Confused over speeding ticket

Mrs_Imp

There was a lovely long stretch of road. A young man was driving down it a bit too fast. He probably thought it was ok, as it's such a lovely long stretch of road, no need for a speed limit here. It took them more than 6 hours to find enough information to identify either him or my Granny, who's car he hit. The fire was very intense, and the road had to be repaired afterwards. I feel more sorry for the other users of the M1 who witnessed such a crash and then had to sit at the scene waiting for the road to be reopened. My Granny never knew anything about it.

As far as I'm concerned, that's why the Police do speed checks. They're not wasting time or resources, they're reminding people to take a bit more care when driving so that more families don't get the 3am knock on the door. I know that some may disagree with me, but it's my choice to support them doing checks.

shaun_from_Africa

So now the police are to be criticised for setting themselves up in an optimum position to catch those who are breaking the law? That's an interesting angle.

IMO they are not to be criticised when they aim to catch people breaking the law, but they should be heavily criticised when their only aim is to catch easy, good revenue targets when there are far more dangerous practices happening all around them.

How often do you see the police setting up Surveillance points to catch red light jumpers?, or how about trying to catch people using mobile phones whilst driving?
Yes, driving at 32mph in a 30 limit is illegal, but the extra 2mph is unlikely to be the cause of many accidents.

There is a very big industrial estate near to where I live, and I guarantee that whenever I drive around it, I will see loads of people on mobiles and just as many people who don't seen to know/care that a red traffic light means stop.

Are any of these drivers worried about being stopped? I very much doubt it as the chances of seeing a police vehicle is slim to none as there is normally very heavy traffic so speeding isn't much of a problem.

shaun_from_Africa

It took them more than 6 hours to find enough information to identify either him or my Granny, who's car he hit.

If that was the case then I doubt very much if the driver concerned was only

driving down it a bit too fast,

and it sounds more like he was going way over the speed limit.

I doubt if many people would have any objection to the police doing all they can to stop this sort of driving, but that is a bit different to the police doing all they can to catch drivers doing 3mph or 4mph over the limit.

Crazy_Jamie

shaun_from_Africa wrote: »

IMO they are not to be criticised when they aim to catch people breaking the law, but they should be heavily criticised when their only aim is to catch easy, good revenue targets when there are far more dangerous practices happening all around them.

I absolutely agree, but I genuinely haven't seen anything that suggests that that is the case. Plenty of drivers believe that to be the case from their own personal experience and/or general opinion, but there is a big difference between that and actual objective evidence. If somebody does know of an evidential source that shows that to be the case, then I would genuinely be happy to see it.

shaun_from_Africa wrote:

How often do you see the police setting up Surveillance points to catch red light jumpers?, or how about trying to catch people using mobile phones whilst driving?

Actually, the answer to the second one is quite often. I often see police vehicles parked up observing traffic, and the reality is that these officers would react to any offence that they observe, be it use of a mobile phone or somebody driving dangerously. Individual approaches may differ between different police forces, but the police effort to stop those using mobile phones is often more concerted than you might think. It is well known, for example, that the A55 in North Wales is regularly patrolled by unmarked police cars in an effort to crack down on mobile phone use. Obviously everyone will see other drivers using mobile phones on occasion without being stopped, but it is so common (recent surveys suggest that about 1/3 of drivers use phones regularly whilst driving) that you can't expect the police to stop everyone who does it, or even the majority.

pendulum

Crazy_Jamie wrote: »

Presumably then you have some sort of figures as to the proportion of officers/man hours allocated to traffic as opposed to other areas that you're basing this on?

No. If the police released such statistics, they would no doubt be manipulated beyond recognition, in the same way that the statistics on speed camera effectiveness are manipulated. Whilst you would almost certainly treat such statistics as telling the whole truth and lap them up, I certainly wouldn't.

Crazy_Jamie wrote: »

Hold on. First you suggest that there are too many officers on traffic duty, but then you complain that there aren't always officers free to respond to traffic incidents? Seems somewhat contradictory.

It's not contradictory at all. It's force policy in most areas not to respond to traffic collisions unless there are injuries or the road is blocked.

It's a disgrace that the police will set up camp on a straight road, in good weather, knowing full well the majority of drivers will exceed the arbitrary speed limit and pick them off, all in the name of revenue generation - justified by supposedly "punishing dangerous driving practices" - but when an actual collision occurs, where a driver has actually caused a danger on the road, they will refuse to attend or investigate, losing the chance to punish a genuine dangerous driver. Please do try and justify that to me, because so far nobody has managed it. If they were genuinely in it to punish poor driving practices, they would attend these accidents, but they don't, because that would involve real police work and less time spent on revenue generation which they have plenty of time for.

I see more speed cameras driving for half an hour (fixed, mobile, radar, etc) than I see police walking the beat in a month. I have reported real crimes and they have not been interested. Their priorities are wrong.

Crazy_Jamie wrote: »

... and those officers being placed in a position where they cannot react to incidents as easily or at all. This is true of all departments, not just traffic.

It's often a case of "will not" - not "cannot".

Crazy_Jamie wrote: »

So now the police are to be criticised for setting themselves up in an optimum position to catch those who are breaking the law? That's an interesting angle.

Yes. Choosing a road where they know the majority of normal motorists will exceed the arbitrary speed limit (because it's safe to do so) isn't doing anything to help the roads become safer and it's a waste of resources at a time when there are far more constructive things they should be doing.

