WARNING: A217 Reigate to Sutton New Average Speed Scameras

[dcb]

fatboy18 said:

Have to agree with Captain Chaos, how the hell this is called motoring progress is beyond me

The Brits like to over control motoring. Being forced to drive slowly isn't the same as driving
carefully, a point carefully ignored when there is about £100 million in speeding fines to be
collected every year.

I chatted to a few locals the other day who claimed to be well informed. They claim
that the limit went from 70 mph to 40 mph in a few stages. Is this true ?

They also claimed that folks going west bound on the M25 would often be doing
silly speeds onto the Northbound A217. This would sound credible if the junction
was free flowing, but it isn't, it's got traffic lights on it, so almost all traffic has to stop.

As a few other posters have said, another good road ruined. With the M25 all cameras
and the M23 soon to be, even more motoring misery spending a lot of time looking
at the speedo and not enough time looking outside the windows must result.

[lucido grigio]

I admit that I used to exit the M25 roundabout and give it beans down to the next one and then ease up for the Gatso couple of hundred yards further on.

Road surface was repaired few months ago,made it nicer.

[Landy19820]

You don’t need to be looking for the yellow cameras, you just need to stick to the speed limit! Pretty simple really.
And as for signs... you don’t actually need signs to advertise they are average speed!

[fatboy18]

And the second word to you mate is OFF

[MrBen1]

Landy19820 said:

You don’t need to be looking for the yellow cameras, you just need to stick to the speed limit! Pretty simple really.
And as for signs... you don’t actually need signs to advertise they are average speed!

First post! Was it really worth signing up to a forum of car enthusiasts to tell them this? Did you think they would suddenly say "oh yes, that's a good point, I'll never speed again"?!!


The 40 limit has been in place on the A217 from Banstead crossroads to the M25 for years, the limit is nothing new, just the cameras. It's frustrating to drive as the nature of the road is such that 40 feels ridiculously slow, especially if you've been on at motorway speeds for a while. I've always tend to use another route if I can - there's some nice country lanes nearby, and now there's another good reason.

[Landy19820]

But somewhere along the line the council/police have decided because of road safety & casualty reduction that 40mph average speed is the only way forward on a dangerous stretch of road.

I just really don't see the issue with the cameras and sticking to 40mph on that stretch of road......

[lucido grigio]

Yawn.
Some of us actually have cars that CAN go over 40, unlike most Landys......

[fatboy18]

And the A217 was not always "40mph for years" It used to be that from Banstead crossroads up to Tadworth Roundabout was 40mph, then it went to National speed limit until the roundabout before Lower Kingswood, back to 40mph through Lower Kingswood, then National speed limit from Mogador to Reigate hill M25.

The first stretch to be reduced to 40mph was between Tadworth roundabout and Lower Kingswood. that was around 2 years ago, now recently the stretch from Mogador to Reigate hill has also been reduced to 40mph. And now the Speed cameras have been put in place.

I get speed limits, fine in rush hour school times, but in the early hours of the morning when shift workers want nothing more than to get home,
Being stuck there at 40mph on a totally empty dual carriageway is nuts.

What the hell is wrong with driving to road conditions? Fine doing 40 through Lower Kingswood and the burgh heath Banstead section, but having a dual carriageway reduced to 40mph in the aforementioned areas is madness to me.

How do these scameras work anyway? What happens if you exit the road before reaching the next scamera?

[ashleyman]

http://reigate.uk/average-speed-cameras-a217-m25-b...

According to that, the cameras are going live end of October / Start of November.

[fatboy18]

ashleyman said:

http://reigate.uk/average-speed-cameras-a217-m25-b...

According to that, the cameras are going live end of October / Start of November.

Thanks for the link.

[MrBen1]

Thanks ashleyman, think I'll treat the cameras as working from now on then.

Not to argue but I was thinking I was going mad on the 40 limits and when they came in so just went down the 217 on Google Streetview and the 40 limits were already in place both from Tadworth to Lower Kingswood and from Mogador to the motorway in the earliest views which were 2008. I remember them changing but it's a while back now.

[billzeebub]

Landy19820 said:

But somewhere along the line the council/police have decided because of road safety & casualty reduction that 40mph average speed is the only way forward on a dangerous stretch of road.

I just really don't see the issue with the cameras and sticking to 40mph on that stretch of road......

You really don't do you!..don't think you will fit in round here. Maybe mumsnet may be more up your strasse?

[Uncool]

Landy19820 said:

But somewhere along the line the council/police have decided because of road safety & casualty reduction that 40mph average speed is the only way forward on a dangerous stretch of road.

