It’s all about safety!

spokey wrote: Inappropriate speed, what's that anyway? 61 in a 60 zone on a clear, dry road?

Exactly. Speed cameras do very little to reduce inappropriate speed. The simply catch people breaking an arbitrary speed limit. 85 on an empty motorway in good weather conditions is not dangerous (or inappropriate) 60mph on a busy motorway in heavy fog is.

Spokey's comparison of speeding with MRSA is a very good one. If as much time and effort was put into keeping hospitals clean and is put into catching motorist breaking a speed limit I am sure MRSA would be greatly reduced. Considering MRSA is a much bigger killer than speeding it makes no sense to me. But them catching speeders keeps people in a job and is self funding/revenue creating. Sorting MRSA just requires more effort and more money. 

hear hear peter!

of course if more motorists were allowed to die on our roads, we wouldn't have so much congestion - a) because there would be less of them, and b) the more timid ones would be too afraid to enter the network.

We could kiss goodbye to the hesitant morons who can't make a decision and put us all in danger, the old duffers who can't actually see - especially in the dark (), and all the little chavs who have no respect for the laws of physics relating to cars and plant themselves in the hedges!

with higher speed limits they would almost certainly die, so no rush to get the bodies out, and you would only need a he**** to put them in instead of the fleet of ambulance, fire, police etc. we have now.

Not such a bad idea actually.....

 

 

Edited by sleeper

I bet KB had fun typing in all those naughty, naughty words we musnt use...

Watch it pits, you don't want to get banned again do you

livvy wrote: Peter Fenwick wrote: livvy wrote: Parish's can apply to councils to vary limits to a certain degree & where they put forward a case that justifies that change then it can be introduced. Because of course local councillers are trained to make a judgement on what is an approproate speed limit aren't they. Most local councillers I know are either self serving lazy, ignorant, bast**ds or well meaning idiots. And who on these forums has had higher level training & experience to judge what is an appropriate speed limit, even though everybody here keeps offering up their qualified advice on it ?

Well I know more than most local councillers. I don't claim to be able to set speed limits, but I do have the intelligence to realise that if 60mph is safe one day then it can't be dangerous the next just because the limit is dropped to 50. Are the members of the local council trained to set speed limits? They dropped the limit on a road near me from 60 to 50 recently. Why? There had been two pedestrians killed but not in the last five years and both of them were drunk and one also drugged up to the eyeballs. I don't think there has even been a crash on the road for years, in fact I can't remeber ever seeing a crashed car. Just a stupid decision made by uninformed councillers probably because Betty who lives on the corner thinks that people drive too fast these days.

Rhys wrote: I once nearly got taken out by an artic on the motorway.. I was flashed onto a motorway from a slip road by one artic driver - then one in another artic overtook this one and decided to pull back in - where I was.. Now tell me where the the blind spots are! I had to accelarate hard after swerving onto the hard shoulder! If I hadn't I wouldn't be driving anymore. Oh, and I went faster than 70mph is that allowed in this situation?

Ooops I missed answering this bit with everything earlier.

You sped to get out of trouble, because of an error you committed prior to the speeding IMHO.

Firstly the slip road confers no right of entry to you onto the live carriageway. Think of the end of the slip road as a give way, you must not enter where you adversely affect those already on the carriageway, you must yield to them if need be.

Secondly you state that the lorry in lane 1 flashed you out. This is an assumption on your part.You took a headlmap flash to be an invitation to you, but a headlamp flash does not mean that, a headlamp flash is only a tool for someone to make you aware of their presence.
What you failed to consider was that the headlamp flash from the lorry in lane 1 was not infact for your benefit, but for the benefit of the lorry in lane 2. It is customary between lorry drivers for an overtaken lorry to flash an overtaking lorry to let them know that they have cleared them & they may pull in.

