Britain Had No Speed Limit on Its Motorways Until 1965 — How Fast Were People Actually Going?
The British Ledger
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In 1964, in the dead of night, a racing driver took an AC Cobra up the M1 to around 185 miles an hour on a public motorway, with ordinary families' cars using the same road. And it was completely legal. Because Britain had no speed limit on its motorways until 1965. So how fast were people actually going?
When the M1 opened in 1959, the country had never seen anything like it: a straight, open, high-speed road with no junctions, no oncoming traffic and no limit at all. Manufacturers used it as a free test track; enthusiasts flung utterly unsuitable family cars flat-out to "see what she'd do." But the cars of the age, skinny tyres, feeble brakes, were never built for it, the hard shoulders filled with broken-down wrecks, and when thick fog rolled across the carriageway, cars ploughing blind into one another created a terrifying new kind of disaster: the motorway pile-up. This is the story of that brief, wild, limitless era and how, in 1965, the government finally painted a single number onto the motorway: the 70 we still live with today.
That 70mph limit isn't some eternal law of nature. It was a judgement call, made in a hurry, within living memory.
If you enjoy discovering how the systems Britain now takes for granted were actually built, subscribe to The British Ledger for the hidden history of British life.
Watch next: the twenty-year battle to make Britain buckle up the strange, bitter fight over the seatbelt.
#BritishHistory #SocialHistory #MotoringHistory
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Britain Had No Speed Limit on Its Motorways Until 1965 — How Fast Were People Actually Going?
The British Ledger
1,597 views
Subscribe to my channel @thebritishledger-4u
In 1964, in the dead of night, a racing driver took an AC Cobra up the M1 to around 185 miles an hour on a public motorway, with ordinary families' cars using the same road. And it was completely legal. Because Britain had no speed limit on its motorways until 1965. So how fast were people actually going?
When the M1 opened in 1959, the country had never seen anything like it: a straight, open, high-speed road with no junctions, no oncoming traffic and no limit at all. Manufacturers used it as a free test track; enthusiasts flung utterly unsuitable family cars flat-out to "see what she'd do." But the cars of the age, skinny tyres, feeble brakes, were never built for it, the hard shoulders filled with broken-down wrecks, and when thick fog rolled across the carriageway, cars ploughing blind into one another created a terrifying new kind of disaster: the motorway pile-up. This is the story of that brief, wild, limitless era and how, in 1965, the government finally painted a single number onto the motorway: the 70 we still live with today.
That 70mph limit isn't some eternal law of nature. It was a judgement call, made in a hurry, within living memory.
If you enjoy discovering how the systems Britain now takes for granted were actually built, subscribe to The British Ledger for the hidden history of British life.
Watch next: the twenty-year battle to make Britain buckle up the strange, bitter fight over the seatbelt.
#BritishHistory #SocialHistory #MotoringHistory
And if these journeys into Britain's hidden past are your sort of thing, you're very welcome to subscribe, it's grand to have you. https://www.youtube.com/@thebritishledger-4u?sub_confirmation=1