I just really don't see the issue with the cameras and sticking to 40mph on that stretch of road......

If you don't know the road in question then I suggest that you're not equipped to comment, unlike many of us commenting who've lived in the area all our lives. Quite simply, most here would advocate sticking to appropriate speed limits, but the key word there is appropriate. It's hard to respect a limit that has no connection to the road conditions it's applied on.

Also those advocating the lower limit will point to casualties on the route, completely ignoring the fact that those injuries and deaths on the A217 have often been because of dangerous driving or speed (including one biker I remember who crossed Banstead crossroads southbound at around a ton, crashed and died). The limit for him at that moment was 70 going to 40. Making the whole road 40 wouldn't change his driving one iota, nor will the cameras affect the driving of all those bikers who remove their plates and race along the road (the same idiots who used to keep me awake at night as my childhood bedroom window was so close to the 'mad mile').

All it will do will penalise and disproportionately affect those people who creep over the too-low limit by small amounts. If the road were 50-60mph in places I could understand it. Respect us and we'll respect the limit. As it is it's a sham, and I feel no shaming in saying that I won't condemn any damage that comes to these scameras.

[Uncool]

Further, I did some Google'ing for any studies into speed on the A217. THIS study by Surrey County Council divided the A217 from the M25 to the Belmont roundabout at the end of the A217 into 8 sections, and made recommendations for each of those sections.

For 3 of the 7 40mph sections, it recommended RAISING the limit to 50mph (in fact, the one section immediately north of junction 8/M25 was recommended to be raised to 60mph, but to keep speed fluctuations to a minimum it suggested 50mph ((in fact, I'm old enough to remember when this was a 70mph limit))

For the mad-mile it recommended going from 70mph to 60mph.

I think we all know exactly which of those recommendations emerging from the study that the council acted on.

Edited by Uncool on Monday 23 October 15:29

[fatboy18]

Top Digging Uncool
I noticed a few days ago that the So called Mad Mile (even though its not a mile) section has been reduced to 60 mph!

I also like the fact that, that form lists the names of who was for reductions and who who was not!

Remember who to vote for at Local elections

[Uncool]

fatboy18 said:

Top Digging Uncool
I noticed a few days ago that the So called Mad Mile (even though its not a mile) section has been reduced to 60 mph!

I also like the fact that, that form lists the names of who was for reductions and who who was not!

Remember who to vote for at Local elections

To be fair that study is a few years old. I would've linked a more recent one, but couldn't find one.

The point remains valid though. Much of the A217 is simply the wrong speed limit according to the council's own research. It just seems no-one has taken them to task on it. The surrounding infrastructure (houses etc) hasn't really changed since that report was written, so the recommendations could be argued to be as valid now as they were then.

[ashleyman]

From what I've seen on social media and on this thread regardless of what the limit is, it seems like everyone could get caught out with these new cameras.
People who I've warned offline have thanked me for warning them BUT why is there nothing about this in mainstream local news? I had always thought that these changes needed to be publicised either in the local news or with signage around the area?

Looking at that study, has anyone thought to send it in to the local papers?

It would make quite a bit of noise the fact that the council is ignoring the traffic study and enforcing a limit that is regarded as too low.

Edited by ashleyman on Monday 23 October 15:36

[fatboy18]

I noted the bit where it mentioned that the Police did not like the idea of different speed limits on different sections

[Red Devil]

Uncool said:

fatboy18 said:

Top Digging Uncool
I noticed a few days ago that the So called Mad Mile (even though its not a mile) section has been reduced to 60 mph!

I also like the fact that, that form lists the names of who was for reductions and who who was not!

Remember who to vote for at Local elections

To be fair that study is a few years old. I would've linked a more recent one, but couldn't find one.
You call fourteeen 'a few'? Sheesh!
I wonder how many of those who expressed opinions are still in office.

Uncool said:

The point remains valid though. Much of the A217 is simply the wrong speed limit according to the council's own research. It just seems no-one has taken them to task on it. The surrounding infrastructure (houses etc) hasn't really changed since that report was written, so the recommendations could be argued to be as valid now as they were then.

It's all part of the relentless dumbing down to the lowest common denominator. I don't see any end to it tbh.

[minky monkey]

Travelling this road on a regular basis to work in Kingston from redhill, what I now find is a massive problem with bunching up. Whereas before, although the traffic was marginally quicker, people left more room. Now they travel slower they drive much more closely. You get people in the outside finding themselves stuck as they're scared to go over the limit. And of course, there's the obvlious mob who haven't seen the signs coming flying up before the dawdlers getting frustrated to hell...