Crazy_Jamie wrote: »

Your feelings should be directed towards the law makers rather than those who enforce the law in such circumstances.

The police choose which laws to concentrate on enforcing. My criticism will be directed at them as they have made their choice.

Joe_Horner

pendulum wrote: »

A collision speed of 140mph? Wrong.

Two cars colliding head on, each travelling at 70mph, each experience the same force as if they had hit a solid object at 70mph, not 140mph.

http://warp.povusers.org/grrr/collisionmath.html

Now, whether you're going at 60mph or 70mph at the time, the result of that kind of collision is going to be very much the same, so your argument is completely flawed. It also incorporates far too much of the worst case scenario of what "might" happen. Lots of bad things "might" happen just walking down the street - we still do it.


People very much unlike you then.

Err, no. Two IDENTICAL cars each doing 70 will each experience the same forces as 70 into a solid object. But there are no two identical cars out there - even two of the same model will have different mass at the time of impact depending on all sorts of factors.

Different models will also have different energy absorbing capabilities, which will alter the effect in favour of one and against the other (because the same total energy must be absorbed). Even that page you linked to makes that distinction, but fails to mention that non-identical can make a huge difference to one or other of the cars. Not that I'd pay much attention to a page with "/grrr/" in its URL as a source of physics

So ALL you can say in general terms is that there will be a collision speed of 140mph, which is pure physical fact (and is what I said), and that the collision energy will be 4x that of a collision speed of 70 (which is also what I said). There's no way to say which will dissipate more, or less, of that total energy.

Besides which, you conveniently completely missed the main point that it's very rare indeed to "hit a solid object" in a "same side of the road" accident - people simply don't "hit someone at 70" on a motorway unless they carry on driving without taking any avoiding action until the point of impact.

As for your "pretty much the same at 60 or 70" - that shows just how poor your understanding is. That 10mph difference will increase the energy involved by over 36%. Energy (not speed) is the stuff that does the damage / causes the injuries, btw, so it's lunacy to say that a 1/3 increase is "pretty much the same"!


eta: As for "extreme cases" - blow-outs are hardly extreme, nor are people crossing lines for all sorts of other reasons. If we were talking "lottery odds" then you might have a point, but we're not so a simple and harmless move like "keep your speed down by 10mph" is a perfectly sensible decision for the risk.

Crazy_Jamie

pendulum wrote: »

The police choose which laws to concentrate on enforcing. My criticism will be directed at them as they have made their choice.

Except earlier in your post you admitted that you don't know how resources are allocated, and therefore you actually have no idea which laws the police are 'concentrating on'. The reality is that, like many motorists, you don't like the idea of being punished for actions that you consider to be the norm and/or safe, but which you know full well are illegal. Consequently you choose to adopt a critical stance of the police in enforcing these laws, making sweeping and baseless judgements as you do so, rather than simply accepting that people should take responsibility for their own actions and comply with the law as it stands.

pendulum

Joe_Horner wrote: »

Err, no. Two IDENTICAL cars each doing 70 will each experience the same forces as 70 into a solid object. But there are no two identical cars out there - even two of the same model will have different mass at the time of impact depending on all sorts of factors.

I'm glad to see you can read the link I posted for you.

Joe_Horner wrote: »

Different models will also have different energy absorbing capabilities, which will alter the effect in favour of one and against the other (because the same total energy must be absorbed).

Why are you telling me this? This is all included in the link I gave you. In fact you've almost done a copy and paste job.

Joe_Horner wrote: »

So ALL you can say in general terms is that there will be a collision speed of 140mph,

It is not a collision speed of 140mph, though.
You get 140mph by adding two lots of 70mph, and that is all. No car in a head on collision at 70mph will experience anything like the force they would experience if travelling at 140mph in any crash. The figure of 140mph is completely redundant. If you doubt this then read the link again - and perhaps copy and paste the relevant part to let me know you've done so, as before!

Joe_Horner wrote: »

As for your "pretty much the same at 60 or 70" - that shows just how poor your understanding is. That 10mph difference will increase the energy involved by over 36%. Energy (not speed) is the stuff that does the damage / causes the injuries, btw, so it's lunacy to say that a 1/3 increase is "pretty much the same"!

Are you really suggesting one will walk away at 60mph head-on, but die in agony at 70mph, so that's why they set the limit at 60mph? Give me a break. I said the results would be pretty much the same because you will die or be seriously injured whether you hit head on at 60mph or 70mph.

There are so many more important factors other than speed when it comes to avoiding collisions. Choosing a sensible speed for the road conditions - whether that be above or below the speed limit - is far more important than the arbitrary speed limit that was set in a council office some 10-years-ago that doesn't take in to account the road conditions at the time, the weather, or anything else. I find it laughable that you can have such reliance on a set speed limit to tell you how safe it is for you to travel, and seem to have a serious belief that exceeding that speed by even a little bit would result in huge amounts of increased danger, but if you stay below that limit, you'll be safe. This driving lark is a little more complicated than that.

pendulum

Crazy_Jamie wrote: »

Except earlier in your post you admitted that you don't know how resources are allocated,

I said I wouldn't rely on their own statistics, not that I don't know how resources are allocated. It's a shame you have to resort to misquoting to make a point.

Coveredinbees!!!!

Probably wasn't a police office operating the thing anyway just some poor soul who's job it is to operate a speed camera