Do you fight tickets or do you just pay them?

@Viper a lot of UK towns are now 20mph in built-up areas, and we have more speed cameras than any other European country 😞

@Viper What a lot of racers you are in your State! :-)

The UK's standard speed-limit for built-up areas is 30mph, but 40 or even 50 in a few spots, In some places, especially housing-estates, near schools and the City of Bath, 20.

Outside of towns the maximum is 60mph on the ordinary roads; 70 on dual-carriageways and motorways - subject to any local, permanent or temporary restrictions.

The Welsh Government has gone one better: 20mph for all hitherto-30 areas. I gather it's playing havoc with commercial traffic whose drivers have to obey strict, tachograph-recorded driving and rest times.

I think some European countries are tighter still.

I did a little calculation for a 200mile motorway journey I make sometimes. Assuming it is possible to complete the trip at constant speed with no stops (it very rarely is); the difference between cruising 200 miles at 70 and 60 is 2.86 - 3.33 hours, = a mere 28 minutes with usefully less fuel!

@ArishMell I just don't think I could go that slow

We don't have many, if any speed camera or tech outside of police cars in my local area.

But some around my work area.

@Viper I must admit is hard to keep a modern car down to such low speeds, no matter how carefully you drive.

Great big speed-humps in the road help, but friend who lives in an estate with a severe outbreak of quite high, steep ones say a lot of drivers accelerate hard from one then brake hard for the next... and so on; defeating the object and bad car control anyway!

@ArishMell awe, unless the roads are bad roads, why does anyone need to go that slow?

Maybe around schools...

Also, is it MPH or KPH?

But if the road is farther straight good road, and rarely is anyone ever trying to cross it on foot... why not be allowed to go mid-speed on it?

@Viper Safety! The faster, the shorter the stopping distance and the greater the force so damage in a collision.

A lot of roads in UK towns are also quite narrow because they were built before cars were invented, so when vehicles are parked along one or both sides there is not a great deal of room to pass each other. That is particularly so in areas whose houses have no parking space on their own grounds; enforcing a slow chicane from space to space when cars are approaching from both directions.

The Statute Mile and Yard are still the only legal units for road distances and speeds in the UK; one of the very, very few permitted exceptions to the Metric System otherwise practically universal for trade and commerce.

Our railways, run by Network Rail, follow suit. They also still use the Chain (22 yards), for certain measurements at least.


Mid-speed.... You'd need define that. Your car's most efficient mid-speed might be 50mph but that's not a reason for driving at that speed where a lower speed is considered advisable, usually because it is in a town. We do have things called "urban clearways" (no stopping along them except in emergency) that typically bear 40 or 50mph limits. These are usually major through-roads in town-centres, and many are of dual-carriageway width.


Sizeable stretches of the motorway system have been "up-graded" to so-called "managed" operation. The overall maximum speed limit is still 70mph (a lot of drivers are evidently happy to cruise at 60-65) but the "Managed Motorways" have average-speed cameras that monitor traffic density and speed. They trigger automatic systems that set lower limits if necessary, to avoid everyone merely rushing up to the next traffic-jam. The limits are displayed on big, overhead, illuminated matrix signs.

I can't say these are infallible, and there are still motorway junctions notoriously congested at busy times; but on the whole these management systems seem to keep the traffic moving more smoothly than hitherto. In heavy traffic, steady progress at modest speed is much more efficient, far less stressful and often quicker in trip time, than frantic stop-go driving.

@ArishMell Yeah we probably have newer roads and towns

There is one road, that the GPS would LOVE for me to get off the interstate at... but that road is what we call a pig path, changing directions ever couple of yards it yards and I find it unsafe at speeds I drive.

But any other exit is great, and no issue.

@Viper I know what you mean - GPS, usually nicknamed "sat-nav", short of "satellite navigation" over here, is great at taking you along very strange routes indeed. Without telling you where you are sufficiently well to summon help if your car breaks down.

@ArishMell that's why I also use what3 words

@Dacrowman Ah, my 'phone is not suitable for that! I do though keep a proper road atlas in the car so could probably work out my approximate location using both the sat-nav and the book.

@ArishMell old phone and an atlas 😲

@Dacrowman Yes! Paper maps have the advantage of not needing batteries and computers!

There a few locations in the country I know well enough not to need either aid for driving home; so if I visit somewhere beyond sometimes set the "sat-nag" to these landmarks rather than home.

Sometimes I write a route-card in big letters on a sheet of card, such as from a cornflakes carton, and place it so I need only glance at it for the road numbers and indicated towns.

In more serious situations an Ordnance Survey map and compass are better than a portable 'phone sat-nav; as they show which way is North not only which way you are facing, and the general nature of the land on your intended route.