[berryg]

Driving in the UK can be quite a shock when you're used to the roads in the Netherlands. The speed at which people navigate roundabouts can feel terrifying, and the maximum speed in the countryside is something else. Going *60 mph* on narrow roads with limited visibility is just crazy. The locals just speed by. I guess it's just what you're used to.

[tialaramex]

You're not supposed to drive 60mph on those tiny roads.

Why are they 60mph? Well, the symbol they display doesn't say 60mph, it's basically just a slash symbol - it should be read "National Limit Applies" or perhaps "Derestricted" and it so happens that the law in the UK says that if there's no other rule in place that limit is 60mph and on these tiny roads nobody has put in place a more specific limit so that's the law.

[If there is carriageway separation, e.g. a larger road on which traffic flowing in the opposite direction isn't sharing the same tarmac, this global rule says 70mph, but no tiny roads have multiple carriageways, actually sometimes it feels like there's barely room for one let alone two]

However, just because there isn't a lower limit doesn't mean it's appropriate to drive at 60mph and people who do are generally maniacs. Where I grew up there are lots of these roads, steep, winding, narrow tracks paved in the 19th or 20th centuries for access to a farm here or a cottage there, and maintained by the public. You absolutely might turn a corner and find an entire flock of sheep in the road going "Baa!". If you're doing 60mph after you've killed a bunch of sheep and the bodies start smashing through your windscreen you're probably dead. Sheep don't have lights, don't know about jaywalking laws (which Britain doesn't have anyway) and aren't smart enough to have considered this risk, they're just there and now you're dead. So you drive at maybe 30-40mph on the straight parts, slower on curves and always pay a lot of attention 'cos things can go very bad, very quickly.

Roundabouts are a bit different. The UK has a lot of what are called "mini roundabouts". As a pedestrian, or perhaps on a bicycle these do just look like they're small roundabouts, too small for the island in the middle to have any purpose so it's just paint. But in a vehicle it's apparent that the island can't exist because you'd crash into it, perhaps not in a Mini but certainly in a bin truck or a bus. The mini roundabout isn't a roundabout except in the sense that the same rules apply as if it was, which means if I can see you can't enter before I do then I know you mustn't enter, I have right of way, which means I needn't slow down - you won't be in my way, you're not entering.

[kypro]

It's probably worth noting you can be charged with a driving offence if you're driving 60mph down a country road even if it's technically national speed limit.

Just because legally you can drive at 60 doesn't mean you're legally allowed to drive recklessly. National speed limit is basically, "you're permitted to drive as fast as you like so long as you do so in a safe manner".

[m463]

the US used to have unrestricted speeds outside town. The speed limit would be "reasonable and prudent". I think 1975 the 55mph national speed limit put an end to all of that.

https://www.nps.gov/features/yell/slidefile/gatewaycommuniti...

[lmm]

> You're not supposed to drive 60mph on those tiny roads.

You are supposed to drive 60mph where appropriate, e.g. on straight stretches with good visibility and no junctions. It's very possible to fail your driving test for not going fast enough on a single carriageway.

[hnlmorg]

It’s equally possibly to fail for going too fast while still under the speed limit.

What you’re supposed to do is drive at a speed that gives you chance to react to dangers given your visibility and road surface conditions.

For country roads, they’re typically winding rather than straight. So more often than not, that means you shouldn’t be travelling much past 30mph.

But you are right that straight stretches do exist. They’re just not as common on such roads.

[cjrp]

> What you’re supposed to do is drive at a speed that gives you chance to react to dangers given your visibility and road surface conditions.

Indeed, I always think of my instructor's words "can you stop within the distance you can see". As that distance decreases, you should be slowing down; potentially there's a cyclist or horse right around the corner.

[hnlmorg]

There’s an old guy that walks round the small country lanes at rush hour where I live. He wears a hi vis jacket but that doesn’t do much when you have trees and hedges blocking visibility.

I’m constantly amazed that some idiot hasn’t hit him.

[alt227]

Not sure why you are being downvoted, you are completely correct. Have an upvote.

