Motorway roadworks speed limit could be increased

Speed limits for motorway roadworks where the limit is currently 50mph could be raised in a bid to ease congestion in England.

Highways England recently carried out trials in which it was discovered that drivers' heart rates were lower when they drove at 55mph or 60mph rather than the usual 50mph through roadworks. The study further suggested that motorists felt more relaxed travelling at higher speeds, partly because they had a greater ability to accelerate past heavy goods vehicles.

It is reported that the new limits could come into effect in some areas this year. Unite a trade union, which represents road workers throughout the UK, said the proposed speed increases ignored the safety of those maintaining motorways, who "work in already very dangerous conditions".

A spokesman said: "Sadly, in recent years there have been several deaths of motorway workers and these changes will make their work even more dangerous. 
"Already motorists frequently drive into coned-off areas. At increased speeds, it will make such potentially lethal accidents even more common."

Edmund King, president of the AA, said increasing the speed limit could help reduce congestion, he said it had to be targeted at the longest stretches of road works where there were no workers.
He said: "When work is going on and it's in close proximity to the carriageways we should stick at lower speeds and sometimes it needs to be lower than 50mph, depending on the layout."

Jim O'Sullivan, chief executive of Highways England, told The Times that the 60mph limit was "something that we want to introduce to as many roadworks as possible".
But Mr O'Sullivan said that lower speeds were likely to be maintained in areas with narrow lanes, contraflows or where workers are close to the road, due to safety reasons.


Other sources include: BBC

This Dorking road has a very bizarre and unrealistic speed limit

A lane in Surrey has been challenging drivers to keep to a speed limit which seems to defy logic.

On Wotton Drive, in Dorking , people are tasked with driving at eight and three-quarter miles per hour as they approach the entrance to De Vere Wotton House.  The unique speed limit is one of many quirks at at the luxury hotel.

Some believe this quirk is a reference to the world-famous series by JK Rowling, in which young wizards and witches begin their journey to Hogwarts by running through a brick wall between platforms nine and ten - platform 9 3/4.

The management of De Vere Wotton House said the reasons behind the limit was to add a touch of "magic" to guests' visit.

"There is no real logical reason - it's to add a bit of magic, and make visiting the hotel a more interesting experience," said Tracy Montgomerie.

"It's pretty quirky, and there are other surprises around the hotel and grounds for visitors. We had a six million pound refurbishment and wanted to do something different.

“The eight and three-quarters limit is one of those details. The maximum limit on the road with bumps is ten miles an hour, but we didn't want to be too straight-laced.

"It is funny, I don't think anyone can actually do eight and three-quarter miles per hour."

Source: get surrey

Sharp rise in speeding tickets on 'smart motorways'

The introduction of smart motorways has seen a big rise in speeding fines. According to data collated by the BBC's The One Show, between 2010 and 2015, fixed penalties issued on smart sections increased from 2,000 to a whopping 52,000.
There are more than 236 miles of smart motorways in England, which use the hard shoulder and variable speed limits to control traffic flow. The government says they are not there to generate revenue but are used to improve capacity.

Smart motorways are operated by Highways England, which uses overhead gantries to direct traffic into open lanes and change speed limits depending on the volume of traffic (the gantries also containing speed cameras).

A further 200 miles of smart motorways are currently under construction or in the planning phase.

Revenue increased The One Show asked 12 police forces in England which monitor major stretches of smart motorway, including parts of the M1, M25, M4, M42 and M6, for the total number of speeding tickets and fines collected.

The majority of forces responded, with half supplying directly comparable data, showing that a total 52,516 tickets had been issued on these stretches in 2014-15 compared to 2,023 in 2010-11.
That meant the revenue going to central government every year increased to more than £1.1m, from £150,600 five years ago.

There is just one stretch of smart motorway on the M9 in Scotland - this saw tickets increase from 9 to 41 over the 4 years. No data was supplied by police for the stretch of the M4 in South Wales.
On one section of the M1 in Nottinghamshire, police issued 8,489 tickets, amounting to £425,000 of fines, in 2015. In 2010, it issued no fines at all.

Nottinghamshire police defended the figures, saying the speed cameras had only been fully operational since 2013.

Safety concerns Nottingham-based motoring lawyer Paul Wright said he had seen a "deluge" of cases along one stretch of the M1.

