How many points(99) can you get for driving safely

[saaby93]

Or at least no-ones claiming there was a danger

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-suffolk-39901...
99 points for driving too many times through the new Orwell bridge speed limit
and for not saying who you were - someone must have worked it out.

A 6 month ban too - does that wipe out the points?

Watch out for new limits everyone

[Countdown]

How can he get points for speeding AND not telling the police who was driving? - I thought it was on or t'other?

[TooMany2cvs]

Countdown said:

How can he get points for speeding AND not telling the police who was driving? - I thought it was on or t'other?

He failed to disclose who was driving. Offence. Six points.
The magistrate decided it definitely was him anyway. Offence. Three points.

Repeat for the other ten offences.

Perhaps he was clearly identifiable from the photos?

Kinda academic, really - the minimum he could possibly be in the chair for was 33 points...

[Einion Yrth]

May well have been perfectly safe, may also not have been; the offences he's been convicted of are absolute, safety is not a consideration, only whether or not he did the deed. In effect he's been convicted of "being a bit of a dick in a built up area." Ho hum, perhaps he'll learn... "He fought the law, and the law won..."

He'll probably continue to drive, mind.

[saaby93]

Einion Yrth said:

. In effect he's been convicted of "being a bit of a dick in a built up area."

It's not a built up area
It's a bypass away from the town and it's over a huge river, To be built up it would need skyscrapers on barges!



Does it say 60 in those roundels

[Einion Yrth]

Absolute offences.
It's about compliance, not safety. If you choose not to comply ( and I certainly can't see any particular reason to bother given the location) then be sure not to get caught. We can't beat the lawmakers, but we may be able to evade them.

[rscott]

saaby93 said:

Einion Yrth said:

. In effect he's been convicted of "being a bit of a dick in a built up area."

It's not a built up area
It's a bypass away from the town and it's over a huge river, To be built up it would need skyscrapers on barges!



Does it say 60 in those roundels

It's a very clearly marked 60 area. I drive it regularly. There was a lot of publicity locally before they started enforcement, plus a period where warning were sent to drivers instead of prosecuting.

The limit hasn't made much difference to journey times - if anything, traffic seems to flow more smoothly.

[Einion Yrth]

rscott said:

saaby93 said:

Einion Yrth said:

. In effect he's been convicted of "being a bit of a dick in a built up area."

It's not a built up area
It's a bypass away from the town and it's over a huge river, To be built up it would need skyscrapers on barges!



Does it say 60 in those roundels

It's a very clearly marked 60 area. I drive it regularly. There was a lot of publicity locally before they started enforcement, plus a period where warning were sent to drivers instead of prosecuting.

The limit hasn't made much difference to journey times - if anything, traffic seems to flow more smoothly.

Is the traffic density in that photo typical? If it is then a 60 limit is ridiculous. If not, dunno what is typical?

[rscott]

Einion Yrth said:

Is the traffic density in that photo typical? If it is then a 60 limit is ridiculous. If not, dunno what is typical?

No, that's not typical. It's the main road to the port of Felixstowe, so has a lot of heavy goods traffic, plus traffic heading up the A12 toward Lowestoft.
There's also quite a bit of local traffic which uses it to get to the east side of Ipswich for the hospital, industrial and retail parks, Trinity Park showground, etc.

[TooMany2cvs]

Reduced from NSL/70 to 60 in summer 2016 - Google's streetview is before the restriction. Average speed cameras installed at the same time.

And it caught a HUGE number in the first few months... Up to FORTY PEOPLE per day in August, with the average settling down to about TWENTY per day! Disgusting! Terrible! Entrapment! Oh. Wait. Hold on... Fewer than one an hour, across both directions? On a bridge taking the traffic of two major trunk routes (A12, A14), including the main access to one of the country's major ports? That's not actually that many, is it?

http://www.ipswichstar.co.uk/news/more-than-6-000-...

Highest speed caught? 113mph...

[agtlaw]

The Defendant didn't reply to the s.172 forms. He apparently also didn't reply to the court when proceedings commenced - as he was 'convicted in absence.'

How could the magistrates be sure that the Defendant was the driver exceeding the speed limit on each of the 11 occasions?

Odd case. Probably more to it.

[agtlaw]

saaby93 said:

A 6 month ban too - does that wipe out the points?

Yes, as far as 'totting up' is concerned, he has 0 penalty points.

[Engineer792]

A certain amount of irony with the name of the bridge

[TooMany2cvs]

Engineer792 said:

A certain amount of irony with the name of the bridge

<clicks stopwatch>
I'm surprised, I have to admit.

[B'stard Child]

Engineer792 said:

A certain amount of irony with the name of the bridge

It takes traffic over the River Orwell - So Orwell Bridge - what would you expect it to be named?

Incidently Eric Blair who wrote as George Orwell believed to have taken his pen name from the River Orwell when Living in Suffolk

[V8 Fettler]

But what about all the crashes that the endemic speeding must have caused?

Biggest issues with the Orwell Bridge were and are;

Lorries overtaking (the A14 should be a three lane m/way)
The access from the local services (the A14 should be a three lane m/way)

[Squishey]

There used to be huge tailbacks on the eastbound carriageway from the Ransomes junction caused by the morning rush hour traffic. The combination of the average speed cameras on the Orwell bridge, the modifications done to the end of the Ransomes exit slip-road, and the widening of the road between the Ransomes roundabout to Ravenswood roundabout seem to have reduced the queues significantly.

However, the sections on the A12 at Stratford St. Mary and Kelvedon as part of the "pinch point programme" have done nothing to alleviate the congestion problems. They just feel like revenue generators (and the posts holding the cameras at Stratford are painted green to blend in with the trees - sneaky devils).

All of these sections of road have big "average speed camera" signs so, whether you agree with them or not, you have to be a bit of a plum to get caught speeding.

[BOF]

""However, the sections on the A12 at Stratford St. Mary and Kelvedon""

We attended the funeral of the daughter of neighbours who died on this stretch of road a few years ago...Nicola had not been long married.

We came southbound Thursday this week - some of the driving was a bit 'iffy' - bear in mind that it has a high level of immigrant workers who have undergone various levels of driving tests and have motors that are not likely to pass MOT tests here.

Not knocking foreign drivers in general - but the A12 is not the safest road in Essex/Suffolk.

BOF

[Drumroll]

You don't get any points for driving safely. This guy broke the law on several occasions.

[rscott]

BOF said:

""However, the sections on the A12 at Stratford St. Mary and Kelvedon""

We attended the funeral of the daughter of neighbours who died on this stretch of road a few years ago...Nicola had not been long married.

We came southbound Thursday this week - some of the driving was a bit 'iffy' - bear in mind that it has a high level of immigrant workers who have undergone various levels of driving tests and have motors that are not likely to pass MOT tests here.

Not knocking foreign drivers in general - but the A12 is not the safest road in Essex/Suffolk.

BOF

There's relatively few foreign registered cars on the roads around here - they tend to be Lithuanian registered and stick to the smaller roads between their fruit farms and civilisation (well, Colchester...). They avoid areas with a reasonable police presence to avoid having to explain why they stil haven't registered the cars here.

Most of the issues I see on the A12/A14 seem to be down to hesitant motorists who aren't confident in merging into vaguely fast moving traffic and end up stopped at the end of slip roads, waiting for someone to let them out.