Calls grow for motorway limit to rise to eighty miles an hour

Local TV

New data suggests many drivers support increasing the top speed on Britain’s motorways. The figures also show how often drivers already travel above the current limit.

Transcript

00:00There's a growing push for the motorway limit to move up to 80, and supporters say the case

00:07is simple. Today's cars bear almost no resemblance to the vehicles of the 1960s and 70s. Seat

00:13belts, airbags, crumple zones, all of it has transformed how well modern cars protect people.

00:19That's why some argue the old limit no longer reflects the realities of modern motoring.

00:24I grew up in the 1960s and 70s, and cars were undoubtedly a lot more unsafe insofar as

00:31we didn't have seat belts, or certainly the requirement to put your seat belt on, and

00:36indeed if you went through the ring screen that they were not designed to take people

00:39and you had horrendous injuries. We didn't have crumple zones and all the safety bags in

00:44particular, so cars are undoubtedly safer. We still get fatalities, that's for certain.

00:49But it can also be argued that the original limit was brought in for a reason. When motorways

00:53were first built, drivers treated them like racetracks, and even now the volume of traffic

00:58is far higher than it was then. Those who favour keeping the limit as it is say the principle

01:03hasn't changed. Fast roads need firm regulation.

01:06The other issue then was that, and the reality, was there were far fewer cars on the motorways,

01:11so the number of cars has gone up tremendously, so we have to have some sort of regulation.

01:17One of the biggest complications is how people already drive. Hold steady at 70, and you'll

01:22often find yourself being passed by almost everyone around you, including lorries, and

01:26many rely on that informal tolerance that takes speeds into the mid 70s. Some argue that the

01:31lived reality on motorways is already edging towards an 80 mile an hour culture.

01:36We have comparisons. Germany, on the autobands you can go at unlimited speeds, and their safety

01:43record is no worse than this country. What perhaps we may see in the longer term is cars

01:49being regulated by the speed cameras and whatever else, because of course you go at a consistent

01:55speed, and it's actually the gap in between that makes all the safer.

02:00But others warn that rising the limit could simply push behaviour further. If 80 becomes

02:05the benchmark, they say speeds closer to 88 could quickly feel routine, and that brings

02:09concerns about safe spacing and the sudden lane switching that still causes serious crashes.

02:15Even with safer cars, they argue, human behaviour on the road hasn't changed nearly as much.

02:20We do need to get people to drive more safely. If they do it consistently at 80 miles an hour,

02:27that's no bad thing.

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