Fed up with whinging speeders ?

Hapless_2

How come almost every speeder has had one of these conversations where whilst despite travelling in excess of the approved speed limit they end up being commended on their superb road skills?

I have yet to hear of someone being told "Did you know how fast you were going sir? 30 mph over the speed limit sir, excellent driving, on your way"

Hapless_2

not looking at the speedo whilst NOT racing through busy streets and being marginally above the speen limit has no major effect on any of your above mentioned points.

Apart from you are not taking due notice OF YOUR SPEED.

ben500

Hapless wrote: »

I have yet to hear of someone being told "Did you know how fast you were going sir? 30 mph over the speed limit sir, excellent driving, on your way"

You want to read some of the past threads on this topic here, you'd be under the impression it was a daily event if you did.

scheming_gypsy

, misjudge braking distances and cannot control a car at speed.
So driving a car at 30 mph is the same as controlling a car at 40mph, 50mph,70mph,90mph,110mph? Do the brakes work the same at 70mph as they do at 40mph? Does the steering react the same when driving at 30 mph and at 50mph? I think not!
What's the braking distance for 90mph?

these were your points. None of these have any relevence to checking the speed. Just give up, you're arguing for the sake of it and starting to look stupid by not making anysense.

conradmum

scheming_gypsy wrote: »

Although it does bring me to asking one question. Why is that when you're watching programs about the police and speed chases they'll spend hours chasing somebody through the streets. The person they're chasing go flying around the streets, weaving in and out of cars, round roundabouts the wrong way, hitting turns at over 100mph and only get stopped after to police use a stinger.. At the end of the chase they tell you the punishment and 'had to retake their driving test'. If somebody can drive like that at high speed and not cause an accident do they need to take their test again?

Just because they didn't cause an accident that time doesn't mean they were driving safely. It's like saying 'I managed to walk that tightrope once without falling off so next time I won't need a safety net'. Driving too fast is a dangerous activity because you have less time to react to your environment.
I had a hairy incident once. I was driving home at about 10 o'clock at night over the Dunstable Downs. There's a blind summit at one point. As I cleared it I saw there was someone parked on the wrong side of the road, just ahead of me, (with their headlights full on, just to make matters worse - it took me a second to realise the situation.) I skidded to a halt about one foot from his car, looking the driver straight in his eyes. Yes, he was an idiot to do that. Did he deserve to die for it, though?
Had I been speeding we would both be dead, and probably my two young sons in the back too. It's NOT okay to speed just because YOU think it's safe. The speed limits are there for good reasons.

Edited to add: being able to take turns at high speed is only the mark of a good driver in Formula One racing, not on the public highway!

MarkyMarkD

Conradmum

One of the most annoying thing about driving along single carriageway A roads isn't the fact that there are occasional single cars/lorries/caravan combo/whatever going very slowly and which need overtaking.

It's the fact that behind the occasional single car/lorry/whatever which needs overtaking, there are 3 or 4 x Conradmums driving along at the same stupid 30mph or whatever, who are all too scared to overtake when it's SAFE to do so (whether, or not (and it's usually not), that overtaking manoeuvre requires exceeding the speed limit).

It means that when a sensible driver comes along who actually knows how to drive, they have to overtake 3 cars PLUS one lorry/caravan/old duffer.

You really want to pretend that the old duffer and the 3xConradmums are not contributing to the dangerous situation there? Or to claim that because there's one old duffer going 30mph, everyone should just happily drive at 30mph because overtaking is so scary and "it doesn't get you there any sooner anyway"?

It's accepted advanced driving best practice that you should make good progress - and that means driving as fast as it's safe to do, within the speed limits. That doesn't mean accepting that it's OK to drive along on a derestricted road at 30mph.

This isn't directly speeding relevant, but only this week I was almost involved in an RTA whilst turning right at a set of traffic lights. The lights were green, and I followed the car in front in turning right. There was an oncoming car about 200 yards away and there was ample space for about 5 cars to turn right - and I was only the second of two.

But there was nearly an RTA because the old duffer in the car turning right immediately before me didn't understand the need to use the right pedal to accelerate - he must have had a few cartons of eggs under the pedals which he didn't want to break.

Of course, he proceeded the whole of the mile along this derestricted road to the next junction at a maximum of 30mph, which took him about half a mile to reach.

D'oh!

MarkyMarkD

conradmum wrote: »

I had a hairy incident once. I was driving home at about 10 o'clock at night over the Dunstable Downs. There's a blind summit at one point. As I cleared it I saw there was someone parked on the wrong side of the road, just ahead of me, (with their headlights full on, just to make matters worse - it took me a second to realise the situation.) I skidded to a halt about one foot from his car, looking the driver straight in his eyes. Yes, he was an idiot to do that. Did he deserve to die for it, though?
Had I been speeding we would both be dead, and probably my two young sons in the back too. It's NOT okay to speed just because YOU think it's safe. The speed limits are there for good reasons.

This is a great example of why speed limits are irrelevant and unhelpful.

It's just as likely in the circumstances you describe that you would have hit this other car. If anyone parks on the wrong side of a blind summit, they are in danger of being collided with.

Equally well, over any blind summit or around any blind bend there may be a slow moving or stationary vehicle.

Anticipating that sort of risk is part of good driving - not by driving to the speed limits, but driving according to the conditions.

I don't think that anyone posting here AGAINST stupid speed limits would advocate driving around blind corners or over blind summits at over the speed limit - indeed, they'd probably be more likely to do so at LESS than the speed limit than someone who's speed limit obsessed.

derrick

MarkyMarkD wrote: »

Conradmum

One of the most annoying thing about driving along single carriageway A roads isn't the fact that there are occasional single cars/lorries/caravan combo/whatever going very slowly and which need overtaking.

It's the fact that behind the occasional single car/lorry/whatever which needs overtaking, there are 3 or 4 x Conradmums driving along at the same stupid 30mph or whatever, who are all too scared to overtake when it's SAFE to do so (whether, or not (and it's usually not), that overtaking manoeuvre requires exceeding the speed limit).

It means that when a sensible driver comes along who actually knows how to drive, they have to overtake 3 cars PLUS one lorry/caravan/old duffer.

You really want to pretend that the old duffer and the 3xConradmums are not contributing to the dangerous situation there? Or to claim that because there's one old duffer going 30mph, everyone should just happily drive at 30mph because overtaking is so scary and "it doesn't get you there any sooner anyway"?

It's accepted advanced driving best practice that you should make good progress - and that means driving as fast as it's safe to do, within the speed limits. That doesn't mean accepting that it's OK to drive along on a derestricted road at 30mph.

This isn't directly speeding relevant, but only this week I was almost involved in an RTA whilst turning right at a set of traffic lights. The lights were green, and I followed the car in front in turning right. There was an oncoming car about 200 yards away and there was ample space for about 5 cars to turn right - and I was only the second of two.

But there was nearly an RTA because the old duffer in the car turning right immediately before me didn't understand the need to use the right pedal to accelerate - he must have had a few cartons of eggs under the pedals which he didn't want to break.

Of course, he proceeded the whole of the mile along this derestricted road to the next junction at a maximum of 30mph, which took him about half a mile to reach.

D'oh!

Isn't that just frustrating? Just one point to make, there are no "deristricted" roads in Britain, the white background with black diagonal bar sign means "national speed limit applies" which on a single carriageway road means 60 m.p.h.

MarkyMarkD

Yes, I know that derrick, but I think that everyone knows what I meant too.

scheming_gypsy

derestricted, national speed limit, does it really matter if somebody is still driving at 30mph on the road holding up the traffic.