Entertainment For Lively Minds
Speeding: Time to get tough.
Posted by Vulpes Vulpes on 4 January 2011 - 6:47pm.
The BBC reports the following:
The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) has defended a decision to prosecute a driver who flashed his lights to warn motorists of a mobile police speed gun.
Hoorah says I, about time too. Every time the local plod get around to setting up a speed trap in our village (30 m.p.h. after 6o either side, no chicane, and a crossroads right on the bend) there's a procession of tossers driving towards the next village flashing their lights like crazy, as if they are doing someone a favour. Idiots. Short of my favoured solution, which involves snipers, this prosecution can only be a Good Thing.
Anyone else suffer from ignorant, selfish, lazy drivers speeding through their manor?
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Absolutely agree
with you, but unfortunately there are thousands of Top Gear-watching Daily Mail-reading drivers out there who seem to think that speeding is their right and that anyone in favour of speed traps, bumps, cameras etc is somehow anti-car.
We-ll,
I love Top Gear, though I loathe the Daily Fail, and I merrily break the 70 limit on motorways by at least 10 miles per hour, but I absolutely refuse to break the limit in a 30 or below. I spend a lot of time looking at other Top Gear viewers, angrily fuming at my tardiness, in my rear-view mirror. Sometimes they are so close I can even see the veins on their foreheads throbbing.
Eyes on the road
This is the sort of attitude that speed limits have produced. You think you're whiter-than-white because you stick to 30mph, but then spend your time indignantly studying the guy behind instead of watching the road.
Not so
It's the people who don't know what's behind them who are the poorer drivers
Erm...
Checking your rear view mirror regularly is a good thing. But staring in it, studying another driver's forhead, really isn't. Any driving instructor will tell you that if a wound-up, angry driver is not a safe driver.
Hyperbole.
Look it up.
Yeah
I was being a bit of a knob there. I disagree with you about Mr Thompson's flashing, but let's leave it at that.
I blame Clarkson.
A lead-footed nob in a GTI destroyed a large portion of my house a few years back. He got away with it, never charged. A few minutes earlier and several of my friends would have been killed by flying masonry.
Worse still, one of my CD racks was totalled. The one with all of my Shirley Bassey discs.
Speeding in 30mph limits is just not on. Anyone who tailgates me in my village (or anyone else's) can simply fuck right off. Were I not gulping down the Paroxetine I might be tempted to employ the good old brake-test on such cretins. Whaddya say to that, Top Gear?
But that would be both dangerous and wrong. I amuse myself instead by only flashing speeding drivers when there is no speed trap. If Plod is about, I don't flash. That's probably wrong, too. Oh, I don't know...
(Blimey. Roadcraft and Matt Monro? Starting In The Middle Of The Day, We Can Drink Our Politics Away...)
It's not only Top Gear
I read a few of the major monthly car mags (including TG) and almost without exception the editors, writers and correspondents view speed limits as an outrageous infringement of their human rights.
Quite often the writers of these magazines will brag about how they road tested the latest BMW (or whatever) in the Scottish Highlands (or wherever) and drove at speeds up to double the legal limit on public roads.
These are magazines owned by major publishing houses and yet here are their employees openly boasting about breaking the law.
There for the grace of god
I'm not sure I know anyone who has not broken the law. I also know plenty of people who will happily boast about escapades (be it drugs, fiddling their insurance, breaking stuff and then taking it back as faulty etc.) which are actually examples of breaking the law. It all depends on what you see as morally important as to whether you think the law is appropriate and therefore you choice in how quiet you keep about it. These morals will shift over time (drunk driving, racism, homophobia, sexism).
I would say that a music paper glamourising drug use in front of an impressionable teenage readership is at least as irresponsible as having an adult driving, a car designed to be driven quickly, quickly on an empty road.
Also, I don't recall reading a motoring magazine where the writer will admit to breaking the speed limit in a review. They may drive on tracks or in Germany and test cars beyond the legal UK road limits, but they'd be stupid to do so and evidence it in an article so they don't.
Have you read "Car" magazine lately?
Their writers often boast of breaking the law on public roads.
They will also regularly judge a car by telling their readers how easy it is to drive "sideways" through corners.
I totally agree that music magazines should not glamorize drug use, but how does that make reckless/dangerous driving OK?
