Hoot guide to UK speed limits

At Hoot, we've got a lot to give - so much, in fact, that offering some of the greatest cheap car insurance deals on the web just isn't enough anymore. Years of dealing with UK drivers has given us a wealth of knowledge extending far beyond the scope of cheap car insurance, and we've been looking for a way to share this information with you.

That's why we created the Hoot Guides, an indispensable series covering everything from seatbelt law to preventing car theft, to answer all the burning questions you might have about motoring.

This particular Hoot Guide concerns UK speed limits, one of the simplest pieces of motoring legislation and yet one that is ignored by countless drivers every day.

Speeders are responsible for 40,000 serious injuries and 1,000 deaths on British roads every year - the vast majority of which could have been avoided if drivers had kept within the laws described below.

Signposted speed limits
In urban districts, villages and other built up areas, the speed limit will always be below 30mph. If it isn't immediately obvious or the limit isn't signposted, look for street lights, which also indicate a 30mph zone.

In town and city centres, residential areas and around schools, the slower 20mph limit is used. Among other reasons, this is because survival rates improve rapidly for pedestrians hit by cars at this speed - only one in 40 dies, as opposed to one in five at 30mph.

40mph and 50mph limits are used in areas that are not built up, but where the national speed limit would be inappropriately fast - winding country lanes, for instance, or city approach roads.

The national speed limit itself varies according to the kind of vehicle you're driving and the kind of road you're driving on, but for cars and motorcycles the choice is always between two speeds. On single carriageway roads the limit is 60mph, whereas on dual carriageways and motorways it's 70mph.

Driving at speed
It's worth remembering that the numbers referred to above are maximum speed limits, not targets. If you're approaching a sharp bend in a 50mph zone and no change of speed is signposted, that doesn't mean you should take the corner at 50: obviously, you need to slow down and keep the vehicle under control.

The same thinking applies in a variety of other situations where driving at posted speed limits would be dangerous. When you're sharing the road with motorcyclists, cyclists or pedestrians, for example, consider how your use of speed will affect them rather than blasting off at the first available opportunity.

And when driving in extreme weather conditions, at night or any other time your vision or the performance of your car may become impaired, drive at a speed you feel comfortable with rather than chasing whatever speed limit is signposted.

Policing speed
Broadly speaking, police in the UK rely on two different gadgets to catch drivers who disobey posted speed limits - speed cameras and radar guns.

The former are becoming an increasingly common sight in this country, especially at accident black spots and on stretches of road where it's easy to pick up speed. And besides going up in numbers, speed cameras are becoming increasingly sophisticated.

Whereas the standard 'Gatso' can only police what's immediately in front of it, new technology in the latest SIPS systems monitors the time it takes cars to cover up to a four-mile stretch of road. This eliminates the potential for speeding between camera sites.

Though they are falling out of use today, tickets written by radar gun operators still come as an unpleasant surprise to drivers who think it's safe to speed where the cameras aren't watching.

Speeding penalties
If you're caught speeding either by a camera or a police officer, you will likely be fined a fixed penalty of £40-£100, depending on how far over the limit you were, and receive 2-6 points on your driving licence.

Points on your licence from a speeding offence gives your motor insurance company reason to view you as a high risk driver, and you'll probably lose out on a cheap car insurance in future.

Don't miss out on cheap car insurance
It's much easier to keep to the speed limit than it is to find cheap car insurance with barely any points on your licence.

Hoot Car Insurance Services is known for providing some of the cheapest car insurance policies around, but if you run up a string of speeding convictions we'll have to take that into account when calculating your online motor insurance quote.

Hoot policies are so cheap because we avoid the big advertising budgets and flashy high street shops most other car insurance companies rely on. Instead, we're marketed on word of mouth and do as much business as possible online to save overheads - and that makes a radical difference to the price of our motor insurance premiums.

We've kept our end of the cheap car insurance bargain, now you keep yours: commit yourself to safe driving rather than speeding, and click the quote button below.