He told the BBC: "A cynic might say that it's another way of getting more and more money out of the motorist, over and above what we're paying already.

"And it's an easy way to extract fines from people, because once you're clocked over the limit by the camera, it's very difficult to fight against that."

And the AA told The One Show "questions need to be answered about the money being recouped".
It has also raised safety concerns about drivers having to use emergency refuge areas when the hard shoulder is removed to operate as an extra lane.

AA president Edmund King said more emergency refuges were needed and they should be twice as long, adding: "Only a couple of weeks ago one of our members broke down on a smart motorway. There was a red 'X' up but they still got hit from behind."

Cut congestion With motorway traffic forecast to increase by up to 60% from 2010 rates by 2040, the government is pressing ahead with its £6bn investment in smart motorways.

A spokesman for the Department for Transport said: "Smart motorways smooth traffic flow and cut congestion for millions of motorists, with evidence from trials showing they are just as safe as regular motorways.

"Enforcement is a matter for the police and it is clear that speeding costs lives. However, we have been clear for a number of years that speed cameras should not be used to generate revenue."
Shaun Pidcock, head of Highways England's smart motorway network, said they were "the safest motorways on the network".

"We have 100% CCTV coverage and we have people watching over them, making sure they're safe, and we can get people in the traffic office to them far safer and quicker than we can do on normal motorways."

For a full report, watch The One Show on BBC One, at 19:00 GMT on Monday 7 November.

Source: BBC

2015 Ford S-MAX will help avoid speeding fines

Ford has confirmed the new driving technologies that will feature on its next-generation S-MAX. The seven-seater MPV goes on sale during summer 2015.

The biggest highlight of the new driving technologies is called Intelligent Speed Limiter. It can stop drivers from exceeding the speed limit and therefore avoid speeding fines.

The S-MAX can determine what the current speed limit is using an onboard camera and/or map data from the car’s sat-nav. The Ford can decrease engine torque by electronically adjusting the amount of fuel delivered whenever it surpasses the current set speed limit.

Source: carkeys.co.uk.

You might think that 30mph was chosen using scientific evidence but you would be wrong....

Back in 1934, just prior to the introduction of the 30mph speed limit, there were only around one-tenth of the cars on the road today, but four times as many associated deaths.

There had previously been a blanket 20mph speed limit, set in the 1903 Motor Car Act, but it was repealed for light vehicles in 1930. The spate of deaths caused a change of heart in government in 1934 and 1935, with 30mph brought in for built-up areas.

You might think that 30mph was chosen using scientific evidence but you would be wrong....

"It was pulled out of a hat," says Rod King, founder of the 20's Plenty for Us campaign, which believes that the 30mph limit today is no longer appropriate, credible or acceptable.

"The 30mph limit is compromised beyond belief," says King. Cities including London, Manchester, Birmingham, Bristol, Bath, Cambridge, Liverpool, Oxford, Brighton, Newcastle and Edinburgh, have introduced 20mph limits on some roads in their jurisdiction. The Lib Dems have even considered 10mph limits in some areas.

While motoring organisations the RAC and the AA have expressed support for 20mph limits outside schools, they oppose a blanket change from 30 to 20.

Today there are three typical speed limits across the UK:

• a 30mph limit on roads with street lighting (which is taken to indicate a built-up area)
• a 60mph national speed limit on single carriageways
• and a 70mph top speed on dual carriageways and motorways

The limits are meant to keep everybody safe. The Department for Transport (DfT) says that for every 1mph the average speed of vehicles reduces on roads, there are 6% fewer accidents.
Speed limits should be "evidence-led and self-explaining", the DfT explains, and "should be seen by drivers as the maximum speed rather than as a target speed at which to drive irrespective of conditions". Road safety in the UK is relatively good, with one death on the roads for every 20,000 cars.

Man has been jailed for six months after trying to avoid paying for speeding tickets

Martin Whitworth from Wythall, Birmingham,  A man has been jailed for six months after trying to avoid paying for speeding tickets.

He was issued with a speeding ticket after driving through a safety camera at 64 mph in a temporary 50 mph speed limit on the M5 in August last year.

Upon receiving the notice in the post he told police that someone must have stolen or cloned his registration plates.

Thinking he had got away with it he tried the ruse again when he sped through a West Midlands camera in Shirley on 18 August.

