Nuxx:1a7ccd90-8c19-4ae0-8dd2-b558e0e59f69@e8g2000vbz.googlegroups.com

Path: num2.nntp.dca.giganews.com!num1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!number.nntp.dca.giganews.com!border3.nntp.dca.giganews.com!border1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!postnews.google.com!e8g2000vbz.googlegroups.com!not-for-mail Message-ID: <1a7ccd90-8c19-4ae0-8dd2-b558e0e59f69@e8g2000vbz.googlegroups.com> From: Nuxx Bar  Newsgroups: uk.rec.cycling,uk.rec.driving Subject: Government Could Raise Speed Limit Date: Mon, 14 Mar 2011 07:05:41 -0700 (PDT) Lines: 41 Organization: http://groups.google.com NNTP-Posting-Host: 82.71.49.124 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable X-Trace: posting.google.com 1300111541 31207 127.0.0.1 (14 Mar 2011 14:05:41 GMT) X-Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 14 Mar 2011 14:05:41 +0000 (UTC) Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com Injection-Info: e8g2000vbz.googlegroups.com; posting-host=82.71.49.124; posting-account=7_6kYAkAAABD6HrjM0VxehwvZOKMxm4g User-Agent: G2/1.0 X-HTTP-UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X 10.6; en-US; rv:1.9.2.15) Gecko/20110303 Firefox/3.6.15,gzip(gfe) Bytes: 2750 Xref: perfectly-safe.chapmancentral.co.uk uk.rec.cycling:844133

Nice to have a halfway sensible Transport Secretary at last. Oddly, he seems to share with me and others the "delusion" that the anti-car lobby use safety as an excuse to keep speed limits down.

Isn't it despicable to tell lies about road safety when it's literally a matter of life and death? How do such people sleep at night? Well, Guy?

http://www.businesscar.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=3D1&storycode=3D7093&c= =3D2&theme=3D0

Government could raise speed limit

11 March, 2011

Transport secretary Philip Hammond is considering raising the motorway speed limit to 80mph in order to shorten journey times and boost the economy.

Hammond claimed the anti-car lobby used road safety as an excuse both to oppose raising the speed limit and to campaign for more 20mph zones in cities and towns.

Despite Britain having some of the safest roads in Europe =96 and by far the safest motorways =96 Hammond said safety alone should not determine speed limits but that a cost benefit analysis should also be factored in.

The government is also considering bringing in more variable motorway speed limits, which fall when traffic is congested and rise when roads are empty.

Although fuel consumption is up to 20% higher at 80mph than 70mph, Hammond dismissed speculation that speed limits could actually be cut to reduce consumption.

UK motorway speed limits are lower than in many other European countries such as France, Italy, Spain and Ireland. Parts of the German autobahn network are unrestricted with no speed limits.

There were 132 deaths on UK motorways in 2009.