The government have put forward proposals to reduce the speed limit on country roads to below 60 mph but what I don’t understand is how come all cars can go over 70 mph when it’s illegal to do so on any British road? writes Charlie Cashdan.

At the risk of writing the most unpopular blog in history and having Jeremy Clarkson fire bomb my house, if you can’t drive legally above 70 mph on ANY road in the UK, why can we still buy cars which can exceed this speed?

Every time you go above 70 you are breaking the law and whether you agree with this or not is irrelevant.  The law stands despite the posturing of Clarkson and friends and in spite of high amounts of money invested by car companies on technology to make their machines go ever faster.

What is the point of having a top speed of, say, 135mph when you can never legally go above 70?

Isn’t it time we passed a law that all cars are fitted with a device which means they can never exceed 70mph?  That way it makes it fair and we all have to play by the rules, even Clarkson.

Have you ever tried sticking to the speed limit on a motorway and risking the wrath of almost every other driver who eventually tear past you at 90 shaking an angry fist?

Congestion would reduce dramatically, especially on motorways where tests have proved that it is speeding, driving too close to the car in front and sharp breaking which cause congestion not simply volume of traffic, and would save thousands of lives.

Trusting people to simply obey the rules clearly isn’t working, especially with the temptation of being behind the wheel of a car that can easily do 90+ when you are in a hurry.

So, let’s use technology to solve the problem, it’s been very successful in making the problem worse with increasingly speedier and more powerful cars flooding the market so I can’t believe that something so simple as a device to limit speed is beyond the realms of possibility.

How about a device which all new drivers have to have fitted for the first year that limits their speed to 60mph?

Perhaps we could dispense with speed cameras all together and replace them with sensors that trigger a device in your car to set a top speed limit on your engine for that section of road so that it would be impossible to break the limit?  This could save so many lives.

I find it really hard to follow speed limits, especially 30mph, because I worry it will prompt serious road rage from other users who are so desperate to get past me that they will over-take in the most dangerous places and narrowly avoid collisions with on-coming traffic.

If everyone had to obey the rules it would be easier and safer to stick to the limits.

Reasons why it won’t happen:

* Government would lose all that revenue from speed cameras and speeding fines.

* Car companies wouldn’t be able to charge more for faster cars, why pay the cost of a house for a Ferrari which can’t go above 70mph?

* It will go the same way as green technology, fall by the wayside because essentially people love fast and powerful cars and won’t give that up for anything regardless of how many lives it would save, how much it would save them in petrol costs or how much sense the alternatives make.

* Jeremy Clarkson would be out of a job!