You failed to consider this & assumed best case scenario fro you, not worst case scenario. This meant you put yourself in a comprimising situation where you were entering a live carriageway in conflict with those already on it. If you were aware of the blind spots on heavies  as you state (particularly n/s mid vehicle) you should not have put yourself in that position of potential conflict with all the information that was available.

livvy wrote: Rhys wrote: I once nearly got taken out by an artic on the motorway.. I was flashed onto a motorway from a slip road by one artic driver - then one in another artic overtook this one and decided to pull back in - where I was.. Now tell me where the the blind spots are! I had to accelarate hard after swerving onto the hard shoulder! If I hadn't I wouldn't be driving anymore. Oh, and I went faster than 70mph is that allowed in this situation? Ooops I missed answering this bit with everything earlier. You sped to get out of trouble, because of an error you committed prior to the speeding IMHO. Firstly the slip road confers no right of entry to you onto the live carriageway. Think of the end of the slip road as a give way, you must not enter where you adversely affect those already on the carriageway, you must yield to them if need be. Secondly you state that the lorry in lane 1 flashed you out. This is an assumption on your part.You took a headlmap flash to be an invitation to you, but a headlamp flash does not mean that, a headlamp flash is only a tool for someone to make you aware of their presence. What you failed to consider was that the headlamp flash from the lorry in lane 1 was not infact for your benefit, but for the benefit of the lorry in lane 2. It is customary between lorry drivers for an overtaken lorry to flash an overtaking lorry to let them know that they have cleared them & they may pull in. You failed to consider this & assumed best case scenario fro you, not worst case scenario. This meant you put yourself in a comprimising situation where you were entering a live carriageway in conflict with those already on it. If you were aware of the blind spots on heavies  as you state (particularly n/s mid vehicle) you should not have put yourself in that position of potential conflict with all the information that was available.

So he made a mistake! who doesn't?

Obviously the solution was not to break the speed limit to avoid a crash it was the be crushed by the lorry but stay within the speed limit. Imagine if his car had a speed governer fitted. That mistake would have cost him his life, instead of him being able to use a little extra speed to get himself out of trouble.

Peter Fenwick wrote: So he made a mistake! who doesn't? Obviously the solution was not to break the speed limit to avoid a crash it was the be crushed by the lorry but stay within the speed limit. Imagine if his car had a speed governer fitted. That mistake would have cost him his life, instead of him being able to use a little extra speed to get himself out of trouble.

I know he made a mistake, that's what I am saying. His speeding was because of his error not others. Look a couple of pages back & you will see what I am talking about.

In the circumstances he outlined why should a Police Officer not prosecute him ?
It was his mistake that led to him speeding. A situation he created but should have forseen & dealt with by other means.

livvy wrote: Peter Fenwick wrote: Well I know more than most local councillers. I don't claim to be able to set speed limits, but I do have the intelligence to realise that if 60mph is safe one day then it can't be dangerous the next just because the limit is dropped to 50. Are the members of the local council trained to set speed limits? They dropped the limit on a road near me from 60 to 50 recently. Why? There had been two pedestrians killed but not in the last five years and both of them were drunk and one also drugged up to the eyeballs. I don't think there has even been a crash on the road for years, in fact I can't remeber ever seeing a crashed car. Just a stupid decision made by uninformed councillers probably because Betty who lives on the corner thinks that people drive too fast these days. But they will have to hand far more data to assist them in those decisions & considerations than you. Just because you haven't seen collisions it doens't mean that they don't occur. Where pedestrians are struck , whether they are drunk or not, the council will seek to use measures to limit those instances & the severity of any that still occur. Reducing speed will help in that because it will afford drivers more time.  In areas where drunks may stagger into the road, where other cost effective measures can't be used to seperate the pedestrians from vehicles, then speed limits may need to be reduced.

Local councillers, at least those in my area, are idiots. In my experience they react to residents complaints, not to actual facts. I could name one lady in particular who has a habit of taking up the cause of every wining wack job in town. It's a case of listening to the few comnplaining fools and not to the silent majority (silent because there isn't really a problem).  

get in there!! voice of the people!!