How Fast Can You Go In A Hijet?

Following on from the towing thread, something made me look up the speed limit regs, and as i thought Hijets max speed on a single carraigeway is 50 Cos it's not a car derived van. (obviously no-one here ever travels that fast anyway.... )

Christ knows! I held mine foot to the floor, down the hill after the Thelwall viaduct on the M6 northbound. It went past the end of the speedo and kept accelerating for quite some time.

Until I chickened out, not wanting to kill my dear friend in the passenger seat. The steering was pretty twitchy at that (what?!) speed.

It was the 1.3 MPV, and at the time it had about 25k miles on the clock with two gentle lady owners till I came along.

Did I ever tell you about the night I went out on a 061 motorsport club night rally event in my hijet?
No word of a lie! Totally serious, a lad said to another guy something about he couldn't keep up with that Hijet, they were in a Suzuki Ignis Sport.

National speed limit on a single carrage way is 60mph for any vehicle unless towing or classed as such that a lower limit is applied on all national type roads, the hijet is just a small van standard PLG. So as fast as you can wihout ending in a ditch then is what I recon.

Legally, as it's not a car derived van it's subject to lower limits, oddly enough

http://www2.dft.gov.uk/pgr/roadsafety/speedmanagement/vanspeedlimits.html

Well we are under the weight limit for the car devived van bit and I have never ever seen any van on the motorway doing less than 70 and with plenty of plod about they never pull them over so I wouldn't worry about it and if you did get pulled over do the yes sir, no sir routine and say you understood it that because of the low weight it put you in the normal speed class and you will slow down as you were obviously mistaken.

Hijets may be well under the weight limit, but they are not classed as a car derived van.
Vans need to meet Both criteria to tavel at the higher national speed limit.
Sooooo.......national speed limits are
50mph on single caraigway.
60mph on duel caraigeway
70mph on motorway.



And if you tried this with South Wales Plod.....
do the yes sir, no sir routine and say you understood it that because of the low weight it put you in the normal speed class and you will slow down as you were obviously mistaken..

You would be told.....
Ignorance of the law is NO defence .

Rich, it may be different again for MPV's, I don't know .

Here's a good one.....
Citroen Berlingo 1.6 hdi. Max load=625. GVW=1980. Allowed higher limit of 60/sc 70/dc and 70/mw
Citroen Berlingo 1.6 hdi. Max load=850. GVW=2205. Restricted to the lower 50/sc 60/dc and 70/mw

Same car derived size van, but one carries more weight.
Bet that will catch some drivers out eh .

That is a load of rubbish, how many van owners actually know this really?

How many really care?!

Yep its 50mph on single carriage way, 60mph on duel carriage way, 70mph on motorway. Although very few van owners get done for speeding they still do. At my old work they were well up on keeping to the limits, vans were tracked and people used to always get told off for doing 60 on a single carriage way. 50 is painfully slow in a Renault Traffic.
Although in Common Law there's no such thing as speed limits -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ME7K6P7hlko

I used to drive mine at 60mph in 60 and 70mph limits


never got pulled over and I even went past a traffic cop with a speed gun.......



I think the police see the Hijet as a small van so class it as a car
at least.....they seem to in Cornwall! :p







as for the max speed......
well on the flat, I managed ~80mph and down a hill I ran out of road at just over 90......

then I had to brake

The MPV will be subject to car limits. I've seen 80 in mine, though I would not have chosen to. I was following a colleague from her home to the office, and she put her foot down a tad on the dual carriageway; it was keep up or be lost! At 80, it was still slowly accelarating, but it felt very twitchy and I was keen to slow down. I tend to do 60 or so on the motorway when I'm on it, but 70 or 75 when the situation demands it doesn't feel too daunting. I have no desire to explore the upper limts!

Just had to go and bail out the grandaughter so thought I would give the jet a go. Had her up to 90 on the speedo. Held the road ok and felt I had plenty more in her.

Waz

HighlyJetted wrote:That is a load of rubbish, how many van owners actually know this really?

How many really care?!

1... NO.! It's not a load of rubish, it's happened to someone I know when he changed his Berlingo.
2...Like I said, it's down to the driver of the van to check legalaties, NOT the owner.
3...People WILL care when they get a letter informing them of their points/fine through the door.