speed limits set to fine half of all drivers?

[turbobloke]

The 85th percentile of speed has been used to set sensible safety-related speed limits for some time, though we're all aware that political correctness has taken over with arbitrary and unreasonably slow limits. If the latest DfT proposals go ahead things will get much worse, as they plan to criminalise half the driving public

This is Para 37 of the DfT's proposed "Update of Circular Roads 1/93, Setting Local Speed Limits", and it looks like it's already happening. See here and then why not send your objections and complaints to [e-mail] the only relevant e-mail address I could find on their site, there may be a better one.

[turbobloke]

Been pointed to the thread on this topic started by mybrainhurts, working away has its disadvantages like missing these gems. With the DfT replaced by an ABD and SafeSpeed coalition there might be some hope for sensible road safety, road fatalities are rising in the UK and the only reaction is heads down, plough on, rake in the loot.

[joospeed]

.. but, you're only a criminal if you break the speed limit ..
think what you will about inappropriate speed limits, if people are collecting fines and points they're driving outside the law.

What you need to do is get *every* driver to drive *within* the law .. then if there's still incidents occurring you have very strong case for the cammeras not working .. whilstever cameras are photographing drivers exceeding the speed limit the public's case for no cameras is severely weakened.

I find I can make very good progress by driving within the speed limits (I also exceed speed limits sometimes, but that's a personal choice) .. whether I drive at 70 or 90 on the motorway seems to make little difference to my journey .. and I find driving at just under 60 on the motorway very relaxing indeed so that's the speed i drive at mostly on posted speed limit roads i rarely excedd the limit, maybe less than 1% of my driving ...

I don't really understand why drivers need to break the limits

[v8thunder]

joospeed said:

I don't really understand why drivers need to break the limits

We're not talking about a need to break limits, but the fact that the merest infraction of such is deemed more dangerous than not watching the road. I'm sure the majority of speeding 'offences' are barely noticeable and completely unintentional.

Also, a lot of our speed limits, especially on motorways, are way too low for their own good.

[joospeed]

yup ok I understand that .. if the speed limit on motorways was 100mph I'd probably drive at 80 .. still faster than i do now and faster than the current limit .. maybe what i should have said was i don't understand why drivers have to break the law* ... even though I've done it myself .. when I was younger of course it was just because I liked to drive fast and it was fun, not in itself a good argument for raising limits.

In italy they raised some* motorway speed limits because it was found to be safer .. now there's a good reason .. safety!

[safespeed]

joospeed said:

What you need to do is get *every* driver to drive *within* the law...

I know it seems obvious that we need drivers behaving legally, but it turns out not to be so simple. We don't need precise adherence to speed limits. We do need safe and appropriate speeds, but for the very large part we have those already.

joospeed said:

I don't really understand why drivers need to break the limits

Here's why:

www.safespeed.org.uk/why.html

[turbobloke]

joospeed said:

maybe what i should have said was i don't understand why drivers have to break the law

It's because safety and the law have parted company and the law on speed limit enforcement now exists primarily to extract indirect speed tax from motorists. Driving at too slow a speed for the conditions is soporific and leads to inattention, while the proliferation of speed cameras has led drivers to concentrate on their speedo rather than the road ahead using their skills of anticipation and hazard recognition. It's this combination that is causing problems not curing them.

[alexf]

joospeed said:

.. but, you're only a criminal if you break the speed limit .. think what you will about inappropriate speed limits, if people are collecting fines and points they're driving outside the law.

And since everyone does it (80% of drivers admit to it), the law is clearly wrong, so the limits should be raised (to safe speeds, set by road engineers, not by politicians).

joospeed said:

What you need to do is get *every* driver to drive *within* the law .. then if there's still incidents occurring you have very strong case for the cammeras not working .. whilstever cameras are photographing drivers exceeding the speed limit the public's case for no cameras is severely weakened.

Since we already know the law is wrong, and these absurdly low speed limits will not benefit road safety, why not fix the law now, instead of just enforcing it to the point of 100% compliance and then saying "ok it was a bad policy, so let's raise those limits now."?

joospeed said:

I find I can make very good progress by driving within the speed limits (I also exceed speed limits sometimes, but that's a personal choice) .. whether I drive at 70 or 90 on the motorway seems to make little difference to my journey

Regardless of your perception, it reduces your journey time on those sections by 22%.

If everyone were travelling at the safe speed for the conditions, instead of cruising along at some arbitrary limit, your journey time would be reduced even more, because there would be less accidents and so less delays.

joospeed said:

.. and I find driving at just under 60 on the motorway very relaxing indeed so that's the speed i drive at mostly on posted speed limit roads i rarely excedd the limit, maybe less than 1% of my driving ...

So you set your speed according to your own judgement of what is appropriate. If only more people did this! It's unfortunate however that when our judgement indicates a speed higher than the posted limit, we are penalised for exercising it.

joospeed said:

I don't really understand why drivers need to break the limits

Because the speed limits are (deliberately) set too low.

