ajm

The reason we have the concept of "speeding" is for so called safety. So why do we have the other offences, driving without due care and dangerous driving?

It is therefore legally possible to speed but not be deemed to be either driving without due care or dangerously. To me that seems ridiculous. If what you are doing is not dangerous then why is it banned?

People who say speed kills base it on the premise that having zero speed creates zero death. So why not ban cars altogether? Why not have a ZERO mph speed limit?

"Ah that's silly!" you say. But someone has decided we may go at 30 mph, so in effect (using their belief system) they have an "acceptable death" threshold. If they believe speed kills then, by allowing us to go at 30mph, they are allowing us to kill.

Of course this logic is ridiculous, but ONLY to those of us that accept that speed does not relate directly to danger.

I would like to see speed limits become speed guidlines. If someone causes an accident and they were driving too fast for the conditions/their abilities then their punishment should be more severe the further over the guidline they were, up to a maximum severity that is greater than we have currently.

That way only people who are guilty of causing an accident are punished, and the rest of us have an incentive not to drive dangerously.

Speeding as a crime in itself should be repealed because driving without due care and driving dangerously already cover it!

Lum

Unless said driver has learned to operate his eyes asynchronously then the times when they do look at the speedo will have an effect on the "thinking time" part of the stopping distance which makes up the majority of the stopping distance at such a low speed.

And whilst they may exist there aren't many of them and they are not the ones likely to hit you anyway as they are the kind who will have spotted you before you wander out into the road without looking and will already be covering their brakes if not slowing down and moving away from you.

Which is another point, the attentive driver will probably avoid you via their pre-determined escape route anyway,

CTR

Whilst Im sure there are lots of people like this, there are IMO from what I see on the road everyday, a lot of people who think that if they drive within the speed limit, they can do no wrong and do not pay enough attention to what is going on around them. Im sure it was on here a thread about a woman hitting a parked car, getting out and saying how can it be her fault she wasnt speeding, LOL.

Anyway, I speed, I will continue to speed. Am I a dangerous driver, I dont think so. I have had one accident that was my fault in the whole of my driving life, and that was while doing 10mph in a 30mph limit. If I get caught speeding, I will try to get out of it, why not, but wont be complaining about the fact I was caught speeding.

However rather than this obsession with one thing, speeding(See first paragraph), they should put more patrol cars on the roads to deal with all dangers on the road. Youll probably think this is irrelevant, but I also work with non traffic Police, most of whom admit speeding, and think speed cameras are stupid.

hedgehog

This discussion of people who have clean licenses, and in many cases a totally clean driving record as well, suddenly starting to get speeding convictions fits in with the paper recently published in "Mathematics Today" where Prof. Rose Baker demonstrates that because of current "speed enforcement" the average motorist will get a ban, through collection points, once every 15 years and only 9% of motorists will avoid a ban in their driving lifetime.

Her assertion was that speed enforcement was basically random and pretty much normally distributed. This was precisely the reason the Canadian government gave for removing all their speed cameras, applying a law to random people who happen to be passing does nothing for respect for law and order or for effective enforcement.

Of course I know that there are hundreds of people on this particular message board who buy Subarus and who then never, ever exceed the limit and clearly Prof Bakers results will not apply to them. Remember now, no kidding yourself, if you have ever, just once, broken the limit then you fall into the scope of Prof Bakers study and on average you will get a ban every 15 years. Just be careful what you say, when you come on here telling us you've been banned you might not get much in the way of sympathy.

Bubba po

Hallelujah!! Is it a coincidence that the people showing the greatest intelligence on this thread aren't the ones that support the Speed Kills idea?

I was pulled about six years ago driving home from a gig at two o'clock in the morning by a copper and his mate, in a car, doing about 50 in a 30. I was respectful to them, I hadn't been drinking, I was wearing my cool-destroying driving glasses and was told to get on my way and keep my speed down. That was a good experience, and I follow their advice to this day. The accumulated resentment that the zero tolerance mentality -enforced by faceless cameras- is brewing could well bring down a government.....

pslewis

Yeah I'm sure a policy of taking speeding ********* off the road will lose plenty of votes!!