Like many drivers, you are trotting out the same old tired stuff about "adults", "empty roads", "cars designed to be driven quickly" as if that somehow makes breaking the law acceptable.
Car, Evo...etc
Are aimed at those who enjoy the thrill of motoring, and therefore will advocate the exploration of a car's true performance where conditions allow.
Anyway, here's something that is sure to get one's pulse racing, either in excitement or indignation. Toodle pip!
But where, exactly...
...do "conditions allow" drivers to break the law on public roads?
The sub-text of those mags is a macho two-fingered salute to the road laws.
And most of the time it's not even an unspoken sub-text.
Then of course your average council estate Ali G sees Clarkson and his odious ilk telling them that only poofs and girls observe the speed limits and assume that gives them the green light to do likewise.
Subtext
Is what you want it to be. I don't get the urge to break the speed limit because of a car review in a magazine. I am pretty responsible when I drive and I pay attention to 30 mph zones. I don't think the magazines are aimed at people who have to speed anymore than any other vicarious experience achieved through reading. The idea that I couldn't give a monkeys about the law because I've read Car is not very accurate.
I see a bit of a problem with mojoworking's post here because...
...of the "council estate Ali G" phrase ... debates have gone on since forever about letting the hoi polloi get their hands on subversive material: political, sexual, or other ... Video nasties were supposed to spark copycat violence, computer games now have the same charge levelled against them ... behind these charges is a attitude that "well, plainly i'm an educated person who can watch Macbeth without committing regicide but that lot over there clearly can't" ...
either Top Gear & its ilk is car porn entertainment for the average Joe who drives a Renault Scenic that handles like a wet Spongebob (and bleeds from the exhaust when pushed to over 60mph on a motorway) OR it's criminal incitement ... i tend to think the former ... most cars driven in this country are relatively cheap and relatively slow (unless i've misread the appropriate website, among the top ten sellers in the UK at the moment are the Fiat 500, the Hyundai i10, Vauxhall Corsa and Ford Fiesta ... distinct lack of Porsche 911s and BMW M6s there) ...
so I don't believe "stuff in the media" licenses anyone to behave as they wish ... and i'd also agree with other posters here that so much here depends on context ... someone who can see a mile ahead on an empty Highland road (yes it's possible), guns the car up to 75mph, misjudges a corner and ends up upside down in a peat bog hurts no one but themselves and perhaps the odd sheep; someone tearing up a single carriageway residential street at 45mph with cars parked on either side is a foresight-averse nob... inbetween, there is a large amount of grey.
If you have a problem
with throwaway, jokey, non-PC rhetoric, better stay well away from Top Gear magazine. Every month it's full of "chav" and "peasant" references, not to mention thinly veiled xenophobia (eg all Americans are fat and/or hillbillies and their cars are crap, according to every single UK car mag).
Oh, and cyclists and those towing caravans should be exterminated, apparently.
Good thing we can take a joke, eh?
And That Is Why
And that attitude is the primary reason I don't read "Motoring" magazines.
Actually, I just don't get the "Petrolhead" thing. A car is something to get you from A to B in reasonable comfort and ideally without having to fit your travel plans in with those of a load of others.
I fully support the congestion charging idea and despite the fact I often work in central London I only go in by public transport. I just wish it was as good as it needs to be.
When driving out of town, I quite regularly break speed limits on the open road where I can see where I'm going and who else is using the road I'm on. I'm not talking here about constantly "putting my foot in the tank" but a blanket 70 MPH speed limit on stretches of motorway where visibility is good and traffic is light is ludicrous. No wonder so many people take no notice.
A few years ago I had occasion to drive a long way through Yorkshire into the dales and was annoyed by the proliferation of 30MPH cameras in open country areas. Obviously, one doesn't want people racing through small towns and villages at speed but it seemed as if the entire county was speed limited at 30MPH.
OTOH 30 MPH is arguably too high on narrow residential streets with parked cars everywhere. Personally I think they should make speed limits relevant to the area one is driving in and flood those narrow residential streets with cameras THAT WORK and prosecute every single offender. If people can't keep a driving license and drive like a knobhead they'll either get the message or be off the road. It's a win-win.
