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news
Speed cameras sign (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 by magic-lantern:Flickr)Britain's most terrifying speeding revealed: 128mph in a 30mph zone
The Institute of Advanced Motorists (IAM) has released figures demonstrating the criminal recklessness of some drivers who ignore speed limits — including one caught at almost 100mph over the limit on an urban street.
The unnamed driver was clocked by a speed camera piloting a Porsche at 128mph on the A22 London Road in the West Sussex town of East Grinstead. The single carriageway road is in many places lined with houses and shops, and has a cycle lane for some of its length.
The IAM used Freedom of Information requests to ask police forces for the highest recorded incidences of speed caught on safety cameras in 2014, including locations, speed limits and top speed in each case.
The worst offenders were unsurprisingly on motorways: Kent police reported two instances of drivers being recorded at 146mph on the M25.
East Grinstead's Porsche driver wasn't the only instance of someone travelling at over four times the limit in a built-up area. London’s worst speeder was recorded at 123mph on a 30mph road by the Metropolitan Police.
In the Square Mile, City of London Police reported a driver travelling at 86mph on Upper Thames Street, recorded by the speed camera at Stew Lane.
Sarah Sillars, IAM chief executive officer, said: “It is disheartening to say the least that some road users are showing such disregard for the safety of all other road users – pedestrians, cyclists, motorcyclists and other drivers.
“At speeds of 140mph an individual is travelling at nearly two-and-a-half miles a minute. At that speed it is simply impossible to react to anything that might happen in front of you.
“It is also impossible to handle corners, gradients, street furniture and junctions with any effectiveness. In short, all these individuals are playing with their own lives and others – they are all accidents waiting to happen and it requires a major shift in the attitudes of these people to think about safety.”
The IAM supports the use of safety camera systems at collision hot spots, on roads with a speed related crash record and at areas of proven risk, such as motorway road works.
John has been writing about bikes and cycling for over 30 years since discovering that people were mug enough to pay him for it rather than expecting him to do an honest day's work.
He was heavily involved in the mountain bike boom of the late 1980s as a racer, team manager and race promoter, and that led to writing for Mountain Biking UK magazine shortly after its inception. He got the gig by phoning up the editor and telling him the magazine was rubbish and he could do better. Rather than telling him to get lost, MBUK editor Tym Manley called John’s bluff and the rest is history.
Since then he has worked on MTB Pro magazine and was editor of Maximum Mountain Bike and Australian Mountain Bike magazines, before switching to the web in 2000 to work for CyclingNews.com. Along with road.cc founder Tony Farrelly, John was on the launch team for BikeRadar.com and subsequently became editor in chief of Future Publishing’s group of cycling magazines and websites, including Cycling Plus, MBUK, What Mountain Bike and Procycling.
John has also written for Cyclist magazine, edited the BikeMagic website and was founding editor of TotalWomensCycling.com before handing over to someone far more representative of the site's main audience.
He joined road.cc in 2013. He lives in Cambridge where the lack of hills is more than made up for by the headwinds.
Latest Comments
- biking59boomer 7 min 29 sec ago
It would be more educational to give them a fine. They wouldn't forget that in a hurry.
- Rendel Harris 16 min 22 sec ago
Interesting article but it does in fact seem to prove that coaster brakes indeed aren't suited for descents: "the bikes’ antiquated hub coaster...
- headingley 20 min 3 sec ago
Here in Leeds the fantastic network of city centre protected cycle lanes are annually partly blocked by the Christmas Market. I can only guess what...
- AidanR 1 hour 43 min ago
You might be safer using one of these: https://yplac.co.uk/product/yplac-mini-stickers/
- quiff 4 hours 8 min ago
Fair point - I was restricting myself to pedal bikes. As I've never spent that kind of money on anything though (mortgage doesn't count), it's kind...
- brooksby 5 hours 10 min ago
And finally: I wonder how many of the "more than 3,000" signatures on that petition are actually locals, who live or work there (and are not just...
- Doug_D 6 hours 46 min ago
Another book suggestion - I can highly recommend "Lost Summers and Half-Forgotten Afternoons: A Mint Sauce collection" - a beautifully presented...
- mdavidford 8 hours 37 min ago
I think you're missing an opportunity to pack even more tech into it - add accelerometers that can detect whether they're pedalling or stepping....
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39 comments
That's why he said "CLEAR road". Yes, doing 140 through any sort of junction would be silly since you wouldn't be able to see it was clear.
I've been on roads, in the UK, before where I can see clear tarmac, uninterrupted, including by junctions, for over a mile.
At 140 mph you are covering a mile in less than 30 seconds.
You have no way of knowing what is round the next bend. On most Motorways you would probably only have about 1/2 mile visibility, so around 15 seconds to slow the car down
- it takes 300 feet to stop at 70mph - do you have any idea how long it would take you to stop at 140mph? (I can't find a quick answer on Google but I guess it would be much greater than 600 feet)
The risk seems too big, just to give some twat a cheap thrill
No road is guaranteed to remain clear.
Every road is guaranteed not to remain clear. But for a clearly delimited period of time you can realistically say that a certain section will be. Then you need to know if you can stop before you get out of that section...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UK9nzHermeA
PS, I agree with the 2nd paragraph.
This is wrong I'm afraid. F1 and other motorsport drivers are on a circuit designed for speeds like that, there are no pedestrians, cyclists, horses, zebra crossings, all the other drivers are experts, travelling in the same direction, and in a predictable pattern. The surface has FIA homologation so you wont have any potholes, surface grip is standard across the circuit so you can have the perfect compound tyres for the whole circuit at the perfect heat. Corners are designed for certain speeds all known to the driver and the car set-up, chassis settings, suspension, damping is specific to them. Drivers know the circuit the entry and exit speeds of corners so do their technicians.
I mentioned that they were not reacting. They're not. Studies via telemetry and eye tracking show that they are not reacting but predicting. This has also been studied in tennis, cricket and baseball, where players are unable to react to a fast serve, bowl or pitch but still return, or hit it. If they waited until the ball was actually played they couldn't react in time. It's a function of seeing hundreds of thousands of serves, bowls, pitches over your career and your brain predicting from body shape and other subtle indicators the likely trajectory within quite a small set of possibilities. That's the same with motorsport. The driver has already shaped the car or bike for a corner not yet seen. The circuit is also designed to mitigate the consequences of a crash. Large empty run off areas. Barriers designed to absorb massive force by deforming in a precise way. Those are not just any old barriers. Specially built marshalling areas to protect track marshalls, catch and debris fences designed to stop penetration by both large and small flying objects to protect spectators.
A motor racing circuit is a hygienic safety designed area. Not at all like a road
What you wrote is silly.
And yet even with all of the precautions and safety systems and medics on hand - drivers still get killed and injured.
On a motorway - just round the next bend you might have people working in the road, an OAP dawdling at 40 mph, road debris, loose animals, god knows what.
What happens if you blow a tyre - what then - and what about people just over the barriers - are they safe from a car doing 140 ? Its a stupid speed and selfish with no regard for others. People doing this shouldnt be allowed the privilege of a licence.
Those are disgusting figures.
Maybe nitpicking but really, i think it plays to the mind set of these idiots to have headlines like ' britains most terrifying' ...it makes it exciting, or 'piloting a porche', he was driving just anyone else drives a car....except that drivers mentioned here should be locked up for the more accurate phrase 'criminal recklessness'.
“It is disheartening to say the least that some road users are showing such disregard for the safety of all other road users – pedestrians, cyclists, motorcyclists and other drivers.
Wow, "we" got mentioned before motorcyclists and drivers!
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