However enforcement officers became suspicious after investigations revealed that the theft had never been reported and after viewing the photographic evidence they were convinced that the man in the image was the registered keeper.

In a bid to clear up the confusion the 46-year-old was asked to visit the station to speak to the enforcement officers. Knowing that the police were on to him he panicked and reported his plates as stolen to cover up his actions.When interviewed where he admitted that he was the driver and had fabricated the lies in a bid to avoid the penalty points and fines.

Whitworth was jailed at Birmingham Crown Court on Monday 2 March after pleading guilty to perverting the course of justice and two counts of excess speed.

PC Jason Dooley, from the Camera Enforcement Unit, said: “This should be a cautionary tale for anyone thinking of trying to avoid speeding tickets.

“The man spun a web of lies and tried to wriggle out of paying for the fines, thinking he could evade the police.

“What he did not count on was that we would investigate the offense fully.

“If Whitworth had taken the points he would have been out of pocket for a short time but now he will have a conviction that will always be with him.”

Google's Driverless Cars Designed to Exceed Speed Limit

Google's self-driving cars are programmed to exceed speed limits by up to 10mph (16km/h), according to the project's lead software engineer.

Google has tested its technology in modified cars

Dmitri Dolgov told Reuters that when surrounding vehicles were breaking the speed limit that going more slowly could actually present a danger and therefore the Google car would accelerate to keep up with thte flow.

Google first announced its driverless car division back in 2010, and has been testing its technology in modified cars built by other manufacturers.These cars have travelled on more than 300,000 miles of open road, (mostly in California).

The UK will be allowing driverless cars on public roads from 2015. Ministers ordered a review of the UK's road regulations to provide appropriate guidelines, these will include the need for self-drive vehicles to comply with safety and traffic laws, and involve changes to the Highway Code.

In May, the US tech firm said it would start building its own self-driving cars.Their electric bubble-shaped vehicles will seat two people, and to begin with they will be limited to 25mph (40km/h) to help ensure safety.

In a separate development on Monday, the White House said it wanted all cars and light trucks to be equipped with technology that could prevent collisions using radio signals which would allow the vehicles to "talk" to each other, and alert drivers to potential accidents

The label "driverless vehicle" actually covers a large range of different concepts. Features such as cruise control, automatic braking, anti-lane drift and self-parking functions already built into many vehicles offer a certain degree of autonomy. However term is generally used to refer to vehicles that take charge of steering, accelerating, indicating and braking during most if not all of a journey between two points, much in the same way aeroplanes can be set to autopilot.

Roads however are much more crowded than the skies, and a range of technologies is being developed to tackle the problem. One of the leading innovations is Lidar (light detection and ranging), a system that measures how lasers bounce off reflective surfaces to capture information about millions of small points surrounding the vehicle every second.

Another complementary technique is "computer vision" - the use of software to make sense of 360-degree images captured by cameras attached to the vehicle, which can warn of pedestrians, cyclists, roadworks and other objects that might be in the vehicle's path.

Autonomous vehicles can also make use of global-positioning system (GPS) location data from satellites, radar, ultrasonic sensors to detect objects close to the car and further sensors to accurately measure the vehicle's orientation and the rotation of its wheels, to help it understand its exact location.

The debate now is whether to allow cars, like the prototype unveiled by Google in May, to abandon controls including a steering wheel and pedals and rely on the vehicle's computer.

Or whether, instead, to allow the machine to drive, but insist a passenger be ready to wrest back control at a moment's notice.

Case for 20mph Speed Limits Being Researched

The government has commissioned research into what the effects of cutting urban 30mph speed limits to 20mph would be. The research will be led by London University Professor Michael Maher and it is expected that it take three years to complete the research.

Robert Goodwill the Transport Minister said the research will examine the impact such a speed limit reduction on speed, collisions, casualties, modal shift [i.e. whether people switch from cars to other forms of transport]. The research will also consider air quality, best practice, road users' perceptions and effects on the quality of the environment, as well as relevant research from other countries. He also said that there were no plans to make 20mph the default speed limit, in reply to Green MP Caroline Lucas's question whether ministers had considered making 20mph the "national default speed limit".

In his written reply Mr Goodwill said: "Local authorities are best placed to determine the speed limits for their areas, based on local knowledge and the views of the community, and have the powers to do so."

Sources: BBC