Fed up with whinging speeders ?

tomstickland

Trying to justify why they should be able drive above the regulation speed limits, looking for any loopholes to squirm out of their predicament, after they have been caught fair and square, trying to tell us that speed doesnt kill !!!!!

I agree that someone who is caught fair and square should accept it.
However, I will argue at great length about some of the claims made regarding how speeds and accidents are related. I also resent the lack of thought that some posters display regarding anyone who questions the mechanisms of road safety. I think part of the problem is that as soon as speed is mentioned some immediately think of the boy racer they saw speeding down the high street. So when I question how making a featureless dual carriageway a 50mph limit achieves anything, they immediately allay me with some sort of anachistic rule breaking sect.

Driving at excessive speed in a hazardous area is dangerous. Driving without paying attention is dangerous. However, this does not mean that someone who breaks a limit is de facto dangerous.

For example, imagine a wide A road. The hazards consist of some field gates, but there is a wide verge on each side. The straight is 2 miles long. One day a car crashed through the hedge. The reason was that the driver was a youn lad who'd drunk a lot of cider. Flowers are regularly placed at the spot. The previous year another car had crashed in similar circumstances at that point.

The locals demanded that something be done about "this dangerous road". The solution was white hatchings over 1/3rd of it, a 50 limit and a camera in the centre of the straight. Now, many 1000s had travelled along here without incident for the previous 20 years.
Do you think the 50 limit has made the road safer?

conradmum

scheming_gypsy wrote: »

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.

Have you read your Highway Code? Only overtake when it's safe to do so. It sounds like you're the person most likely to 'come screaming out of nowhere'.
Oh yeah, and my licence is clean too.

tomstickland

So, do you think it's safer to spend longer on the other side of the road?

gazhawkins

Reply to conradmum: not sure what your point was in reply to my previous post.

Yes - you're right that road traffic volumes have increased since the early nineties.

However, since the mid to late nineties road fatalities have remained pretty much constant - regardless of the mass introduction of gatsos, truveloes and specs.

The reduction is the quantity of traffic police police has also had limited impact on fatalities per annum as well. What this has done for driving standards is of course, subjective.

Of course, it doesn't need pointing out that one fatality is one too many.

scheming_gypsy

no i fell asleep on page 4 when taking my test so i never bothered again.

What point are you trying to make with

Only overtake when it's safe to do so

. Please define 'when safe to do so'. Is that when there is nothing coming in the opposite direction or when you've received a written statement from everybody who'll be using that road, promising that they won't come screaming out of nowhere when you're attempting to overtake?

you don't make any sense at all. You are overtaking when it's safe to do so but you do not know what is going to happen.

Pretty unlikely i'll come screaming out of nowhere although the chances are you're more at risk to cause an accident by tootling past people refusing to break the speed limit to ensure safetly.

Also.. would you overtake a 40ft lorry at 30mph and be certain that you've plenty of time to pass it as 'it was safe' to overtake when you started? the answer is a blatant no and you madam, are a dangerous driver.

DKLS

Last time I was pulled for speeding, turned out it was the cop I had recently bought the car from, He complimented me on the line I had taken through the bends. And asked how it was driving, gave me a few tips and went on his way.

Excessive speed is not the only cause of accidents, many others out there. And to answer the OP, If I do get caught properly, I will not moan, but will seek out any advice to either minimise punishment or evade.

rdwarr

scheming_gypsy wrote: »

the one thing that's worse than people whinging when they get a ticket for speeding is the 'i've never exceeded the speed limit in my life and you speeders will kill somebody one day' brigade.

Apart from the fact that nobody here has ever said that.

scheming_gypsy

yes they have, just not on this thread... although not those exact words obviously.

Keith

Speed doesn't kill, it's the item that stops you.

A road next to us has been reclassified as a 50mph road, its now dangerous for me to drive down it at 60mph which I've done for years because two drunk kids crashed and killed their passengers. There is even a sign saying slow down, at the slightest bend. I still drive at 60-70mph down that road, is it dangerous? No.

Is it safe to drive at 80-90mph on British Motorways? Yes. The only proplem is people who don't speed, they should know their place which is the left lane, lane 1.

balsingh

Keith wrote: »

Is it safe to drive at 80-90mph on British Motorways? Yes. The only proplem is people who don't speed, they should know their place which is the left lane, lane 1.

Now that's another thread ... the IDIOT middle lane sitters. They think they are perfectly safe and fine sitting there but they're breaking the rules just as much as anyone speeding.