The speed limit on motorways was introduced in December 1965 - when 70 mph would have probably been near the maximum speed achievable by family saloons a the time. In fact if you think of cross-ply tyres - drum brakes and handling dynamics of a mid sixties saloon, coupled with a lack of experience of the average motorist with travelling at speed on a motorway - this might be a generous limit!
Today however - many of us will admit to routinely where traffic conditions allow - to occassionally exceeding the speed limit.
The guy doing 149 mph - well - was he doing this when there was no traffic around in clear conditions?
Yes - if he was overtaking old ladies in automatic micras - causing them anxiety - yes it was naughty - and he got off lightly - he was given a £600 fine and ordered to pay £85 costs and a victim surcharge of £65.
(WTF is the victim surcharge here????)
"IAM chief executive Simon Best said doing 149mph equated to travelling nearly two-and-a-half miles in a minute. If anything goes wrong at that speed, you're unlikely to walk away and you are a grave danger to the innocent road users around you."
Mr Best added: "Speed limits are a limit. They are not a target to beat. Unfortunately, this message has not got through to many motorists and it's clear that efforts to make speeding as socially unacceptable as drink-driving continue to fail. The current guidelines on sentencing for excessive speeding offences are out of sync with modern roads, modern vehicles and society's view of the value of lives lost in crashes."
(I was unaware that IAM adopted the same stance as BRAKE on speeding? - Should exceeding the speed limit in safe clear conditions in a modern performance car with an experienced driver be likened to drink driving? - Utter bollocks!)
Source article here:
