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Comment by jaggederest | Hacker News Reader

> The roads in the UK are not intrinsically safe, they are very narrow both in urban and rural areas which means there are more hazards and less time to avoid them.

Actually, paradoxically that means they are actually safer. People drive slower on narrower roads, which means that accidents are within the safe energy envelope that modern cars can absorb.

Very, very few people will ever die as a passenger or driver in a car accident at 25 mph / 40 kph. At 65mph / 100kph, the story is completely different.

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You say that but people will happily drive at 50+ down a narrow country road. I think the "narrow = slower" only works for a limited period of time before people get normalised to it.

Had to thread a van through a temporary concrete width restriction the other day - when it's that narrow, even the Uber behind me wasn't giving me grief for going that slowly!

The country roads one has always dumbfounded me though - why some of those have national speed limits I will never know.

As far as I'm aware, they're national speed limits because they don't have the resource to work out the limit, or police them. I learnt on country roads and my instructor was very clear that although I could go at 60mph, I should drive to the conditions of the road.

Growing up driving in country roads in the UK you learn some tricks (dumb tricks you shouldn't do). One example is at night time you can take corners more quickly by driving on the wrong side of the road. If you can't see another cars headlights, then there are none coming.

The thought of doing this now scares me and I don't do this and suggest that no one else does either. But I know many people still drive like this.

> The country roads one has always dumbfounded me though - why some of those have national speed limits I will never know.

Why not? Even roads with lower speed limits you're required to drive at a speed appropriate for the road, the conditions, and your vehicle; the speed limit merely sets an upper-bound, and it's not really relevant whether it's achievable. Just look at the Isle of Man where there is no national speed limits: most roads outside of towns have no speed limit, regardless of whether they're a narrow single-lane road or one of the largest roads on the island.

If you set a limit, some people will drive it regardless. Even if you're supposed to drive to the road and conditions, there are enough utter morons out there who'll take a blind narrow corner at 60.

The UK also has a lot of roundabouts for road junctions. It means less 'run red light' collisions.

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