Fed up with whinging speeders ?

oldbill1969

Plod may have said that, but its was'nt the yellow bird box that was the danger but drivers who were exceding the speed limit having to break suddenly when they aproached it. Answer me this, does the driver who travels within the speed limit (passed in law) have to break suddenly when he aproaches a speed camera ? No its the speeder who breaks suddenly.

Hapless_2

I like the speed limits in Norway, 20mph built up areas, 35 mph on major roads, 50mph on motorways.

tbh, if you can't pay the fine, don't do the crime. It's not much fun driving at 30mph a 30mph zone with some t*** up your tailpipe wanting to overtake and break the speed limit, and I'm not just talking boy racers here, young, middle-aged, elderly there are speeders across the age range. If you do 31mph in a 30mph zone, you have broken the speed limit..comprende?
Highway code, in the absence of speed limit signs the speed limit on a built up residential area with or without street lights is 30 miles per hour.

oldbill1969

Hapless wrote: »

I like the speed limits in Norway, 20mph built up areas, 35 mph on major roads, 50mph on motorways.

tbh, if you can't pay the fine, don't do the crime. It's not much fun driving at 30mph a 30mph zone with some t*** up your tailpipe wanting to overtake and break the speed limit, and I'm not just talking boy racers here, young, middle-aged, elderly there are speeders across the age range. If you do 31mph in a 30mph zone, you have broken the speed limit..comprende?
Highway code, in the absence of speed limit signs the speed limit on a built up residential area with or without street lights is 30 miles per hour.

This is precisely the point of my post, it was'nt an argument about the specific speed limits but drivers who choose to ignore the law, who then go on to moan about being caught. Its all about choices 1. Drive within the limits = clean licence 2. break the law- pay your dues

MarkyMarkD

oldbill1969 wrote: »

I fail to see the argument that speed cameras make roads less safe, if we are taking it that drivers slam on the brakes when they see a camera ( had they been recognizing the speed limit, they wouldnt have had to slam on when they see a camera.) This is not a reasonable case because we all know the speed limits and let us not forget that they are maximum speed limits and there is nowhere in law which says you have to drive to the maximum limit.

I explained in my post why cameras make roads less safe. And it's not for the reason of slamming brakes on.

The best, safest, way for people to get past other slower drivers on a mainly single-carriageway road is to make sensible progress when the conditions are safe to do so.

And that means overtaking as quickly as possible when there are straight sections or short overtaking lanes.

Imposing speed cameras in these situations merely leads to serious driver frustration and consequently an increased tendency to overtake on the less safe sections - where there are never any speed cameras.

Despite all the politically correct claptrap about erecting speed cameras in accident blackspots, they are NEVER in accident blackspots. They are always somewhere vaguely near the accident blackspot (which is normally a blind bend or the like) on a nice straight section where there were never any accidents at all.


The other depressing impact of the "speed cameras are the only way to improve safety" mentality is that other, far more obvious, methods of reducing accidents are ignored. There are several junctions near me where there have been LOADS of accidents:

- one involves lots of traffic trying to pull out from a T junction onto a long straight A road; the accidents have all involved frustrated drivers pulling out into the path of fast cars travelling straight along the A road; the obvious solution here is a roundabout as the traffic flows don't warrant traffic lights;
- the other involves lots of traffic driving over a blind summit which is followed 300 yards later by a set of traffic lights which DON'T have a left turning phase or lane despite there being room to implement one; the obvious solution here is the extra turning lane and revisions to the traffic light phasing.

Since I've lived here, the speed limit on the road has been reduced from 60mph to 50mph, with absolutely NO impact on the accident frequency. And scamera vans frequent it from time to time, which has also had no impact on the accident frequency - BECAUSE THE CAUSE OF THE ACCIDENTS WAS NOT SPEEDING.

I've asked the council why they won't implement the left turning phase improvement - their answer is that the casualty statistics don't warrant the cost involved. Pathetic. So despite all the near misses and actual crashes I've seen, we will have to wait till someone is killed before anything is done.

gazhawkins

Folks,

re: Speeding

Check out the annual road fatality stats since the early nineties.

I reckon you'll discover than UK road deaths per annum have been held at a roughly constant 3200 to 3500 per annum - year in, year out.

The mass introduction of speed cameras in the late nineties has not made a scrap of difference to these figures.

Again, roughly speaking, in the mid eighties the annual fatality figures were around 5000 per annum. The reduction in fatalities per annum were mainly due to improvements in vehicle safety (eg side impact bars in doors, air bags and crumple zones) and road improvements (more roundabouts, use of armcos etc.).

sprob

What really annoys me about speeders on motorways is that they seem unable to "read" the road, many a time I have been in the middle lane overtaking slower moving traffic on the inside lane when another vehicle (read) - 32 tonne truck pulls out from the inside lane at the last minute and even though I have indicated to move to the outside lane they seem totally oblivious using their "tunnel" vision way of driving as to what is going on around them - you either dive on the brakes or take your chances and hope they "see" you and slow down in time - speed of itself does not kill " inappropriate speed and lack of awareness" DOES

daleyd

I think if people want to vent their angst at some of the methods used to catch them, fair play.

If someone wants advice on how to get off a speeding conviction, if I knew how to help I would. Whats the problem?

Happens every day in courts across the land.

conradmum

MarkyMarkD wrote: »

The best, safest, way for people to get past other slower drivers on a mainly single-carriageway road is to make sensible progress when the conditions are safe to do so.

And that means overtaking as quickly as possible when there are straight sections or short overtaking lanes.

Imposing speed cameras in these situations merely leads to serious driver frustration and consequently an increased tendency to overtake on the less safe sections - where there are never any speed cameras.

.

The best, safest way to get past slower drivers on a single-carriageway road is to wait until it is safe to pass them without breaking the speed limit.



If imposing speed cameras in these situations causes driver frustration, then the said drivers need to have more patience. It's not a race.

conradmum

gazhawkins wrote: »

Folks,

re: Speeding

Check out the annual road fatality stats since the early nineties.

I reckon you'll discover than UK road deaths per annum have been held at a roughly constant 3200 to 3500 per annum - year in, year out.

The mass introduction of speed cameras in the late nineties has not made a scrap of difference to these figures.

Errrm I think you need to look at those figures again. Do you have any idea of how much the volume of traffic on the roads has increased since the early nineties? I think those stats are fantastic.

scheming_gypsy

conradmum wrote: »

The best, safest way to get past slower drivers on a single-carriageway road is to wait until it is safe to pass them without breaking the speed limit.

i'd rather break the speed limit and over take safetly in 3 secons rather than chug passed somebody at 30mph taking 30 seconds to overtake and risk somebody come screaming out of nowhere in the opposite direction taking me to the safe drivers scrap yard in the sky... Or should i just risk it and at die knowing i wasn't breaking any laws?
Not a chance, drop into 4th, then to 3rd while i wait for my chance, then pull out, bang it into 2nd fly past the car i'm overtaking while breaking the speed limit for, what?, 20 yards? and then go back to a safe speed.

Oh yeah and my license is clean.