Sorry, that will only GAIN masses of votes ..... only the stupid think differently!!

Pete

Pogue

Ok, how about this ...

I got tail ended on a motorway exit slip road, it ripped the side off my bike, and I did a very artistic cartwheel over the guys car.
My bike had gone forward and was lying on the road in the way of traffic with parts scattered around, coolant and oil on the road.
Another biker stopped to help me, called the police, they turned up 10 mins later in a Range Rover, took one look at the scene said "looks like no-one is hurt" ( I had to take a month off work) and drove off !!! No questioning the guy who ran into me, no talking to witnesses, no helping me lift the bike out the way, nothing ! When I called them later they said they weren't interested !

A month or so later the local plod put up a mobile speed camera over the brow of the steepest hill where I live (never been an accident there), they placed the camera 100 metres past the 30 sign (goes from 50 to a 30) and caught 300+ people in a morning (I was doing 35 as I crossed the line) result = £180 fine and FOUR points.

It's as clear an argument as possible that it's not about safety it's about stealth tax, If they wanted to make the road safer they should prosecute people like the dozy old tw@t that ran into the back of me.

darts_aint_sport

How is it a stealth tax?! It's enforcing the law. If you don't break the law, you don't pay a fine. It's about as simple as can be. Now if you think the speed limit is incorrectly assigned to some roads, then that's a seperate issue as far as I'm concerned.

ajm

The point is that the law with regard to speeding is a daft law. They have the opportunity to use the speeding law to get genuinely dangerous drivers off the road if they wished, drivers that may otherwise escape detection. However, they choose instead to apply the law in a cynical way such that otherwise safe drivers are fined.

It is a tax in so far as driving naturally and safely will see you exceeding the speed limit every now and then, and, every now and then, you will be caught doing so.

I will drive at a pace that is safe for a given situation. My eyes will be on the road and I will pay speeding fines as and when I get them, as that is the tax I must pay for the privilege of being able to use my god given brain to decide what speed is safe in a given situation, be that over, at or under the posted speed limit.

Bubba po

I've disowned this thread since the name-calling began.

antera309

As people adapt to the presence of speed cameras and start driving slower, the only way the Government and SCPs can ensure continued high levels of revenue is to:

1) Reduce speed limits further
2) Eliminate the 10%+2mph leeway, which was never law, but (up till now) universally enforced.

This is exactly what is hapenning.

You gotta realise, a whole industry has grown up around processing mass speeding prosecutions. Whole offices full of people rely on large numbers of speeding proscecutions in order to keep their jobs.

So, do you seriously think these people WANT you to slow down? They want your money, plain and simple. Safety has nothing to do with it.

If the success of speed cameras was judged on road safety, they would have been ripped up years ago due to a total lack of impact on the numbers of serious accidents.

Justify cameras because of the extra revenue for the NHS, state education etc. , justify them for the extra jobs they create, but NEVER justify them on safety grounds 'cos that just makes you look like a niaive and uninformed tool.

My advice? Keep to the speed limits. Drive at 60 in a 70, 20 in a 30 etc. If everybody did this, they would have to slash speed limits to ridiculous levels in order to ensure continuance of their revenue stream. We're talking 40MPH on motorways, 10mph round town. If they do this, watch and see what happens to this Country's economy. They've made their bed, let them lie in it!

Tiggs

lol at "stealth tax"...they say "do X and we will fine you"...people do X anyway then call it a stealth tax!

if speeding laws are stealthy they dont do stealth very well!

T

ps- if you cant look at your speedo and back to the road in less than a fraction of a second then theres something wrong with you......if, while doing it, you dont notice something in the road ahead of you your speedo is in a daft place or you have a set of toilet roll glasses on!

MadMark

The law is an *** when it comes to speeding ..... most of my friends and even my parents have 3-6 points. When road deaths are not reduced even with these draconian measures, I'm afraid to say that most of the blame for this lies with the politicians and the Civil Servants who advise them!
- Nanny State??

ajm

Because in this case X is incredibly tedious and largely unnecessary. If they said they'd fine us for stepping on the cracks between paving stones people would still do it. Smokers pay a "fine" everytime they buy a packet of cigarettes. The government budget to catch speeders, just as they budget for smokers. Hence speeding fines are tax.

