Be Excellent To Each Other

I have no points which is amazing really.

Surely that's just more people being caught, though?

Jesus. It's no wonder they can't find my stolen bike.

I don't either. Any more.

I do my own 'go-slow' protest against speed cameras.

More motorists + more cameras = more tickets. Shocker!

I wouldn't mind if they genuinely showed any care for road safety, instead of just appearing to want more money. As it stands, in most situations my only fear of speeding is the fine. Most of the bad driving I've seen has been committed well under the speed limits.

Also: when part of the A41 near my house has had its speed limit lowered by 20mph along the whole stretch because of one small slightly-dangerous hill, and you see the Police out in force with their cameras pulling over everyone for minor speeding offences, it's no wonder the public has absolutely no confidence in their judgement of what constitutes actual policing.

Come and dust my bike for prints, you fucking cunts. Don't send me a letter saying you can't solve the case when you didn't even bother turning up to the appointment you made me stay in all day for. Utter fucking lunacy.

I thought the A41 ran from the A34.M40 junction into bicester?

I like speed cameras, and for all the cunts that whine and moan about how its just the government wanting to make money, how about they slow the fuck down and observe the legal speed limit, and then it won't cost them a penny! How mind-numbingly simple!

20 = 20mph
30 = 30mph
40 = 40mph
50 = 50mph
(/) = Go like fuck.

That's correct, isnt it?

EDIT: Going down to cornwall and back with the cruise control set at 70 mph, the car gave back 68.4 mpg. Which was brilliant.

@ CG Fuck that.

Doesn't bother me if you want to cough up money for no reason other than impatience.

I haven't refilled the tank of my new car yet, it's done 350 miles and I've got just under a quarter-tank left. I drive and accelerate conservatively.

Isn't it the case that money raised by ['safety' -Ed.] cameras supposed to only be spent on roads anyway, so councils don't really benefit from the proceeds?

It's quite a long road, though I don't think it's entirely in one piece. I followed it on Google Maps once. It goes from somewhere south-east of Birmingham all the way up to Birkenhead on the Wirral.



I'll drive as fast as is safe; sometimes slower than the posted limit, sometimes faster*. You can't put a black line on the safe speed. Fuck it.

*like on the fairly newly surfaced 2-mile long stretch of road on the way to work. The road surface was fine, but they hadn't bothered putting road markings on for weeks. Result = 10mph limit. I'd say it was perfectly safe to be doing 100mph+ on that stretch of road, and if I can maintain grip at that speed on my bike, you can sure as hell do it in a car. Yet you can bet your arse if they had Police with cameras there, they'd be pulling you over for doing 15mph.

edit: I don't have any points, and have never been fined. I slow down for cameras, then speed up back to what I deem safe afterwards. Most cameras are bottlenecks, and force drivers to stare at their speedometers rather than at the road. The most stupid driving I've ever seen has been entirely centred around speed camera sites.

@CG: Will it bother you when all the policeman are too busy pointing a camera at cars to look for your bike?

I think topic was mentioned on the other forum and someone, quite rightly, pointed out that it is a speed limit! It's not a speed recommendation, the limit.. the actual limit you should drive is that number there in the red circle.

You are Victor Meldrew AICMFP

I rarely see Traffic police.

I saw one all the way up from cornwall on sunday afternoon, and that was it.

I saw three on the trip from Newcastle to London yesterday (all Volvo's, one unmarked), and used the nifty 'get an artic between you and them' to shoot off and play in the lovely, lovely empty road they create until the next junction.

Given cameras are entirely automated, I don't see what you mean.

He's referring to the mobile cameras - the vans of police sat by the side of the road with a camera on a tripod.

Anyway - speeding versus non-speeding discussions are DULL.





I have six points.

They have Robo-vans now!?!

I have no points. Sometimes I go a bit fast on the motorway, but other than that I tend to stick to the speed limits. Well, I might get up to 34 for a bit in a 30 before dropping back down, but you know what I mean.