[zdragnar]

The same is true in the US. Most (all?) states have state-wide speed limit "defaults" for town/city roads (i.e. 25 mph), highways and rural roads (i.e. 55 mph) and freeways (i.e. 70mph).

Instead of having a speed limit sign after each and every intersection, they're placed periodically. If you enter a road and there's no sign, that's the speed limit. If there's a different speed limit than the default, and you cross through an intersection and there's not another sign after it, that means the speed limit reverted to the default.

It can be a bit confusing (MN has 35 in city roads, WI 25) but also handy (wide open plains states often have much much higher freeway speeds).

[tialaramex]

The UK does have default rules, for example if there are houses directly facing onto the street (no front garden or similar maybe hard to imagine in most of the US but common in some UK towns) then the limits are low, if there are no houses at all the default limits are much higher. You are taught some rules of thumb for this when learning to drive. The posted limit signs are in addition to these rules, though they're more obvious.

But the tiny roads are usually where there is no housing - hardly anybody lives there so even the single lane of tarmac is a great expense considering average traffic. The "No housing => faster" is part of why there aren't signs limiting them. It's still a terrible idea to do 60mph though, just not necessarily illegal.

[neillyons]

I did a speed awareness course as I got caught speeding and was told if there are lamp posts the speed limit is 30mph unless stated otherwise.

[tengwar2]

Sort of. That used to be the case, and it's still what they teach on those courses. However there are now "20mph zones". These are signed on entry, but do not have the repeated small 20 signs of a normal 20mph limit. This means that you can no longer tell whether you are in a 30 or a 20. I have once seen something marked as a "40mph zone" but I suspect that this was a local aberration and did not have a similar rule.

[rmccue]

More specifically, “built-up areas” where the lower limits apply are those with streetlights at least every 200 yards - definitionally.

[potato3732842]

The difference is that in the US the defaults are jokes nobody abides by whereas in the UK they are, in some cases, numbers the "perhaps not lowest but normal person on a normal day" denominator will not find themselves wanting to exceed in basically every location where they apply.

[master_crab]

Having just come back from visiting the in-laws in Gloucestershire (American raised on American roads), it took me a minute to comprehend the national speed limit rule. Nonetheless, I don’t think the rule matters much.

What matters more is the far stricter driver licensing and “Scarlet L” (my words) that the learners have to display.

That and the fact that it is bloody impossible to conduct 2 way traffic down country roads thanks to all the hedgerows and so everyone is extra careful and courteous (usually).

[4ndrewl]

aka "it's a speed limit, not a target"

[everfrustrated]

Begs the question why the symbol for a limit is in the (literal) shape of a target.

[4ndrewl]

Circular signs with a red outline are prohibition signs (ie you _must_ not do this).

Triangular signs with a red outline are warning signs.

[tengwar2]

Circular blue signs are orders (i.e. you must do this).

[jonplackett]

I hate driving on these roads. I just refuse to drive a speed where I can’t stop if there’s someone in the road on a blind corner - call me an idiot and beep your horn at me if you want.

[potato3732842]

On paper that's perfectly fine.

In practice there seems to be a ton of correlation between people who say things like that and people who think their Fiat 500 stops like a garbage truck.

[DiggyJohnson]

Funniest thing I've heard a kid say all month. My colleague's 7 year old daughter to him:

D: "Dad why does everyone honk at mom when she drive's us to school?"

F: "Because she drives too slow sometimes."

D: "Why doesn't she speed up?"

F: "I don't know. She's always been like that."

D: "I tried saying people are waiting for us to go [referring to a pretty benign yield right-on-red near their house]."

F: "How'd that go?"

D: "She didn't listen!"

I don't know why but it was absolutely hysterical to me. Kids are precious.

[dboreham]

That's the speed you're supposed to drive at.

[tbossanova]

Yep. I remember being driven around roads like this with a friend with a high performance car who knew what he was doing, so could go what seemed like a terrifyingly high speed to me, but was perfectly safe for him. Then we hit some other cars going slower and he just followed at the same speed, infinitely patient for someone with a thirst for speed. Just completely happy to adjust to the appropriate speed for the situation.

