If you want speed limits to be taken seriously, they should only be applied where it is actually dangerous to exceed them! Otherwise, people WILL regularly exceed them, and although it might be a good revenue raising scam, it reduces the value of the limits in places where they are genuinely needed.
Many of those, especially NSL roads, are wrong too! I can point, within 5 miles of my home, to a wide, stright dual carriageway, with no pedestrian access with a 40 limit (I was once told off, but not prosecuted, by a police officer for doing 85mph in perfect safety on it), and a narrow winding country lane where the NSL 60mph applies.
Consistency would improve respect for the law for sure. But how many kids walk on motorways? I have never been convinced we need a speed limit at all on Morotrways and NSL roads, or perhaps anywhere outside built up areas.
The fact is that if you can stop within the distance that you know to be clear you are pretty safe. And although more distance is needed at higher speeds, if you allow that distance, your speed can be considered safe, whatever it is.
So the safe speed is dependent on how much room you have ahead of you. Fixed speed limits can never know what this is. Only the driver can judge it, and only the driver can know what is a safe speed and what is not. Speed limits are basically a nonsense.
That being said, in most built up areas, it is usually the case that the safe speed will be no more than the prevailing limit. Often much less.
Speed limits make it easy to prosecute those who drive recklessly, but at the expense of criminalising many safe drivers. This is why they are falling into disrepute, and this is why non urban speed limits should be advisory only.
Even 100mph on a morotway might be safe in some conditions. I would feel aggrieved if I was prosecuted for doing that on an empty road in a car designed to do that speed. I would deserve to be prosecuted for doing 70mph 3 feet from the bumper of the car in front. or in bad weather conditions such as thick fog or spray. Speed cameras cannot tell the difference, and this is why they are a waste of time as far as safety is concerned.
There is plenty of good money to be made however.
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