Oh, my points are from motorway driving.

Because it's a hell of a lot safer to drive at a safe speed than with one eye on the speedo making damn sure you don't stray over and the other desperately scanning the hedges looking for the cunningly hidden "Visible" speed camera.

Because speed cameras are invariably hosted at the bottom of slight hills where you're likely to stray over.

Because speed cameras have replaced policemen and have no sense of situation. 80mph on the M4 at 3am is not dangerous, but you'll be caught. 70mph on a crowded wet M4 at 7pm weaving between cars like mad is suicide, but these people now have a licence to do it.

Because the introduction of speed cameras reversed a decade long consistent fall in road deaths.



Wrong. The only effective speed cameras are mobile ones, these are not automated. Even so plenty of fixed ones now have police hanging out half a mile ahead to pull you over if it snaps you.

--

For full disclosure, I have been caught twice in my life.

Once by a camera illegally hiding behind a bridge on the Wendover bypass. This, while technically a single lane in either direction is as wide as 6 cars. I was doing 71 in what is technically a 60 as I passed someone, which you need to do 10mph faster for it to be safe.

The other was a completely empty dual carridgeway down a hill. I was caught by an unmarked van, in the parking bay of the OPPOSITE carridgeway. Also completely illegal.

I never said I didn't go fast in my car, but rather don't get caught by speed cameras, or otherwise drive fast or erratically enough to have ever caught the attention of any traffic police. As previously discussed, if I encounter an arsehole on the motorway I'll try my hardest to piss them off, preferably resulting in their death.

Drive slower if you'd like to be not caught, 'illegal' or not.

Veering slightly off topic, every time I drive on the M4 a National Express coach tries to kill me. Is it just me they hate, or do they go after other people, too?

Fixed cameras are entirely automated (apart from the collecting and developing film/SD cards and manual verification and printing and packing and posting), all the handheld laser ones, van-mounted ones and speedometers in cars aren't.

I have no points because I am observant and drive safely within the conditions. Although I'm wondering if I'll get a ticket from last weekend in North Wales, where I was too busy wondering what the two guys dressed in black and black hats were doing to that black motorbike in the shadows next to that wall THEY'RE COPPERS POINTING A BLACK CAMERA AT ME NOWAIWHATCUNTSohshitI'mindicating32now. Seriously, black everything, set way back from the road in the shadow of a large tree and wall - the only indication of being police being a small band of checking, like what you get on the sides of police cars, around the left arm. Which of course wasn't reflecting, them being in shadows during the day. I mean, it's North Wales police so bastardiness is expected (hence wondering if I'm going to get a ticket for 32 in a 30), but that's a new low.

So ignore all my other points. Somewhat disappointing. I nearly didn't include those because the temptation for a Stu like arguer is always to ignore anything that actually makes them look wrong and nitpick a single line, but I thought "Nah, Comical won't do that."

Super.

The point is, I was doing nothing dangerous in either case and in one case was CONSIDERABLY SAFER than the person doing a blanket 60. The rules for visible speed cameras exist so people don't have to do the hedge/speedo dance and are routinely ignored.

But if you're going to be a Rev style cunt about this one I'm not interested.

Are speed cameras manned then? Do they have teeny tiny little policemen sat in them pulling the "flash" lever?



Speed limits are what has been determined to be the maximum safe speed on that stretch of road in good conditions, and based on the average driver. And I'd rather take the local authority civil engineers' views on when it's safe to do 60 than rely on the common sense of some twat in a chavved up Nova (sure, some people know when and how to drive safely, but 95% don't).

Oh, I agree that the speed limits can stand to be changed upwards in certain areas (motorways could definitely be a bit higher, for instance, as per certain more enlightened continental countries), and that a road can be safe to do 40 in at one time of day and only safe to do 25 at another, but I'd still much prefer that decision to be taken by the government or local authority than by the individual driver. How many people *under* estimate how good a driver they are? The person setting the speed limit also knows better than someone just passing through the area that although the first section of that 30 stretch looks like it's all country lane and safe to do 50, just around the corner is a zebra crossing in front of a school which at 50 you'd be unable to stop for.

