much smaller that I cannot support a campaign to increase the speed limit or remove it completely in the UK.

It's true that cars and tyres are much better engineered than they once were. It's also true that we aren't.
 

Agree with the above.

I've been passed by a Ferrari in France at speed. The effect it had on my car as it passed was scary. By the time I had registered something approaching me in my mirror, it was past me and made my car move in it's wake.

Irresponsible at best - utter contempt for those around you at worst.

I just don't get people like this - my sense of social responsibility if nothing else would kick in.

Horses for courses I guess.

i agree with most of the sentiment that speeds in excess of 100 mph is generally not a good idea.

absolutely agree that we have to think about the lowest common denominator here.

however i do agree that 70 is too low and something between 70 and 100 is much more sensible.

JJBoxster:

In my experience traffic is fundamentally safe. We have inbuilt genetics to avoid danger, crashes etc. There's 30M cars in the UK. Multiply that by 2 trips a day say 310 days a year and do the maths on how many trips there are compared to accidents. Traffic is safe. Fact

Apart from the idiots - if everybody drove safely then this would be true but sadly it isn't.

JJBoxster:

I think you're advocating speed limits but you don't justify their existence. If I'm going to speed I'm going to speed law or no law. So on the premise the law deters it clearly fails to deter. If you say a speed limit is a safety limit for a particular road I'd say depends on many factors, vehicle, driver skill, weather and surface conditions etc. Speed limits are neither flexible or accurate. They fail to determine safety. Have I missed something? 

You have missed my point to an extent - I do agree with speed limits - if there were none then the roads would be anarchy.  Their existence is very important for safety especially in built up areas or accident blackspots and in fact 30mph is sometimes too fast in narrow residential streets for example.

What I do disagree with is the 70mph limit on motorways and dual carriageways.  OK in peak times I would love to get somewhere near 70 as opposed to the average 50mph or so that the traffic seems to move at. At other times when to roads are clear then 70 is too slow and 90 is more like the safe speed to travel at.  At any more than this then the human eyes tend to get tunnel vision and you become isolated from your surroundings and therefore not safe.  You may have the fastest reactions in the world but it has to be safe for Mr. Average.

 Near where I live the A1(M) is trialling a scheme to keep vehicles over 7.5t out of the 2nd lane from 7am to 7pm and this does help the flow of traffic to an extent.

This is just a ridiculous idea full stop.  How far would it take to stop at these kinds of speeds?  How much extra fuel do you think cars use when 60mph uses 20% less than 70mph?  As mentioned, what happens when you get a blowout?  Or there is debris on the road?  Or you drift into the hard shoulder and hit a parked car at 150?  The distance you would need between cars travelling at these speeds would probably be 4-6 times what it currently is, not to mention the many parts of the motorway network would need to be re-paved to be as smooth as glass.  Im not sure about the autobhans but how would you control the different levels of speed interacting?  i.e someone doing 70 and someone doing 170, they try to overtake but the next lane is busy, they would have a a couple of seconds to loose 100mph.

Im not launching some sort of personel war against you jjb but i just feel very strongly that this is a bad idea.  My dad used to recover vehicles for the police and ive seen some nasty piles of metal that once looked like cars.

Gentlemen can I deal with facts.. then your critics which are 'irrational' fears.

1. FACT. Speed is Safe (70mph+)

German autobahns are living breathing proof speeds in excess of 70mph are safe. The UK's motorway traffic moves at 80-85mph. Frances at 85-90mph and Germany 90mph. Germans casualty rates are lower than Frances but higher than the UK's. German surveys say the biggest cause of accidents surround the on/exits. Namely people lane changing and not being aware, moving lane safely or using their mirrors. The accident rate is not related to speed in outside lanes. Speed is safe. FACT. 

2. FACT. Speed is Safe (100mph+)

Germany also allows higher speeds and there are many (my Est. 5-10%) that travel (commute) on a daily basis at 100-120mph with 140mph not being uncommon. Commuting to work at 120-140mph is safe. All studies show motorways (the fastest roads) are safer than urban (slower) roads.  

3. FACT. Speed is Safe (140mph+) 

McClaren serviced a Swiss bankers F1 sportcar. The engineers downloaded the data and thought there was error as the data showed gular sustained speeds of 140-180mph. He said it wasn't error. He regularly commuted Switzerland to Germany at those speeds.

4. FACT. Speed is Safe (Equipment)

Your car is built to be capable and safe at its top speed. Most cars are around the 120-140mph mark but some cars are built/capable/safe at speeds up to 200mph. So what is the 'problem' with this? The danger to you going to 200mph on public roads is other people changing into that lane without checking.

5. FACT. Speed is not the issue. Safety (technique) is the issue.

The safety issue is NOT you doing 120mph, 140mph,160mph it's with OTHER users moving into a lane at lower speeds without checking it's safe to do so. The biggest safety issue on motorways is lane changing. It's with not checking your mirrors to see its safe to do so. The safety issue is not speed as studies do not show any correlation between speed and accidentasualty rates. The safety issue is poor technique.To address safety on a motorway speed is therfore not the sisue it's driver education and making sure drivers are aware of safety.   

6. FACT. Speed is good. Speed is efficient.

I agree with the post that travelling over 100mph 'dents' your fuel economy. Tough! So what? I'm paying the bill. I've moved from a 911 Turbo (12-14mpg) to a 335 Diesel (30-35mp) for my cross-continent driving because of this but if a guy wants to burn fuel at 10mpg that's his right. Man has sought speed throughout the centuries (foot to horse to train to car to jet) in all his technologies. There must be a good reason. The guy that does 140mph Leeds to London wan to get efficiently to where the action is. You call him 'pushy' I call him wanting to do businessnd having every right to move at a speed he feels capable of. The guy that trundles to work at 65mph down a motorway probably doesn't like his job or is in no particluar hurry. Viva La Difference. Don't put your grudges on Speed.

7. FACT. Speed Differentials.

Some posts claim higher speeds lead to greater danger. This is irrational as studies show there's no correlation between speed and safety on our motorways. Another post claims a Ferrari created wind-knock as he passed him. I get that everytime I pass a lorry. Shall we ban lorries therefore?