I live not far from the Dales
(North Yorks Moors to be exact) and lots of the country roads are pretty twisty, with lots of fairly tight bends and interspersed villages. If there were a blanket 60 limit, to be honest the body count would be scary as there are a lot of roads around here where the unwary especially shouldn't be getting anywhere near the limit.
I'm with you some of the way though, even though I read Top Gear occasionally and enjoy the TV show.
Trotting out
Not sure I was trotting out the same old tired stuff. The most dangerous drivers, statistically at least, seem to be young males. Modern cars do have better handling and brakes. It is a lot harder to kill other people when there are no other people on the road.
And at no point did I say that breaking the law was acceptable.
A question also springs to mind. Which is more reckless? Driving a sports car on a road at 60 when the road is a 40 or driving a car with no MOT or insurance, bald tires and a dirty windscreen because the wipers are old at 30 mph past a school?
200mph on the A1
It actually happened, and was attended and gleefully reported by many of the single brain cell hot-hatch premature ejaculation magazines.
http://www.carmagazine.co.uk/Community/Car-Magazines-Blogs/Ben-Barry-Blo...
I've just watched the video clip and I have to say
it amused me the way the only thing the police wanted to ask him was "Where's the videotape?".
It hardly seems he chose a subtle, unobtrusive vehicle though :-)
Of course, in the days before speed limits, British manuafacturers often tested their cars on the then new motorways. The Le Mans AC Cobra Coupe was, famously, clocked at 186mph on the M1 in 1964 during a pre-race shakedown.
A good thing?
Nah, it's fining someone for being kind. Flashing oncoming motorists to warn of speed cameras is one of the few nice things people do for strangers nowadays. Still, it's another 'crime' 'solved' for the stats.
Hmm. Divided
I also live somewhere vaguely rural, so have plenty of places where the limit goes down form 60 to 30 and back through villages. It's only right to stick to the limit, if only partly because one of these days I may be a pedestrian there too. If flashing someone actually gets them to slow down, then I'm not sure that's so bad.
Basically the plod are complaining because their mobile trap didn't catch someone with a fixed penalty and the fine. I'd have thought that having someone sticking to the limit would have made them happy.
Don't like arses driving round at full tilt but I'm not sure this is going to help any.
Agree
I appreciate it if someone gives me a "warning" flash of their headlights. My feeling is that it is an act of kindness for the benefit of the majority of people, just to get them to watch their step. It isn't society giving a green light to boy racers who scream down Acacia Avenue at 100 MPH.
No doubt there is a terrifying and conclusive statistic that proves otherwise.
Wrong.
Anyone who believes that flashing lights at other motorists to warn them against continuing to ignore the speed limit through a 30 (or a 20) is an act of kindness can only be a fool.
Thanks
The feeling's mutual mate.
"I invite you to try remonstrating with me when you do it. I'll edge forward as far as I can to stop some ignorant oik from pushing in at the last second, thank you very much, and I'm prepared to go to fisticuffs to defend my right so to do." - Vulpes Vulpes
Safety first.
"Pushing in", in whatever situation,
is something that only badly behaved children or the ignorant think is acceptable. Speeding in a 30 is equally puerile, and helping someone to continue to get away with doing so is doubly so.
It reminds me of
the apparent crime of passing your car-parking ticket (when it still has say an hour left to run) to a fellow motorist coming into the same car park. Not really sure why this is a "crime" in the generally understood sense of the word, as opposed to the jobsworth sense.
It isn't
the parking has been paid for, and the space would have been used if the original car had stayed anyway so it's not like the second car is taking up an extra one.
No, it just annoys whoever owns the parking area that they're not getting two fees for one service (i.e. something for nothing).
If I would have been able
I would have given you 10 up arrows for this comment as it is something that winds me up more than anything else. If I have paid for 2 hours of space in a car park yet only use half an hour I should be perfectly entitled to give the other hour and a half to someone else.
