driving slow : your views ?

jase1

Zaurak wrote: »

Precisely. By speeding and not allowing cars travelling at the speed limit to overtake, you are forcing them to stay behind the slower moving vehicle they want to overtake and they must slow down, so according to your own definition, you are driving dangerously.

So glad to see you agree with my point of view.

But that still doesn't give you the right to willfully force others to change direction or speed.

The speeder is not forcing other drivers to do anything. A group of speeders may be preventing you from overtaking, but this is not a deliberate act of malice (by definition because the problem only arises if there are many speeders in convoy).

You on the other hand are proposing to deliberately place yourself in the path of a faster-moving vehicle. The speed is irrelevant in this case -- your actions are akin to someone pulling out of a junction directly in front of another driver.

Your logic is ridiculous -- it is equivalent to saying that a convoy of 70mph traffic is 'forcing' someone following a lorry at 60mph to slow down.

It is always incumbent on the person changing lanes to exercise due care and attention. Always. Your post indicates that you do not exercise due care and attention -- and worse, that you deliberately put other road users in harm's way. You are an utter menace, and the sooner you are caught, and prosecuted, the better.

Your actions are orders of magnitude worse than someone travelling at marginally over the limit -- and are not far removed from insurance fraud, if the truth be told.

Zaurak

jase1 wrote: »

It is always incumbent on the person changing lanes to exercise due care and attention.

So the lawbreaker who is speeding does not have to exercise any due care and attention to the people who are using the road safely and legally, and who they are putting in danger due to wilfully breaking the law.

jase1 wrote: »

the sooner you are caught, and prosecuted, the better

Never has happened, and never is going to happen. But I have seen plenty of lawbreaking speeders being dealt with by the police.

Cornucopia

jase1 wrote: »

It is always incumbent on the person changing lanes to exercise due care and attention. Always. Your post indicates that you do not exercise due care and attention -- and worse, that you deliberately put other road users in harm's way. You are an utter menace, and the sooner you are caught, and prosecuted, the better.

Your actions are orders of magnitude worse than someone travelling at marginally over the limit -- and are not far removed from insurance fraud, if the truth be told.

This is completely over the top.

We are not talking about an accident scenario. What we are talking about is speeders making a driving environment that is unruly and lawless, and prevents law-abiding drivers from making progress.

Or put it this way: for those of you who are pro-speeding - what is the limit to your "rule"? 100mph? 120mph? 150mph? What speed would someone have to be travelling at before you accept that it would be incumbent upon them to slow down to give lawful drivers a chance to overtake slower-moving vehicles?

And BTW, it is a pro-speeding attitude that makes the powers that be pro-speed cameras.

Cornucopia

UsernameAlreadyExists wrote: »

Who decides what the speed limit should be?

Is that a trick question?

nobbysn*ts

Some surreal answers, I wonder if the posters actually believe what they're saying themselves? Still, I'm convinced, speed cameras for speed enforcement alone is enough of a reason for me now.

brat

nobbysn*ts wrote: »

Some surreal answers, I wonder if the posters actually believe what they're saying themselves? Still, I'm convinced, speed cameras for speed enforcement alone is enough of a reason for me now.

Speed cameras are a law enforcement tool, nothing more. They certainly don't possess any road safety credentials; arguably they make the roads less safe because they're designed to 'ensnare' the safest drivers, while allowing drivers with the poorest attitude to road safety to know where and when they can drive dangerously.

IamNotAllowedToUseMyName

brat wrote: »

Speed cameras are a law enforcement tool, nothing more. They certainly don't possess any road safety credentials; arguably they make the roads less safe because they're designed to 'ensnare' the safest drivers, while allowing drivers with the poorest attitude to road safety to know where and when they can drive dangerously.

There is a word for that.

This is the speeder fallacy - if you can drive fast you are a safe, skilled driver. If you drive slow you are clearly a blind granny.

It is probably a show of skill that a driver can tailgate at 95 to get the incompetent idiot in front out of the way.

I would suggest that the success of average speed cameras through roadworks in modifying traffic flow shows exactly that they make roads safer where without them we had excessive and dangerous stop start driving because drivers refused to moderate their own behaviour.

nobbysn*ts

brat wrote: »

Speed cameras are a law enforcement tool, nothing more. They certainly don't possess any road safety credentials; arguably they make the roads less safe because they're designed to 'ensnare' the safest drivers, while allowing drivers with the poorest attitude to road safety to know where and when they can drive dangerously.

No, the safest drivers are the ones that drive the safest, not the ones that decide they're the best because of a fallacy they seem to believe. As an enforcement tool they work very well. I'd be interested in how you can explain they ensnare the safest drivers speeding, who somehow don't have the ability to see the cameras, so get caught, but also let the most dangerous drivers, who speed, but know were the cameras are, and slow down and not get caught. Surely the more competent driver can read the road ahead better, and react to the cameras, not totally miss them?

Stoke

jase1 wrote: »

But that still doesn't give you the right to willfully force others to change direction or speed.

The speeder is not forcing other drivers to do anything. A group of speeders may be preventing you from overtaking, but this is not a deliberate act of malice (by definition because the problem only arises if there are many speeders in convoy).

You on the other hand are proposing to deliberately place yourself in the path of a faster-moving vehicle. The speed is irrelevant in this case -- your actions are akin to someone pulling out of a junction directly in front of another driver.

Your logic is ridiculous -- it is equivalent to saying that a convoy of 70mph traffic is 'forcing' someone following a lorry at 60mph to slow down.

It is always incumbent on the person changing lanes to exercise due care and attention. Always. Your post indicates that you do not exercise due care and attention -- and worse, that you deliberately put other road users in harm's way. You are an utter menace, and the sooner you are caught, and prosecuted, the better.

Your actions are orders of magnitude worse than someone travelling at marginally over the limit -- and are not far removed from insurance fraud, if the truth be told.

Spot on.

IanMSpencer wrote: »

There is a word for that.

This is the speeder fallacy - if you can drive fast you are a safe, skilled driver. If you drive slow you are clearly a blind granny.

It is probably a show of skill that a driver can tailgate at 95 to get the incompetent idiot in front out of the way.

I would suggest that the success of average speed cameras through roadworks in modifying traffic flow shows exactly that they make roads safer where without them we had excessive and dangerous stop start driving because drivers refused to moderate their own behaviour.

This is absolute guff. Get off your high horse and start thinking logically for a second. Nobody is saying if you drive slow you're a blind granny and if you drive fast you're as good as Lewis Hamilton. Stop muddying the water to fit your own agenda. Two points have been made:
1. If you're driving unnecessarily slowly, e.g. 30mph in a 60mph zone along the A34 with no blind bends, no winding roads and conditions are good, there is the suggestion that you are a selfish driver because you're forcing others behind you to slow down.

2. If you cut out on speeding traffic and intentionally slow them down to the speed limit then you are just as dangerous, if not more so, than the person speeding.

Both points are valid, and in my opinion, both are true.

Cornucopia

The problem is that you're characterising a legitimate overtake as "cutting out".

Most scenarios are more like this: I want/need to overtake at 70mph or thereabouts, and I can see a vehicle 1/4 mile behind me. What effort should I make to try to estimate whether that vehicle is not doing 70mph, too, but rather more? The answer: very little.

And you're characterising slow driving as selfish. You can't do that unless you know why they are driving slowly.

The fundamentals of road safety are pretty straightforward - drive within the space you know to be clear. It doesn't matter whether that potential obstruction beyond your clear vision is a bend, a flock of sheep or a slow vehicle - if you are driving to that one simple rule, there will be no incident.