Speed Cameras

[Westley]

Only because they site them where everyone (even little old ladies) know it's perfectly safe to exceed the limit. And if you stick to the limit you cause chaos and create perfect conditions for an accident.

Most cameras are sited purely for money, not where needed. They even moved one by us that had been up a couple of weeks, they moved it about 50 yards to just out of sight. Is that in the interests of road safety then, surely if you can see it you'll slow down?

 

I have already said that the road outside my house is 3 lanes width, dead straight for some 1/2 mile length, 30mph. and again on your principle, the average speed is in excess of 50mph. There is an RTC on average of one per month, caused in 99.9 per cent by speed. At the end of the wide stretch where the 50mph starts, there is a lovely bunch of flowers and a Football scarf, they are around 5 weeks old now. Oh, and there are no speed cameras, either visible or invisible. No I would NOT have to slow down for the camera hidden around a corner because I would be doing the maximum permitted speed limit in the first place. You seem to have some difficulty understanding the fact that if the speed limit is 30 the average speed is 40 and this goes up pro rata. This is a known fact. Anyway I am bored now, carry on with your what is obviously a highly skilled method of driving, I do hope that you do not pay too much 'TAX' and refrain from becoming a statistic. BYE.

[rodp]

I just hope I never get stuck behind you on the road !

 

Bye

[Westley]

I just hope I never get stuck behind you on the road !

 

Bye

 

Don't worry, you won't !

[shaun4860]

Threads like this are very emotive and always end up getting personal,

 

We then have to spend time cleaning it up or closing it, for which WE get slated,

 

Lets not take this one down that route please

 

[neil w]

 

I have already said that the road outside my house is 3 lanes width, dead straight for some 1/2 mile length, 30mph. and again on your principle, the average speed is in excess of 50mph. There is an RTC on average of one per month, caused in 99.9 per cent by speed. At the end of the wide stretch where the 50mph starts, there is a lovely bunch of flowers and a Football scarf, they are around 5 weeks old now. Oh, and there are no speed cameras, either visible or invisible. No I would NOT have to slow down for the camera hidden around a corner because I would be doing the maximum permitted speed limit in the first place. You seem to have some difficulty understanding the fact that if the speed limit is 30 the average speed is 40 and this goes up pro rata. This is a known fact. Anyway I am bored now, carry on with your what is obviously a highly skilled method of driving, I do hope that you do not pay too much 'TAX' and refrain from becoming a statistic. BYE.

Total, sense abide by the law. Good post-Westley.

[rodp]

Threads like this are very emotive and always end up getting personal,

 

We then have to spend time cleaning it up or closing it, for which WE get slated,

 

Lets not take this one down that route please

 

You'll get no bother from me, it's just a thread on a forum and I'll not let it wind me up. Everyone has a right to their opinion, no matter who agrees or disagrees with it. I have my view and westley has his, not worth falling out over.

[neil w]

You'll get no bother from me, it's just a thread on a forum and I'll not let it wind me up. Everyone has a right to their opinion, no matter who agrees or disagrees with it. I have my view and westley has his, not worth falling out over.

You, have just saved yourself from 10 forum lashings.

[keg]

I hate speeders through my village but will happily speed on the motorway as it's unlikely a child or old person will walk/run out in front of me.

 

What does wind me up are the mouth breathers that try and cross a road when perfectly good crossing is just a few yards away.

[rodp]

You, have just saved yourself from 10 forum lashings.

It's the truth though, we have to agree to disagree and not let temper take over, far too old for that now

[welsh1]

I think you will find that speed doesn't kill,it is the sudden stop that usually does that.

 

When people say you should be allowed to drive appropriately for the road and conditions,the problem you have is a great deal of drivers have no true concept of their skill level and most will crash should something happen to make them lose control for a split second, the same can be said about reading the road ahead of you continuously,identifying problems ahead and reacting to them appropriately.the safest thing to do is obey the speed limit,that way you don't get points and a fine,if you want some speed book a track day,or get over to Germany and get on a bit of unrestricted autobahn,but be warned the Germans will let you know if your lane discipline is bad.

[keg]

I see it on the motorway most days Rob, people get on, sit in lane 2 and switch off.

 

Sat nav right in the middle of the screen.

 

Recently i set the cruise control at 79 which is 76 in real terms and a car in front kept slowing down so i overtook, pulled back in, a min or two later same again. My speed remained constant but he/she did this for over 20 miles, complete lack of concentration if you cannot maintain a speed.

[rodp]

You'll probably find your own speed would vary by 5mph (ish) without cruise control. I never set it, never think about it.