I have to say Vulpes that generally you talk a lot of sense but I think your comments here amount to a complete load of twaddle. Firstly I think the speeding laws and penalties are unrealistic. For example someone doing on average 10,000 miles per annum is far less likely to be caught speeding on as regular a basis as someone doing 35,000 miles per annum as I do. I agree that 30 mph in a rural village is reasonable. I do not agree that the Police set up a mobile van obscured on the bend of dual carriageway in Worcestershire in a totally rural area where the speed drops from 60mph to 50mph with no warning and then fines me for doing 59mph as happened recently. There are no pedestrians there, it is not a village, it is a dual carriageway. You tell me exactly what the fucking danger is. As far as I am concerned in that particular instance it amounted to entrapment and they know it. They dont have speed cameras in Europe or the USA - do we have significantly less accidents than most of these countries? I think not. Money making load of bollocks.
Nah.
Don't agree, Steve. If you break the law and get caught, you've only yourself to blame. We can't pick and choose the laws we choose to respect. I include myself in that: I very annoyingly got done a couple of years ago. Sure, I was cross about the three points and the fine, but it was entirely my fault.
How the police choose to apply their enforcement strategies is irrelevant to the basic point, which is that we're all bound to obey the law. A specific law's validity in our eyes is also irrelevant, incidentally: if we disagree with it, we should make representations, run for office, start campaigns. We can't just disobey and expect to get away with it.
A fair point
Or at least it would be, if all laws were enforced, which they aren't.
Only myself to blame?
Largely agree. However, it doesn't mean I agree with the speed limits. Just as there unjustifiably low speed limits there can be unnecessarily high speed limits. I live off a country lane. There are no houses on the lane but it is a narrow lane with a series of blind bends and many areas where 2 cars cannot safely pass. The speed limit for this lane is 60 mph. If you drove at 60mph on that lane you would seriously be taking life into your own hands.
The problem I have is that we all get tarred with the same brush - 3 points and a fine for speeding when no accident has occurred yet people in an accident very often get away without a fine or a penalty. I have been driving for 33 years - I have had 2 accidents in that time both when I have been stationary and someone has gone into the back of me. I would estimate that I have driven around 750,000 miles in that time. I routinely speed. I do not take risks and for this reason I consider the law to be an ass.
Yes, but...
...the law isn't made for you, it's made for everyone. The law isn't an ass just because it doesn't take account of you being an excellent driver: it has to be one-size-fits-all. To change speeding laws so that they're more lenient towards high-mileage drivers would be patently nuts. And in any case, if you think the law is an ass, breaking it doesn't strike me as a particularly useful way of registering your dissatisfaction.
Anyway, like I say, we don't get to pick and choose which laws we abide by. Or, at least, if we do we should expect to get caught every once in a while.
Motivation vs Effect
If the flashing causes idiots to slow down at the appropriate place who wouldn't otherwise have done so then it is a good thing, no?
But wouldn't
a fine and a few penalty points get the message across to them more effectively?
Absolutely
And I believe these zones are the most important to police. But I don't accept the logic that speeders are getting away with going unpunished if they slow down upon being flashed. If they do slow to the appropriate speed upon being warned then they are now driving correctly and how they are driving now is the important thing.
From what I've read whether it's seatbelt wearing, breaking lights or speeding it's the possibility of being caught which has alwaysd been the the greatest factor in amending behaviour and you will find people with speeding charges tend to have multiple convictions - they don't want to learn.
One other thing that really bugged me during the recent period of dreadful weather was that in conditions of freezing fog or near blizzards with poor road surfaces the number of people driving behind me who wanted to drive close to the speed limit on roads where the limit applies to ideal road conditions and perfect visibility and consequently drove right up my arse when there was no way they could stop if they had to. This despite constant warnings on the radio and the benefit of common sense. There is no learnin' some people.
Agree with you on the weather conditions
also the number of people who wont put their lights on during poor daytime visibility as if by some chance they are wearing the battery down on the car!!
"this prosecution can only be a Good Thing"
Fined £175 + £250 costs + £15 victim surcharge + no doubt a DNA swab and an entry into the national register.
Kerching!
Speeding in 30s
is just wrong. I don't have any stats to hand but I'm guessing that the majority of pedestrian fatalities occur in 30 and 40 zones. Like nearly everyone else I break the speed limit daily on the motorways but always observe the limits elsewhere. It's about not hitting the Peds, surely?
Pedestrians or animals.
I agree with your analysis of the relative levels of heinous arrogance and selfishness involved in speeding under differing road conditions. The lower the limit, the more important it is.
