Why is speeding socially acceptable?

sevenhills

Guerillatoker wrote: »

Our motorways have an attitude problem not a speed problem. If people showed proper lane and distance discipline I dare bet we would be safer even if the limit was 100mph.

Does everyone have the ability to judge distances and speed if they were to now start nipping in and out?
I would favour a minimum speed limit, I have passed work colleagues going slowly on the motorway, because they were too early for the school run, I was early too.

andygb

Cornucopia wrote: »

However, I travel regularly on the A2/M2 in Kent which is 40 miles of motorway that is largely unpoliced for reasons I do not understand. It definitely needs something.

There are regular Highways Patrol vehicles on the A2/M2 and there are unmarked police vehicles - dark grey BMW 3 series - and marked police cars.

Cornucopia

andygb wrote: »

There are regular Highways Patrol vehicles on the A2/M2 and there are unmarked police vehicles - dark grey BMW 3 series - and marked police cars.

I go up and down there 3 or 4 times a week and there are regular appearances by Highways Agency vehicles - I see them perhaps weekly on incidents and maybe 2-3 times a month on patrol. I've not seen Police vehicles for months, probably longer, nor anyone stopped by them. Catching speeding vehicles (cars, vans and HGVs) should be like shooting fish in a barrel in that area.

Do Highways Agency have speed enforcement responsibilities - there seems to be some confusion over that.

edit: No, according to Google.

Jackmydad

George_Michael wrote: »

The Mk1 Ford Escort was first made in late 1967.

https://visual.ly/community/infographic/transportation/history-ford-escort-micksgaragecom

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Squire#Ford_Escort
There was an earlier vehicle with the same name,

Guerillatoker

sevenhills wrote: »

Does everyone have the ability to judge distances and speed if they were to now start nipping in and out?

Sorry sevenhills, I'm probably being daft but I can't figure out what you are asking here.

sevenhills

Guerillatoker wrote: »

Sorry sevenhills, I'm probably being daft but I can't figure out what you are asking here.

If you are a car young driver, you may think its easy to change lanes, if you drove a larger vehicle you might change lanes a lot less.
Then there is the slowing down, and eventually speeding up again.
How often do you get people hogging the middle lane, very rarely.in my vehicle I must not drive in the outside lane.

fred246

If nothing else this thread demonstrates the need for plenty more people to go on speed awareness courses.

Guerillatoker

sevenhills wrote: »

If you are a car young driver, you may think its easy to change lanes, if you drove a larger vehicle you might change lanes a lot less.
Then there is the slowing down, and eventually speeding up again.
How often do you get people hogging the middle lane, very rarely.in my vehicle I must not drive in the outside lane.

I see people hogging the middle lane on a daily basis tbh. If you are driving a large vehicle and you cannot safely change lanes then just stay in the left hand lane. Changing lanes shouldn't be difficult for a license holder.

I wasn't taking a stab at HGV drivers btw (They get a lot more flak than they deserve) just using it as an example of how slow some car drivers go on the motorway. In my experience the worst drivers are those in the Micro, Hatchback and Family class cars.

luckyduck83

Guerillatoker wrote: »

Have you ever been involved in an accident?

I haven't.

System

consumers_revenge wrote: »

Speeding wrecks life’s. Simples.

Not as much as the police, government and the amount of money invested in its enforcement would have you believe. They were forced to admit a couple of years ago after the ONS released accident statistics based on the police's own accident investigations that speeding was only a contributory factor in 5% of all accidents and fraction of a percent above that in KSIs. Inappropriate speed, where you're within the limit but driving too fast for the conditions, was a contributory factor in 6%. The biggest factor by far was driver error at 49%.

So no, speeding doesn't wreck lives anywhere near as much as people think or are led to believe.

I also see HGVs mentioned a lot. The vast majority of us never kept to the speed limits of 40MPH on a SC A road or 50MPH on a dual carriageway. Most of us would do 50MPH on the SCs and on the limiter on the DCs. On 6th April 2015 the UK government increased HGV speed limits from 40MPH-50MPH on single carriageway roads and from 50MPH to 60MPH on dual carriageways in England and Wales (Scotland still on old limits apart from test stretches of A9). They basically legitimised what the majority of us had been doing perfectly fine and with no increase in risk. If speeding was so dangerous then why did the government increase the speed limits for vehicles that can weigh 44 tonnes by 25% on the smaller roads and 20% on the larger ones?

Catching speeding vehicles (cars, vans and HGVs) should be like shooting fish in a barrel in that area.

Impossible to catch HGVs speeding unless they've disabled their speed limiter as the limited speed is below the legal speed limit for those vehicles on those two roads.