[welsh1]

I see it on the motorway most days Rob, people get on, sit in lane 2 and switch off.

 

Sat nav right in the middle of the screen.

 

Recently i set the cruise control at 79 which is 76 in real terms and a car in front kept slowing down so i overtook, pulled back in, a min or two later same again. My speed remained constant but he/she did this for over 20 miles, complete lack of concentration if you cannot maintain a speed.

Lane discipline in the UK is very poor,I know what you mean about the overtakers,there are also the ones that speed up as you are overtaking them on cc then when ahead of you slow down again to repeat the cycle.motorways are dangerous places and you need to stay constantly alert,when something goes wrong on a motorway it happens very quickly because of the speeds involved and if you are not alert you can find yourself in trouble very quickly..

[keg]

You'll probably find your own speed would vary by 5mph (ish) without cruise control. I never set it, never think about it.

This was by more than 5mph, prob sped up by 20 mph then slow down again.

[Rupert]

They are yet another tax.

 

An entirely optional tax, I love it when the cameras flash on the 62, that's some tax I don't have to pay, turn them all on, everywhere and put up the fines.

Edited April 17, 2015 by Rupert

[Carman06]

I'm not sure about anyone else on here. But I feel I have noticed a distinct reduction in people's speed on the motorway (M1 & some of M6) over recent years. It seems if I set my cruise control to say 72mph which is prob more like 69mph in real terms. I am constantly overtaking as though most people are doing no more than 62mph instead on what is essentially a calm day and not overerly busy. Yet when I hit j4 of the M6 no one is doing less than 80mph.

[shaun4860]

I'm not sure about anyone else on here. But I feel I have noticed a distinct reduction in people's speed on the motorway (M1 & some of M6) over recent years. It seems if I set my cruise control to say 72mph which is prob more like 69mph in real terms. I am constantly overtaking as though most people are doing no more than 62mph instead on what is essentially a calm day and not overerly busy. Yet when I hit j4 of the M6 no one is doing less than 80mph.

Do you think that may have something to do with the price of fuel?

 

People try to get as much economy as they can these days, and around 60mph uses quite a bit less fuel than say 80mph

 

I normally set the sat nav at 70, which for some reason is around 75 on the speedo?

 

[rbrowning2]

May be with the technology of the future each and every vehicle will have a smart box and the speeding cameras will be replaced with transmitters so when you enter say a 30 mph zone the smart box is told the maximum speed is 30mph and it limits the car to that speed, etc for other roads or road conditions ie poor visibility on a motorway so a reduced max set. Different max speeds would also be set for different type of vehicles, lorries, cars etc.

 

So then speeding would be a think of the past.

Edited April 17, 2015 by rbrowning2

[Cannon]

That smart box idea will probably never be brought into service. Say you're on a single car width road that's 3 miles long, and the speed limit for that road is 30mph. You've just pulled onto the road and your car is toodling along at 30, when suddenly an unrestricted emergency vehicle pulls onto the road behind you trying to get to a heart attack victim. You've nowhere to go because youre surrounded by hedges either side with nowhere to pull over, and the emergency vehicle has no choice but to follow at the speed limit. Lives could be lost as a result of technology. Check out the 85th percentile speed theory. I think this has a good amount of merit. The highway codes stopping distances aren't incorrect, because there are still vehicles driving on the roads that just about meet the stopping distance criteria. The highway code details could only ever change if it could be proven that every road vehicle could consistently stop short of the minimum distance.

Edited April 17, 2015 by Cannon

[jimmydean]

Just a few thoughts based on the comments read.

 

Whilst everyone has an 'opinion', reducing road casualties has been a very successful 'profession' and is a DUTY on local Council's - they cant not do it.

There used to be a separation between professional officers in Council's who did their professional best to advise what would work and what would not - like you employ a pilot to fly your aircraft, but control where he flies to.

There was always a professional view that general speed limits should be understood as reasonable and would therefore be respected - this translated into what was called the 85%ile speed i.e. 85% of motorists chose to be driving at, based on site measurements. Speed limits therefore used to be set on 85%ile speeds or a method which was related to that.

Where casualties started occurring, a detailed analysis would be carried out by specialist Acc Invest staff (trained) to eliminate the potential factors which made this particular place especially dangerous, (lack of conspicuity, accidents during wet situation etc); speed was often found to be a contributory factor.

 

Things changed, two factors were responsible - the first was that local politicians expected and insisted that officers of a Council do as they were told by the elected representatives of the people. So professional independence, a brake on thoughtless action was removed. Best practice for such things as this in Britain were exported all over the world because of the results they achieved.