It does prove in my mind however
That police speed traps are set up to make money not to slow traffic, otherwise what is the problem? As stated the cars slow down to just below the speed limit, win/win.
What I can't understand is why a motorist, when questioned by a police officer as to why he was flashing his lights said "To warn other people about the speed trap" rather than pretending he was saying hello to a friend.
He should have said...
"To warn other people that they are driving too fast". Surely there's no law against that?
Well ...
... it is against the highway code:
http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/TravelAndTransport/Highwaycode/DG_070289
110
Flashing headlights. Only flash your headlights to let other road users know that you are there. Do not flash your headlights to convey any other message or intimidate other road users.
>>>>>>>>>>
At the end of the day he was warning people about to commit a crime that they were possibly going to get caught.
It has to be remembered that speeding is not a victimless offence and is something that this individual was aiding.
Spot On.
.
It's only a warning if the recipient recognises the message
If someone flashed their lights at me I would immediately think there was something wrong with my car (headlights on full beam, fog lights on accidentally, wheel coming off) or he was flashing at someone else he knew. 'Speed trap' would be well down the list of things I would check, since I do take flashing to be just an indication of 'I am here' unless some other action indicates the intention.
When I flash
it is just to say I'm here, though it does seems to upset some people. There can be another action which may indicate a different intention, I admit. I haven't been arrested yet, though it's probably just a matter of time. Mind you I am on foot at the time.
I'll get my high visibility jacket.
Snort!
Brilliant.
Glad you enjoyed it
Never sure when posting these jokey comments if they're actually gonna be thought funny or just odd. Wish I'd re-read it earlier and noticed I'd used the word 'time' twice, in successive sentences, and edited this. Things like that really irk me.
However
the Highway Code article does not use the words MUST NOT, as it does when the law (usually some iteration of the Road Traffic Act) specifies what the action may or may not be. It may be frowned upon, but not unlawful. By the same token, any time you flash another driver out at a junction is also in this category.
Here's another interesting link - this time from the high court:
http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Admin/2005/2333.htmla
Actually, speeding is a
Actually, speeding is a victimless offence unless it causes an accident, if you want to get technical about it, which I do. Obviously, not every case of speeding causes an accident, ergo, victimless offence.
Doesn't wash.
Conspiracy to cause explosions is a victimless offence too.
No
Individual instances of speeding may end up being victimless. In fact most might.
In total, though, there are victims of speeding and not all of them are here to talk about it still. You can't pick out in advance which instances of speeding will end badly.
Anyway your logic seems off. Some cases of speeding cause accidents, ergo, it is not a victimless offence.
Yeah, my point is simply
Yeah, my point is simply that on a case by case basis most instances of speeding are victimless offences. I did specify unless it causes an accident. I'm not saying speeding is always a victimless offence. And I'm not sure about this, but if it did cause an accident, would that be prosecuted for something other than speeding? If a person is found guilty of just speeding, does that imply there was no accident?
Victimless offence?
In Great Bentley in Essex thousands of bikers congregate on a Wednesday night during the summer months. For entertainment, some of them think that it's a hoot to ride through surrounding villages (that includes mine) as if they were participating in the Isle of Man TT races.
The sheer detriment to our quality of life and the danger posed to life and property - that's a victimless offence? C'mon.
sounds grim
you're right it's not a victimless offence but where are the Police? Do they ever turn up? It's not just speed. Driving/riding without due care and attention even within speed limits and noisy illegal exhausts are probably causing more of a hazard than speed per se.
Ridiculous
Surely speed cameras are about reducing speed, the flasher did this without swelling the cops coffers. All the police want is slam dunks for the stats, anything that actually requires proper detection they are not arsed. They never caught the twats who burgled my house (even though plenty of evidence was left) but would not think twice about fining me for any minor transgressions. I do currenlty have a clean licence by the way.
Like the vast majority of small villages,
we do not have cameras, or any other 'traffic management' facilities. All we have is the law, and the good sense, or otherwise, of the motorists who pass through the village. We don't care a hoot if the culprits, when caught, swell anybody's coffers, we just want them not to fill any more coffins.
They dont get any revenue
from catching burglars, plus they potentially put themselves in harms way.
Here's an interesting approach from this neck of t'woods...
