But if the road is empty and clear and a speed of X is appropriate, why should we be forced to travel at X-10mph or X-20mph (or even X-30 or 40mph in some extreme instances)?
Since the Government changed the guidance from 'set the speed limit at or near the 85th percentile of traffic speeds' (which leaves only the fastest 15% of the drivers, i.e. the nutters, out of the equation and assumes that the majority of people, the 85%, are normal, sensible people making sensible choices) to 'use the mean (Average) speed of traffic' (which must therefore assume that 50% of people are retards who don't know what they're doing, which is blatant nonsense), speed limits tend to fall by 10 or 20mph but the road layout and how it reads to drivers has not changed one bit.
If you forced 100 people in a room to look at a road and tell you the speed that would be appropriate, then lined them up in order of slowest to fastest, the speed chosen by the 85th person would be the 85th percentile and would probably be at or around the sensible limit. The fastest 15% would be the minority and it would seem reasonable to consider their faster speed choices as being for reasons of thrill-seeking or lack of experience or lack of education, therefore they can reasonably discounted. You wouldn't find the average of all the speed choices and say to, what, 50? of the people 'you are wrong, you are too fast' then set the limit lower than their choices. How is that reasonable if there is no majority??
Such 'average' speed limits make drivers switch off because it feels like everything is coming up so slowly that nothing is actually happening, and inattention is a far bigger cause of accidents than exceeding a posted speed limit (which is only about 7% IIRC). Why should we 'take our time' when there is no real reason for doing so? Would you do something if someone said to do it 'because I say so'? Are you a child? No, you're an adult with the ability to form opinions and make choices based on experience and skills.
By setting limits so low that it removes the need to think or pay attention, it says "you are stupid, you don't know what you are doing, nanny knows best, just do as we say or we will punish you". And if the limits are then rigidly enforced, through average speed cameras or continuous tracking and speed monitoring and enforcement by the methods I've already mentioned earlier, which the anti-speed, anti-car, tree-hugging, "Think of the childwen!!!!" brigade and the EU want to see in place ASAP, people are then forced to obey and just switch off and drive at the limit all the time because what is the point of thinking when it will just frustrate you? Why not look out the side window and think about what you're having for dinner or what the kids are doing at school instead? Which then means that people lose the skills and ability to actually notice when this limit is too high for the conditions or something happening in front of them, increasing danger when paying attention and driving to the conditions and road would have seen them faster where it is safe to do so but slower when necessary. This then leads to more crashes due to inattention, which then leads to more calls for lower speed limits, which when implemented leads to more inattention and dumbing down...
And, ultimately, people end up hating driving or are so bad at it that they welcome autonomous cars because they can then just switch off entirely and mindlessly swipe through f**king facebook rather than control their own existence.
If anyone genuinely believes that speed limits are set for safety reasons now, rather than local politics or Nimbyism or alleged 'quality of life' reasons that never actually materialise or to deter drivers from using a particular route by making it painfully slow to drive along at the limit, I would strongly suggest reconsidering that opinion.
I didn't drive for a few years as I couldn't afford it / lived near enough to walk to work, but now I'm doing around 25k a year commuting and personal mileage - I do, and will continue to, drive at a speed that's appropriate for the conditions and environment I'm passing through, whether it's above what the numbers on the pole say or below, because it means I'm paying attention and using my brain. Those who aren't are the ones trundling along at the front of a long train of people that are getting increasingly wound up and, sometimes, making dangerous overtaking manoeuvres because of it.
Driving will only get worse, enjoy driving and using your brain now because other people are doing all they can to stop you from doing so.
