96mph in a 30 limit & 149mph on a motorway: figures reveal insane speeding on roads of England & Wales

Headlines like '96 in a 30' may get lots of attention but let's be honest about this - one dickhead is scary but 1,000 drivers doing 40 in a 30 every single day is IMHO much more of an issue.

It's not the extremes it's the chronic problem. Speeding and inappropriate behaviour, particularly in built-up areas where pedestrians and cyclists are more common creates much greater risk.

Why is it that so many people think that speed limits need not be adhered to because "I'm a good driver", "it's not much faster" or "brakes are much better than 40 years ago"? All are irrelevant.

But nothing will change until more people realise that cars and lorries should not dominate our towns, to the detriment of everyone else. Most streets were not designed to accomodate strings of cars nose-to-tail, but until more people get out of their cars and walk, cycle or take the bus then the spineless politicians, councillors and planning departments will cater for the majority.

All of this is feeding the 'speeding' industry. It's driving too fast at any speed that causes accidents and that is dangerous driving. If too fast happens at all speeds it's clearly not 'speeding' 90 MPH, 30 above the limit isn't speeding it's dangerous driving and the penalties are sufficient for that purpose. Why aren't these people charged with dangerous? Ask the lazy police who make lots of money from speeding.

How does any of this 'speeding' focus for money, instead of dangerous driving help road safety or any road users?

At 60MPH speeding is at 61. At 100+ it has to be something else then. If they kill someone they get charged with death by.............? Not death by speeding. So there's the case that the police are charging the wrong offence. And yes of course they're speeding too just as a murderer has clearly committed assault, ABH and GBH too along the way.

Don't let the 'speeding' industry fool you guys.

Knowing the area a bit, I'd be surprised if the driver doing 96 owned the car they were driving. Or maybe they were being chased by a police car.

Plenty of roads around us are now 20mph and the irony is that the lower speed limit is often more efficient as you can pull out at T junctions instead of waiting for people going 40mph in a 30mph to sweep by.

Regardless of reports, speed is a factor in the majority of road accidents and the slower we go the less crashes occur and the more efficiently traffic moves as a whole.

I'm all for extra fines and extra points. If you don't like speed cameras or you can't afford to lose your licence as you need it for work there is a solution. Don't speed.

Some interesting comments.

What is the point of banning someone? All you need to do is watch any of the Police camera or Interceptor programmes to see a small minority of those driving whilst already banned, without correct license, valid insurance, tax or MOT. Some people will not give a rat's arse about a piece of paper.

Whilst I agree with the sentiment behind allowing people to do 80mph+ on quiet motoways. The reason why this is not done is because what you may call "quiet" could be the police's idea of "moderate". Similary with times, imagine the farce in court where the argument is over was it 10:59 or 11:00 when the car was seen speeding or stopped for speeding. The issue I have with speed on motorway is HGVs, are the speed limits to be raised for these and the risk of 40 odd tons out of control at 60/70 mph? or do we increase the risk of high speed cars hitting slower traffic? Yes I fully accept that modern cars can safely travel at higher speeds however the soft squishy thing doesn't have the capability of forward planning the traffic at 80mph whilst updating facetime or spacebook status, texting the girlfriend and reprogramming the satnav whilst drinking the tall skinky latte mocho woca and fat free doughnut purchased not long since at the last service boutique. Crickey it's difficult enough for some people to understand that an overtake does not last 2 or 3 minutes and several miles. The main problem with speed in any situation is that people do not drive at a speed that they can safely stop in the distance they can see.

Making cars and roads safer is the worse way to go. The safer people feel the more risk they will take. Remove all electronic ABS EPS traction control etc, airbags, crumple zones, safety cages and seat belts. Place a six inch spike in the middle of the steering wheel and tell the driver to hit the wall at 20mph. "(insert four letter word) off" would be a good response.

Naming and shaming is a step forward. Better idea would be bringing back the stocks on a Friday/Saturday night. 10mins of be pissed on, vomitted over and generally humilated I think would be far more effective. Especially the "Oh shit is that the boss heading this way?" But alas Human Rights stops degrading punishment.

Thank you for reading this far, I'm sure that's a few minutes of your life you'll never get back. End of essay.

I'd suggest we look at this from another view...

20MPH speed zones are obviously indicative of a road being unsuitable for the location. If a school is on a main road, then an alternative entrance to the school should be made giving access via a quieter road; alternatively the road should be re-routed so that traffic can flow.

Furthermore, having traffic move expeditiously is a perfectly reasonable goal, and where a road is required to provide a higher speed link, then it would be acceptable to have decent speed limits, and ADEQUATE segregated cycling lanes. I don't mean the appalling excuse for cycling lanes we currently have whereby you're dodging pedestrians, lamp posts, trees, access points, etc...