I'd not trust 95% of drivers to make a decision on what is the maximum safe speed they should be doing. There are precious few drivers who are as careful and unlikely to cause an accident as the pro-speed people on here claim to be.

And in any event, from a legal point of view how on earth would you enforce a speed limit which is determined by the skill of the driver (which appears to be the alternative to our red cirlces with numbers in)? How would you even determine it in the first place?

Far simpler, and easier to enforce, is to have set speed limits for set stretches of road. We all know what they are, and if you're in such a hurry that you'd need to consider speeding, then you should just have left a little earlier.

So - yes, perhaps we should increase one or two speed limits around the place, but anything more than just increasing certain set speed limits is going to be ridiculously impossible to police, and *will* lead to more accidents.

It's clear you've no idea how speed limits are actually decided.

Provide evidence, preferably in the form of an independant study, otherwise you're just talking shite.

I don't really give a fuck if YOU think driving at speed is safe. The fact is, it's illegal to do so. I'm sure loads of people think class A drugs are perfectly safe for them too, but that doesn't make it OK. As soon as you make an intelligent non-whiney point worth responding to, I will. Even if speed cameras are placed at the bottom of huge, steep hills, does that make your speedometer or your brakes stop working? Pfffft.

And again pick at the single line I removed.

I'm not entering a debate on that basis. Go back to WOS if that's what you like.

Oh aye, and I went past a poorly marked van on one of the roads over the Pennines on Easter Sunday, accelerating to 57 in the 50, because the cars in front (all with space for me to reinsert) were doing 40-45 and overtaking at exactly 50 wouldn't have been safe. Nothing came of that, presumably because they would have had to retrain the camera in the couple of seconds I was speeding before slowing and slotting back in.

I drive at elevnty-kabillion miles an hour, and slow down when my SatNav says 'beep beep beep'. Then I speed up again.
I've got no points. If the country doesn't want me to drive at 115mph*, don't sell me a car that can. *shrugs*

*That's the maximum speed my cruise control will go up to, but reads at the SatNav as 109, which I'm more inclined to believe.

Thing is, it's quite blatantly obvious people see such speeds as a target, and with the knowledge that this is the case, local councils should act accordingly, and the police in general should take a more common sense approach (not least also because speedometers are wildly inaccurate anyway). In town centres and near schools/popular routes for schoolchildren, limits should be routinely dropped to 20. However on the motorway, in conditions when it's safe to drive faster, blind eyes should be turned to people driving sensibly (or the limit should be raised to 80). I'd also like to see the points system revised, to enable minor offences to be given a single point, rather than 3, but that's clearly never going to happen.

Regarding speed cameras in general, it's funny how they're almost always used in this area in fast roads that have a 60 limit. Frankly, I'd love to see cameras on Fleet Road, which runs from the edge of our street. It's the main road through Fleet, joins the centre with the train station, and has housing each side. Cars often drive along there at 50+, which is totally fucking insane. Motorcyclists are even worse, driving like crazy people along this road and the motorways near here (number of 'near misses' on the way back from Thorpe Park via the M25 and M3 yesterday: 2).

I'd like to see the rationale behind double-white centre lines, too. Like the several stretches of them on the way to work, where the road is perfectly straight with no junctions, yet I'll likely get 9 points for even thinking about crossing them to get past some dick who hasn't noticed the speed limit changed to 60mph half a mile ago and is still going 25.

I guess it's because they couldn't be arsed changing settings on the machine.

You removed the line? Sorry, I don't go back to check your post after I've quoted it, so if you'd like to avoid looking silly I recommend thinking harder about what you post before you do so

So how's living back in feudal times working out for you then?

Yeah, they pluck the number out of the air, don't they. To piss you and Jeremy Clarkson off.