(and not strictly relevant to idiots driving through villages at 90mph)
http://www.garda.ie/GoSafe.htm
The Gardai have analysed the Irish road network and effectively told users 'we'll only put speed traps where we've marked in red, but not all red areas will be policed at any given point in time'. It's only been introduced in the last few months, but the next set of stats will be interesting.
Will Irish motorists slow down in these 'dangerous' areas, after having something akin (but not completely alike) to the 'headlight flash' given to them? By the lads enforcing the law.
Flashing your lights at someone...
... who is observing the speed limit just to say "Hey mate, just wanted to let you know there's a speed trap round the corner" seems perfectly acceptable to me (do you need to flash your lights at someone who is already doing the speed limit?).
Flashing ones lights at someone doing 60 in a 30 mph zone to alert them of a speed trap is quite another thing.
Of course, how one gets the first message across and not the second is beyond me. Morse Code, maybe?
If you fancy some practice...
http://morsecode.scphillips.com/jtranslator.html
Speeding
I got nabbed a couple of years ago, no arguments, no complaints, I was driving too fast,& I got caught (If you cant do the time etc...)
I was given the option of a speed awareness course, & although I took up the option I ended up being further out of pocket, as the cost of attending was more than the original fine. (by some distance)
Did I learn anything - yes I think I did, & I have deffo been a more careful / considerate driver since.
BUT, I will flash oncoming traffic. I understand the anger & frustration that is being expressed here, but FWIIW, I think that if 'flashing' other drivers causes them to drive slower & more carefully through residential areas, past schools etc, the IMHO, that is a good thing.
I have also been involved in an incident where one of the drivers (not me) had taken a drink.
Fuck all sympathy for him. Twat.
hangings too good for the likes of them etc....
(Sorry about that, drink driving brings out the Richard Littlejohn in me).
What about...
Say if you flashed your lights at an oncoming speeding motorist, as if you were warning them about a speed camera but there wasn't actually a speed camera there. Say they then slowed down - wouldn't you then have done a public service?
Re my motivation v effect remark above
Here the motivation has changed slightly, but the effect - which IS the important thing - is exactly the same.
(but the real problem with this idea is you don't want half the people on the road flashing their lights all the time in a distracting manner and also the "boy who cried wolf" effect come into play)
You sir...
... are plainly a Doctor of Philosophy!
I seem to remember that the AA used to salute
whenever they saw a car displaying an AA badge approaching a speed trap.
Wasn't it the other way around?
Didn't they salute every car with a badge, and therefore the lack of a salute signalled the presence of the plod?
We are talking about the period up to about 1950 here, when there were somewhat fewer cars on the road, and most of them did 0 to 60 in about half an hour. You're probably right; I haven't Googled to check!
Hmmm... You might be right.
It was a little before my time but I remember my father telling me that was why he had the little metal AA badge on the radiator of his car.
According to my GLW
it was the RAC: they used to have a thing that if you passed an RAC van on the road, and you saluted him, then he was obliged to salute you back. Unless you were unknowingly approaching a speed trap, in which case he wouldn't salute you.
Nope, apparently not.
It was in fact the AA, and as we both surmised, a lack of salute was the signal that meant 'trap ahead'. I found the following article, which has the relevant history in a panel.
I wish the police
would just visibly police the speed limits not hide behind a van with a speed gun. And do a little more of it than waiting for a road to get up enough speed to get a good catch for a few hours work.
To take a slight tangent
This lot are working in my bit of London at the moment working with local residents to come up with solutions to speeding, rat running and stuff. They're unveiling their preliminary designs in a couple of weeks and I'm really interested to see what they've come up with. Maybe you can perusade your local council to get them involved in your village...
Thanks for the link, I may follow that up.
My only hesitation is a slight personal bristle at the sight of the name 'Sustrans'.
I am probably largely in favour of most of their philosophy, but I can't help remembering the people I knew in Bristol who like me had been initial members of something called 'Cyclebag' (campaigning to make Bristol a bicycle friendly city, starting back in the late 70s) who were subjected to appallingly pompous arrogance from those within their ranks, and beyond, who decided that there was a career in what we were doing, to become professional campaigners, and promptly broadened and re-badged the effort as 'Sustrans'; some of them are probably at the senior management level now, drawing a nice gift-aid enhanced salary from the charity.