[GreenV8S]

If everybody drove within the speed limits and there were still accidents, I'm pretty sure *somebody* would manage to conclude that it was because the speed limits were set too high.

If you're holding a hammer, everything looks like a nail. If you're holding a lucrative set of speed cameras, most accidents look speed related.

[safespeed]

GreenV8S said:

If everybody drove within the speed limits and there were still accidents, I'm pretty sure *somebody* would manage to conclude that it was because the speed limits were set too high. If you're holding a hammer, everything looks like a nail. If you're holding a lucrative set of speed cameras, most accidents look speed related.

Suppose you're a manufacturer, distributor, importer or installer of speed cameras. You have a fat budget for sales and marketing. You're going to spend it on convincing politicians and councillors that they'll be responsible for deaths if they don't buy your services.

And that may well turn out to be the exact root of the whole problem.

[turbobloke]

safespeed said:

Suppose you're a manufacturer, distributor, importer or installer of speed cameras. You have a fat budget for sales and marketing. You're going to spend it on convincing politicians and councillors that they'll be responsible for deaths if they don't buy your services. And that may well turn out to be the exact root of the whole problem.

Agreed, and when coupled to the car hating / tax grabbing / control freakery pinko-green tendencies of the current muppets-in-power, it's become a lethal cocktail.

[WildCat]

turbobloke said:

safespeed said: Suppose you're a manufacturer, distributor, importer or installer of speed cameras. You have a fat budget for sales and marketing. You're going to spend it on convincing politicians and councillors that they'll be responsible for deaths if they don't buy your services. And that may well turn out to be the exact root of the whole problem. Agreed, and when coupled to the car hating / tax grabbing / control freakery pinko-green tendencies of the current muppets-in-power, it's become a lethal cocktail.

Well said.... big business .....but they are digging themselves a big hile in ground for own funeral too...

With frightening charges for "Pay as You Go" und more drivers getting disqualified under tot-up..... sales will plummet.


This why they make L/test so easy-peasy so that they have continued fodder

[diesel ed]

joospeed said:

whilstever cameras are photographing drivers exceeding the speed limit the public's case for no cameras is severely weakened.

So that's why they are prosecuting drivers not exceeding the speed limit too!

[turbobloke]

joospeed said:

whilstever cameras are photographing drivers exceeding the speed limit the public's case for no cameras is severely weakened.

And as long as the law said it was OK, krystalnacht must have been a real barnstormer for the shirts, what were those pesky jews complaining about?

Do such folk as can merely spout 'the law is the law is the law' really have sufficiently few grey cells that they can't spot when the law isn't merely an ass but the b@st@rd offspring of a mutated donkey?

Before speed cameras - road deaths falling year on year, UK has the safest roads in the world. After speed cameras are introduced and proliferate - annual road fatality reductions fall, bottom out, and are now rising again. Coincindence? I think not. Greed cameras are indirectly killing people.

[turbobloke]

And there's more...why is the Canadian experience ignored? What's wrong with the place and its politicians - the country seems fine and the politicos are a damn sight more hionest than ours. In BC and elsewhere all forms of automated speed enforcement have been removed from the roads because
a) there were no safety benefits
b) the policy was heavy handed and arbitrary
c) greed cameras (photoradar) represented the worst of intrusive big government
d) the policy alienated the police from the public, harming witness cooperation and hindering resruitment
e) it was only sustainable with the help of a well funded spin machine
Bliar, Brunstrom, Scamps - read, learn, follow suit.

[Peter Ward]

turbobloke said:

....c) greed cameras (photoradar) represented the worst of intrusive big government

If only that were the case over here! Intrusive government is raised to much higher levels over here, compared to Canada.

Let's think, do you know how to bring up your children? Let the government tell you how. Do you know how to change your power socket? Let the government tell you not to.

[turbobloke]

Peter Ward said:

turbobloke said: ....c) greed cameras (photoradar) represented the worst of intrusive big government If only that were the case over here!

Sad but true
We now have a politician who presided over a serious failing at local authority level in terms of child protection, appointed to a government post involving child protection, telling us she is perfectly qualified and justified in intruding in family life. To quote, it's not a case of "if" the government should intrude, but "when and how".

Arrogance, incompetence, and power - a lethal cocktail, not least regarding road safety policy

[hertsbiker]

round here, they are skewing the speeds registered on the road by putting monitoring in, on roads that are either a) busy, or b) have a camera. This means people go slower anyway. SO they'll lower the limit to catch those who drive AT the old speed limit.

nasty.

[radracer]

I believe you'll find that (if it's like here in the US) that the courts pretty much control the laws in the first place (making rulings that set the law) so they have the "powers that be" set unreasonably low speed limits so their court systems have a lot of customers streaming through it paying for the judge and the other slimey lawyers vacations to countries with reasonable speed limits where driving won't make you fall asleep.