[mytailorisrich]

People who know those roads drive fast, indeed, but it is not safe.

Visibility is poor and you cannot safely go through a bend at 50+ mph when you cannot see what's beyond it. There might be a stationary vehicle, a horse, a cyclists, even a pedestrian and you wouldn't know or be able to stop in time. This is how lethal collisions happen in those roads.

[jonplackett]

Exactly. All these people saying ‘well I know the road’.

Yeah you know THE ROAD not what might be in it this morning.

[andy99]

Makes sense, and I know driving in france I've felt the same. I also know driving in Canada our speed limits often cater to some lowest common denominator, where anyone driving the limit is going dangerously slow (I'm thinking of certain country roads) and inevitably has a long line of angry people following them.

I've heard before about setting speed limits using percentile studies of people driving on the road, which in the absence of some specific safety concern (which then needs engineering like narrowing the road or adding turns) makes the most sense.

I also wish there was more of a culture of pulling over if you don't want to drive at the flow speed. If I want a leisurely drive and see someone rapidly coming up behind me, I'll happily pull over and let them pass. There seem to be these sociopaths or self-righteous jerks who will happily drive 5km/h under the speed limit with 20 cars behind them. This is way more dangerous than speeding and should be treated as such. If you just want to drive slowly, why would you want the stress or a bunch of angry drivers behind you.

[fiddlerwoaroof]

I think the concept of a “speed limit” is part of the problem. On controlled-access roads, I think it would be better for the posted speed to be advisory and, instead, train drivers to think of driving too slow for your lane as being just as dangerous as speeding because, in a moving group of cars, you want to be as close to 0mph relative to the other cars as is feasible.

[sas224dbm]

A favorite past-time back in the day was driving at night from pub to pub along the 'back roads' (B-roads specifically in the UK) as fast as 'possible'. There were typically no street lights, however lights from other vehicles showed up alerting you to any possible danger. It was fun at the time, but i wouldn't do it now .. lol ..

[tialaramex]

Right, there were no street lights where I grew up because street lights cost money and the people where I lived were rich partly because they paid few taxes, so no money for street lights. I happened to move to a city when it wasn't yet concerned about the environmental impact or cost, so I went from "Of course the main road doesn't have lights, what are we made of money?" to "Of course jogging tracks in the city parks have 24/7 street lighting. what if you wanted to go jogging at midnight, you can't jog in the dark!". Today those tracks don't have lighting 'cos there's no money and the wildlife hates it but thirty years ago, sure.

However some back roads aren't even B roads, the classification keeps going through C and D but it's local numbering, the numbers are just for local maintenance crews - so a C-1234 could be duplicated a few miles away in another local government territory and that would be confusing for drivers so they won't write C-1234 on a sign, they'll just say what's in that direction or maybe a local name for the road.

[hnlmorg]

That’s great just so long as your county roads doesn’t have any dog walkers or wildlife like deer.

The best case scenario then, is that you write off your car with a deer shaped hole in the front. The worst case scenario is you have a death on your conscience for the rest of your life.

[roygbiv2]

I hit a pheasant on such a road once, not driving at silly speed but it was pitch black. My fog light was never seen again, nor the pheasant.

[fragmede]

If you're walking in the middle of the street in the middle of the night, in the middle of the woods, with no reflective clothing, and I hit you, it's your fault. I know how fast I'm driving. I can live with that.

[devnullbrain]

>lights from other vehicles showed up alerting you to any possible danger.

When I started driving I preferred the dark for these roads because the lights let you 'see' hazard around a corner.

Headlights were worse then - and I hadn't seen a crash into a deer.

[physicsguy]

I went to a wedding in Devon recently, friend of my wife’s whose family are all farmers and her brother was joking that it’d be fine to drive back drunk because the car would just bounce off the hedgerows…

[euroderf]

Safety first. More hedgerows!