Second was financial. Money became tight and two factors came in to play - first the need to MAKE money (parking charges etc) Money generated by speed cameras either went to the Exchequer or was committed to casualty reduction engineering - a 'virtuous circle'. Second was the relatively small percentage highway spending is of local Council budgets. Close to 80% of Council spending is on Education and Social services and yet a lot of Council's spread the pain of cuts across all Departments on a percentage basis, highways for example is mainly works oriented - stuff you build (resurface, reconstruct, some to save casualties); Education is very much more, salary based (teachers,and so forth) so, cut the budget on percentages and the bigger budgets can find some 'fat', smaller budgets get to the bone quicker.

Now we have speed limits set by politicians who 'know' what the local public want because they voted for them on other issues and budget cuts which are very much more regressive on small but important budgets.

Cuts were needed and the state should reduce further IMHO but I was once made aware that an Education budget holder hastily spent up his construction budget ( a number of millions) when the budget for resurfacing was being cut by 50%.

 

Rather perhaps than voice our opinions we should look at the facts.

Caualty reduction is vitally important work. Making cars safer is vitally important work - as we travel faster these are the improvements directly linked to facts of casualty reduction.

Money from speed cameras has altered the way we see the role of inappropriate speed management, as politicisation has altered what trained people can do to ensure and maintain the trust of the driving public that what is done to them is fair and based on facts and outcomes.

[Oxfordshooter]

The fact is humans are very poor at judging how skilled they are at an activity like driving, most people would say that they are above average drivers - which statistically cannot be possible.

 

I've been driving for nearly 30 years and have never been fined or given points for speeding, it's not difficult to stay within the law. However, some people seem to think that they are so skilled or special that the law shouldn't apply to them.

[jimmydean]

The fact is humans are very poor at judging how skilled they are at an activity like driving, most people would say that they are above average drivers - which statistically cannot be possible.

 

I've been driving for nearly 30 years and have never been fined or given points for speeding, it's not difficult to stay within the law. However, some people seem to think that they are so skilled or special that the law shouldn't apply to them.

Above average drivers are statistically a fact, since, if you have an average, there must be be those below average and those above. I think the point is we do not have enough information on what makes an above average driver, apart from reaction time (maybe) and our own personal arraogance. I would also say that often casualties are caused by the least able or mistakenly overconfident drivers.

I am sure we have all seen the recent story where a guy was caught speeding and attended a speed awareness course and was killed on the way back from the course whilst texting on his phone.

Sad for his family - but the whole point was clearly lost on him.

[Westley]

That smart box idea will probably never be brought into service. Say you're on a single car width road that's 3 miles long, and the speed limit for that road is 30mph. You've just pulled onto the road and your car is toodling along at 30, when suddenly an unrestricted emergency vehicle pulls onto the road behind you trying to get to a heart attack victim. You've nowhere to go because youre surrounded by hedges either side with nowhere to pull over, and the emergency vehicle has no choice but to follow at the speed limit. Lives could be lost as a result of technology. Check out the 85th percentile speed theory. I think this has a good amount of merit. The highway codes stopping distances aren't incorrect, because there are still vehicles driving on the roads that just about meet the stopping distance criteria. The highway code details could only ever change if it could be proven that every road vehicle could consistently stop short of the minimum distance.

 

I would not worry too much, most people would not know it was behind them to start with ! Thank God for the Air Ambulance then.

Edited April 17, 2015 by Westley

[keg]

The fact is humans are very poor at judging how skilled they are at an activity like driving, most people would say that they are above average drivers - which statistically cannot be possible.

 

I've been driving for nearly 30 years and have never been fined or given points for speeding, it's not difficult to stay within the law. However, some people seem to think that they are so skilled or special that the law shouldn't apply to them.

I have been driving about the same length of time ( passed my test in Jan 1984) and have had a number of points but then again for most of those years I have averaged between 35-55,000 miles a year.

 

I agree that it's not difficult to stay within the law but then again i think speeding on a motorway is a lot safer than speeding in a a built up area. Bar one, all my points have been motorway based.

 

At 1:00 am on an empty road is 85 too fast? I know we cannot pick and choose laws, it's just sense in applying them..

[keg]

 

I would not worry too much, most people would not know it was behind them to start with ! Thank God for the Air Ambulance then.

I see that most days on the motorway. Most recent was a Fiat 500, just going over Thelwall and he has no lights on apart from some poxy daytime ones nothing on at the rear and no pool of light in front. People were flashing, tooting and pointing. Oblivious because he had headphones in!!