I don't feel it serves any of us well to have drivers champing at the bit in a wide, well designed road, limited to 20MPH and spending half their time watching the speedometer. It only serves to increase frustration levels and the transport infrastructure needs radical updating to prevent this. Who here hasn't become frustrated at driving down a road and seeing the speed limit constantly changing from 30MPH, to 20MPH, to 30MPH, to 40MPH, to 30MPH and feeling like they spend more time looking out for speed limit signs than dangers on the road.

There are some extremely dangerous drivers, as highlighted in the article, who should have their driving licence stripped. After a suitable period of being banned from driving, they should be required to retake their licence, including a period of mandatory training prior to sitting the test. Perhaps drivers who have received a ban should have to acquire an advanced driving licence in addition to the standard driving licence before they can resume the privileges of driving.

I'm a cyclist; I train 20 hours a week including a lot of time running; and I have a lot of near misses especially running on quiet back roads where cars maintain the speed limit around blind corners, etc... We need to start teaching drivers to drive according to the conditions.

20MPH zones on arterial routes, in my mind, signifies the route needs changing.

The fine should be (sort of) inversely proportional to the posted limit.
By that, I mean that speeding through low limits like 30 and especially 20 is more dangerous, because those limits are intended specifically to protect pedestrians and tend to be in towns (the places where I am most scared to ride my bike).

I would suggest that someone going 20 over the limit in a 70 is less serious than someone going 10 over the limit in a 20 or 30.

The fine should grow rapidly for repeat offences in low limit areas, because this indicates that the driver has not learned and genuinely does not care about other people's lives.

Points (on licences) for speeding should increase with each unspent speeding offence. So if you get an SP30 and pick up 3 points for speeding in a 30-limit area, then you do it again before the points have been removed from your licence, you should get 4 points for the same offence, then the next time 5, etc.

Against some of the comments posted, I think I may be more indoctrinated in to the cars than I thought.

Yes the cited episodes of speeding are extreme, and yes, more extreme punishments need to be handed down to these willful law breakers... I am on board.

But the whole lynch anyone over the speed limit mantra seems a bit extreme to me. As the comment above so succinctly puts it... does it really matter if someone is doing 80mph on a deserted motorway... 70mph on an empty A road... even 40mph in a 30 zone through out of hours industrial estates for instance?

For me, its important that you don't speed past the school during school hours, you don't hoof it wildly along housing estates... thats what really matters - driving to the limits of the conditions/roads/environment.... the danger as I see it, is that by being too draconian on the application and monitoring of speed limits drivers will resent the limitations and lose respect for the purpose of their application... safety.

A case in point being traffic lights... Where I live, a few years ago traffic lights were used to deter drivers commuting into the city. There were fun policies in place where if there was a fatal accident at any junction, lights would be put in place, no matter how stupid. Now, more than half of all the traffic lights in Devon can be found within Exeters city boundaries.

The end result of this is that you'll see more light jumping in Exeter than anywhere in the UK.

Until we (as a culture) stop fetishising the motor car, nothing will change.

96 in a 70 is quick. 96 in a 30 says you should never have been given a license.

Worryingly, if the driver was caught at 96mph by the camera, what was the speed they were doing before they hit the brakes to try not to be caught?
I think really any road with a school on it should have a 20mph limit and a speed camera, I know people will still speed in 20 zones, but if they started getting stricter with fines, and maybe naming and shaming people caught speeding in local newspapers then it might actually start to make people think a little more and realise the limit's there for a reason.

Please tell me how my helmet (rated upto collisions of 12.1mph) are meant to protect us from people doing these speeds?!

Frankly, I couldn't care less if someone is speeding on a motorway in good weather and little traffic.

However, anyone speeding in a build up area or residential area should have a fine that's 10x higher than now, and if double the speed limit, the car should be impounded and auction off, combined with a very long ban.

If, under those conditions, the driver hurts anyone, they should be charged with dangerous driving (vehicular manslaughter would be good to have) automatically, and the speeding being the qualifying character of the crime as the only required evidence.

But, we'd first need to have some traffic police to actually patrol our roads, and that's not been a priority for at least a decade.

If we all write to our MPs about that... something may eventually change. Whingeing on a cyclist forum isn't going to fix sweet f-all.

As I've said before, we have to shift social attitude to driving which requires a committed political will backed up with high-profile advertising campaigns (in exactly the same way drink-driving has been tackled).

Secondly, I wonder how many of these drivers were actually motorcyclists? Just like cycling, wanging a bike round fast roads is where the thrill comes (except of course, a cyclist gets their adrenaline rush at 40mph rather than 140mph)

To my mind all speeding fines want at least 2 zeros added to them. And an automatic ban if say a small % over.
Speeding should be treated at least as seriously as drink driving.
No good reason not to.

Quote:

A Kent Police spokesman said a man in his 20s appeared at West Kent Magistrates' Court in March and was disqualified from driving for six months. He was also fined £600 and ordered to pay £85 costs and a victim surcharge of £65.

from the BBC,

about sums it up, you can smash the limit and no one really cares.

Or to be really cynical, what would he have got if he had killed someone rather than speed?