BMW drivers were jubilant today after the Department for Transport finally capitulated to their demands to be able to exceed the standard road speed limits.
The UK branch of the BMW Owners Club (BOC) have long campaigned that being forced to drive at the same speed as everyone else was not only disrespectful, but was causing irreparable damage to their inherent sense of elitism.
In practice, the rule change will have little effect to most BMW drivers. In 1988, in a fit of defiance, the then BOC chairman, Hugo Jenkins infamously called for all BMW drivers to take ‘positive action’ and to drive “as ruddy fast as you like”. As a consequence, most BMWs have been driven in excess of the speed limit for so long that many of their drivers didn’t even realise that they were breaking the law.
The speed limit exemption is not absolute, the BOC begrudgingly agreed to a 60mph speed limit around state schools and NHS hospitals, only after it was pointed out that they wouldn’t be seen dead near them anyway.
A spokesman for the Department of Transport said that they “had given up trying to get through to them”. “Instead”, he explained, “the department’s focus will be on trying to educate the twats from thinking that they can park wherever they like, provided they turn on their hazards.”