So when you were photographed breaking the speed limit, was that because your speedo is incorrectly positioned, you were wearing toilet roll glasses or because there is something wrong with you?

Tiggs

no, its because i didnt care about my speed at that point. i had a clean license and i thouhgt it was safe enough to do what i did....there was also 0% chance of a ban because i wasnt going fast enough.

the worst case result would be a £60 fine and i was happy to deal with that if i got it........as luck would have it i got off anyway.

if i had 3/6 points i wouldnt have gone that fast thus avoiding the poss result of toting up the points...would i care that i couldnt go as fast? not really, i was in no real hurry.

I never drive in a way that places me in the path of a possible ban...i never exceed 100mph on the Mway and i would never speed past cameras if i had points.....simple.



T

Lum

You fail to understand the meaning of "stealth tax"

Tony Blair says "we will not raise tax" as an election pledge, then upon getting into office announces that national insurance will rise. Tehcnically that is not a tax increase, but we end up paying more, hence stealth tax. The cumulative effects of increasing fuel duty are another and so is the speeding arrangement with the added advantage that it saves having to spend as much on the roads by removing people from them.

darts_aint_sport

You have to pay N.I. as part of a salary. You don't have to speed, thus it is not a stealth tax.

Lum

There are plenty of posts in this thread that explain why that comment is wrong and why it is not possible to avoid getting done these days. I can't be bothered repeating them again.

ajm

Are you going to post an "I'm Leaving" thread now you have lost S_AP, your raison d'etre?

Tiggs

lol...what a joke....no wonder the powers that be give ppl like you no time when your defence is its just not possible to avoid speeding!

you better get yourslef a push bike...you'll need it soon!

Bubba po

When I'm out jogging, I regularly set off the "Slow Down" sign as I come over the Castleford canal bridge. If it was a speed camera instead, I'd get done.

antera309

I jam my brakes on (without checking the speedo first) and slow to 20-25mph (or about 40mph if it's a motorway) as a precaution whenever I see a white van parked at the side of the road.

Follow this kind of paranoid approach and you won't lose your licence. Not very safe, but hey, I don't make the rules.

Tiggs

so you drive like a retard? how does that help anyone?

try driving on the mway at 80-85 and leave your brakes alone.

Jerome

There are speed cameras out there that are digital and don't require a film (ie they never run out of film and need it changing). They instantly send the details over a phone line to the DVLA who process it. These cameras also don't need a flash, so there is no warning to the driver caught or the drivers following (who don't get the chance to slow down). If these cameras start being used widely, the once every 15 year ban (as detailed by hedgehog), will seem like a conservative estimate.

I wonder if darts_aint_sport and Tiggs will be quite so holier-than-thou/"it's the law so don't complain" when they are serving their bans...

OllyK

Why is it the government are looking to increase the number of people caught speeding year on year. Surely this is counter productive, they don't look to increase other crime figures such as murder and burglary year on year and claim that things are better because of it.

Surely if speeding was the henious crime the government seem to be making it out to be and if speeeding really was such a major factor in road death, it would be 1 strike and you are out, banned for a month with a £500 fine.

The fact they are looking to change things so you get less points if you are only slightly over the limit, and yet means test you for how much fine you pay, just adds weight to the argument they are worried they are going to ban too many people and loose a valuable revenue stream IMO.

Jap2Scrap

Bloody hell, that makes sense! I wonder if it's true or whether it's just a peach of a conspiracy theory. Makes you think though.

Tiggs

ban for what?

darts_aint_sport

You don't get a ban for driving below the speed limit Jerome.

It is simple physics people. You are more likely to die if you get hit by a faster object then a slower one. FACT. (Although I am open to consider any evidence to the contrary!)

OllyK

I'll take being hit bit a single high speed nutrino at near light speed over a 38 tonne truck at 30mph any day of the week.

Jerome

An inevitable totting up ban that each and every driver in the UK will get at some point if the cameras I described become widespread...