We have the local highways authority people currently reviewing the speed limits on our road, thankfully. Needed moreso now they're removing the mirror which aids pulling out of the blind junction halfway along.

Anyway:



If you need to look at your speedo to tell that you're at a constant speed you're a shit driver and shouldn't be on the road anyway.



Really? Do your brakes not work very well?



This I absolutely agree with. However, it's not an argument against speed cameras. It's an argument against inappropriate reliance on them. The perfect solution would be speed cameras plus traffic police, rather than just one or the other. The lack of police leads to many rpoblems, and the lack of cameras would just mean people tanking along until they saw a white car.

I'd be happier with all speed cmaeras being hidden, actually, so you don't know where they are and people stick to the limit the whole bloody time.



[citation needed]

This comes down to "I know better than the government, I want to go fast, and I'm a safe and responsible driver so I should be allowed".

Well, maybe you are. But the other 95% of drivers certainly aren't, and we can't just have one law for the safest drivers and one for the shits. The traffic laws have to bring everyone down to the common denominator, I'm afraid. Deal with it.

And I note you had a go at comical for ignoring all the points in your post, and then do the same yourself with my earlier one. Back to WOS with you.

oh.

Indeed, I have no problem with policing speed limits. I have problems with blanket no judgement policing of anything. You were a safe driver there, someone passing at 50 would not be.



Couldn't tell you but speed limits are NOT decided by the civil engineers, they just organise signage. I know this, my brother did this job. The limits are designed by council committees with no experts on based on whatever "Initiative" is going on that week. Bucks CC is deliberately trying to reduce ALL 60s to 50s because that's their thing right now for instance. It has nothing to do with safety reports, just a bunch of old unqualified people in a room.



No it's worse than that, they use the same logic that results in fortnightly bin collections.



Straying 2mph over some arbitrary limit is considerably safer than braking on perfectly normal roads.



Oh bollocks. If you're telling me you could maintain an exact 30, with no speedo, over multiple miles, up and down hills and round corners you're a liar.

Lack of due care and attention, (death by) dangerous driving? Creating a public nuisance (for the twat near me who has a modded quad bike and drives brakingACCELERATINGbrakingACCELERATING) so as to create as loud a noise as possible, as much as possible?

Edit: The awesome IoM "driving furiously" for the completely unrestricted stretches?

The problem is that Dudley went back and editted his posts to omit and include various things which I surprisingly didn't notice. Lots of 'You're like Stu', accusations that suddenly popped up after the original post, very upsetting.

Has anyone got any figures for road deaths or accidents on the autobahn stretches of road where there are no speed limits?

I'm someone who has been caught for speeding. 46 in a 30mph zone. I could wax lyrical about how I don't think a 30 limit is appropriate for that road, but it's not me who gets to decide.

The copper who pulled me over informed me he had zapped me from 800m away, so by the time I would have even seen him, he'd have nearly finished writing the ticket

Eh? A light touch of the brakes all the way down the hill to stay at a constant 60 is hardly dangerous, you nutter. I wasn't suggesting you brake suddenly for the camera, but to use your brakes to not go over the limit in the first place.




With a very occasional check, yes I can. Not the constant staring at it that you're exaggeratedly implying is necessary.

Have you heard the horrible noise a car engine makes when forced to go as low as 30 though? Better to stay going faster.

I answered the only relevant one I thought. The rest appeared to largely agree with me or I accept.



Only old ones. In 1993, the autobahns had 813 fatalities, i.e. about 12% of the 6,926 road deaths on all roads combined.

This makes the autobahn the safest roads in Germany (although they point out Rural portions are restricted to ~75mph)

"Dangerous driving" and "due care and attention" are subjective enough offences as it is, without making one's speed entirely policed by that offence as well. Speed is measurable, see.

Excellent - so you agree that we should not rely on the individual driver to determine what is the maximum safe speed he should be driving at, then? Given that most drivers are a lot less capable of driving safely than they think they are?