Maybe you could regard it as payback
If they were able to help you with this? :-)
I've only recently moved here so have only been to one meeting but the two young fellas who are 'in charge' seem to have a genuinely inclusive ethos and are trying to get everyone involved and speaking up about what they want. It sometimes seemed like that was in the face of sheer bloody mindedness by some of my stroppy/vocal (depending on your perspective) new neighbours but only time will tell I guess..
A friend of mine
lost his son in law who drove into a tree 200yds from his house in rural Hertfordshire a month before Christmas. He was driving too fast. My friends grandchildren have lost their father, my friends daughter is losing her mind, my friend who is 67 is in daily turmoil over the whole episode. I understand where VV is coming from but if we all just drove within the speed limit there is no speed cameras, no police lining coffers, no need to flash. The impact of a crash at 30 mph can be devastating, at 50mph, you're probably dead, at 80 mph other people will probably be dead. The limits are there for a reason why must we prove ourselves as masters of speed, it's not how fast you're going, it's how quickly you stop that'll kill you.
So that
'Flash if You Think I'm Sexy' sticker on my car hasn't always garnered the right response?
No wonder i've got 9 points.....
Me too
Aren't we bad?
Here in Portsmouth, the 20mph limit is everywhere.
And is observed pretty well. On lots of the narrow backstreets lined with parked cars and with lots of kids about, 20mph is way too fast.
I would welcome a 20mph limit here
But on current evidence no one would obey it and the local plods couldn't be arsed to enforce it as they do sod all about traffic and they are no longer responsible for enforcing parking regulations, the local council having sold out to NCP. The only remedy would be the sort of vicious speed humps that wreck your suspension. Our residential road is a well known rat run due to a nearby level crossing so we not only get traffic avoiding the queue but speeding twats racing between parked cars on both sides of the road.
By the way, any speed trap on our local dual carriageway would certainly catch a number of police cars as they nearly always go past me in excess of the speed limit without blue lights or sirens.
Southsea is terrifying
I feel the need to breathe in when I go down those narrow streets at near-walking pace with cars parked either side.
Don't those...
...wee smiley signs that flash up your speed - SLOW DOWN 32mph; 28mph THANK YOU :-) - work far better the local bobbies hiding behind the shrubbery with a radar gun?
especially the ones ...
...which flash up your registration number too!
They demonstrably DO work.
We've had one on two of the approach roads to our village; one has remained in place permanently on the worst affected road, and does seem to at least lower the level of excess speed, if not eliminate it.
But don't always send the right message...
A camera which used to flash your car's speed near where I used to live (on Fitzjohn's Avenue near Swiss Cottage in London) was changed to indicate merely that cars were speeding after they clocked someone driving at 159mph in a 30mph zone at 2am one night in 2007...
http://www.hamhigh.co.uk/news/the_mystery_of_150mph_hampstead_motorist_1...
Tax on drivers
If fining speeding drivers is a fiendish tax on them it seems to me there is a simple way of avoiding it. Simply drive at the speed limit.
Inner city nuts?
I've been living in London for 10 years now, and I've never ever seen anyone stopped for speeding in the city. Has anyone else?
Thats cos
you can't get above 10 miles an hour in the pigging place
Kid A.
I'd thank a driver who warned me
Police should better spend their time catching crooks rather than penalising motorists who go a bit over the speed limit.
I can't see the difference
between someone flashing their lights and a satnav beeping when you approach speed cameras. Why is one illegal and the other not?
I feel for the guy who has been fined who was only trying to do a stranger a favour. I drive a lot - in the last 3 months I have done over 10,000 miles. In all my time driving I have only ever been done for speeding once. I was in Switzerland and going around a corner at the same speed as all the cars in front and behind (about 56Km/h in a 50 zone) and the police pulled us over and gave us all a huge fine. From that day on I've always flashed oncoming motorists if I see police traps.
The lawyer David Allen Green
wrote a good piece about this prosecution from the legal perspective here:
http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/the-staggers/2011/01/police-officer-th...
The interesting bit is...
Hadn't thought of it like that before...
I hear what he's saying,
and goodness knows I've come across a few twats in uniform in my time, but this argument strikes me as being mere sophistry:
It was hardly "future" behaviour, when, as he states earlier in the same article:
Presumably, the next time I spot someone shoplifting I ought to "eliminate their exposure to criminal liability" by warning them that they've been clocked? I'm sure that will be the right thing to do, and that they'll thank me for my kindness.
Perhaps the author should publish a diary of his whereabouts in order to eliminate any prospective burglars' exposure to criminal liability should they decide to break into his gaff?
All you've shown
is that speeding (in the relative, rather than absolute sense) is not analogous to theft and burglary. No right-thinking person would equate travelling 5mph over the limit with burgling someone's house.
One of the speeding tickets
I got a few years back was for 34mph in a 30mph. 4mph!!! I walk faster than that.
On the contrary;
in the sense that it is illegal, speeding is exactly like shoplifting and burglary, which both also provide 'exposure to criminal liability'. The law's the law. Like it or lump it.
Nice editing!
Too late though.
So we don't get to decide which laws we obey do we?
"I merrily break the 70 limit on motorways by at least 10 miles per hour, but I absolutely refuse to break the limit in a 30 or below." - Vulpes Vulpes
It's very easy to press Post rather than Preview
when you're trying to marshall your sentences for a reply. There's no need to be smugly sarcastic with your snide little 'too late though', mate. Christ, you must have been sitting there twitching until a reply arrived to have even seen a draft flit past.
We don't get to choose which laws we are subject to. It's just as illegal to shoplift as it is to break the speed limit, there's no ambiguity.
There is though
A policeman catching a man with his brakelight out might say "I'll let you off, make sure you get it sorted in the morning." If he found a man with a body in his boot, he wouldn't. Even though they're both illegal.
Similarly, letting a guy travelling at 35mph know there's a police radar up the road is different than alerting a burglar that there's a copper about. Unless you see things only in black and white.
And yeah it was a bit of a snide trick pulling you up on the obvious contradiction in your 'draft' but you called me a fool earlier, simply for disagreeing with you, so I'd say we were quits.
If you'd taken the time to read what I said,
instead of rushing to the conclusion that the cap was a good fit, you'd have seen that I wrote
Please note that I specifically said "through a 30". At no point did I call you a fool, you've just assumed that. I suppose it is possible that you really do think that exceeding the limit in a 30 is acceptable behaviour, but I find that unlikely.
And by the way, the limit where Thompson was nicked is 50.
Happy Motoring
On the contrary,
in the sense that it is illegal, speeding is exactly like shoplifting and burglary, which both also provide 'exposure to criminal liability'. The law's the law. Like it or lump it, but don't try to pretend that you're kindly trying to prevent someone from suffering 'exposure to criminal liability'. As I said, that's just tosh. Obviously the court thought so to.
Are you really saying
that people who speed are no different to Burglars or thieves? Obviously this debate is descending into farce if this is the case.I have a suggestion - instead of 3 points and a fine why dont we introduce the death penalty. Yes there is a law regarding speeding but the penalties vary from county to county. Many counties for example will offer driver awareness course, others will not. Some counties have now got rid of their speed cameras because they think they are a waste of time and money. Clearly not everyone in charge of enforcing the law has the same views whereas the rights and wrongs of burglary are not in question - the only issue being if you can shoot the bastards when they enter your property without being invited.
Potholes
In an interesting sidebar to this story, there was a radio interview over here today with a man who took it upon himself to encircle some of the deepest potholes in rural Ireland with luminous yellow paint as a warning to motorists and found himself in court charged with damaging the roads.
What's striking about both cases is that both men involved believed they were doing the right thing and so 'fessed up when (as suggested above) a fib would have saved them a trip to court.
I think luminous yellow
circles on our roads would look rather nice. Would match the luminous yellow speed cameras. There's Feng Shui for roads - nice.
In my youth
I had a summer job as a cab driver at Gatwick Airport. One day I radioed the controller and said 'Can you let the other drivers know there's a policeman with a speed gun on the East Perimeter Road?' 'You can't say that over the air,' he replied. 'It's illegal.' 'Oh sorry,' I said.
Next thing I hear is 'Calling all drivers. Calling all drivers. There is a Smokey Bear with a Bear Gun on the East Perimeter Road.'
Talk about fiendish disguise.