rik-1

Today I drove down two different roads that have had their limits reduced, both from 60 to 40mph, some of it not even going past any houses. What can we do to halt the lowering of speed limits?

GaryCat

Whereabouts? I'm near Langley.

The council has to have good reason to lower limits, eg fatal accidents etc. So I'm sure theres a very good reason... yeah right.

rik-1

One near Wycombe, the other near Chesham but it's happening everywhere.

woodmeister

The SE of England seem to be turning into one 30 mph zone.

Although often that's not due to cameras.

ben44

I'd keep an eye out for the camera vans in your area then. They wont want to miss an easy chance to catch drivers that have used the roads for years and haven't noticed the new limits.

ALi-B

iTrader: (1)

It's annoying...there's a stretch of dual carriageway by me that has been dropped from 70mph NSL to 40mph, for no reason.

There's no entrances, no crossing, it's in the middle of nowhere and all there is, is an island at the bottom and a very slight bend that may unsettle a Lada if it were doing 120mph

Advantage is, because of layout of teh road and surrouding terrain, no scameras or pork pies can lie in wait. So nobody pays a blind bit of still notice and totter along at 70-80mph as before

mad_dr

My thoughts:

- Government/councils want to be seen to be "pro-environment", responsible, safety-conscious etc.

- Govt thinks "Hmm - what can we do to try to impress the public about our commitment to the above?"

- "I know - let's make the roads better by lowering the speed limits"

Then, every so often they all sit down and think "right - which roads should we reduce the speed limit on?", they get out an Ordnance Survey map and throw a handful of rice crispies on it, any roads that are within 6 feet of a crispie, get put on a list. Then every couple of months, they go down the list and lower the limits. Then, when they've done all the roads, they go back to the top and bring them down again.

Once a road is as low as possible, they 'extend' the limit for a longer distance, so the 20/30mph zone is now 4 miles long instead of 2 miles long.

THEN - when everyone is crawling along and the roads are congested and jammed because no-one can do more than 40MPH, they put in a few roundabouts, humps and cameras.

Anyone in the Cirencester/Cheltenham area need only travel the A435 from Ciren to Cheltenham to see exactly what I mean. No accidents in as long as I can remember (15 years?) and yet the road is now 40 in most places, with a new xxx million pound double roundabout junction (with Pegasus Crossing) across the Seven Springs junctions. So now it's carnage at rush hour too.

OllyK

The speed on the A610 dual carriage way near Junc 26 of the M1 was dropped from NSL to 40 recently - there was a thread on it at the time. This was done due to a death on the road. Not so bad you say, however, the death didn't involve any motor vehicles, it involved a pedestrian jumping to their death off a road bridge.

Cupramax

Couple of miles of the A31 inbetween Ferndown & Ringwood (was NSL dual carriageway) has just miraculously sprung 50mph signs over the last week... . Expecting cameras to start sprouting up next

unclebuck

Nothing. It's all part of the plan to introduce GPS road charging and journey tracking. Each time you break these stupidly low speed limits (and you will)you get fined accordingly.

flynnstudio

It'll never happen..don't let these shmoes taint your vision of the future with their dark dreams...costs will be phenomenal - there won't be the satellite infrastructure capable of tracking 20million moving vehicles...whose going process all the speeding fines - it's just ****-fur trying to convince everyone it's a beard...

It's already said that if just 10% of people contested their speeding fines the courts would grind to a halt...with GPS tracking within 6 months the whole country would be banned and there'd be 10 million people pending prosecution...

The danger of a PEOPLE'S VICTORY or a mass organised 'speedathon' rebellion, thus demonstrating directly to the government the individual power of people in unison would be the WORST possible thing to ever happen to any government - and gps tracking would be like shackling each and every person - we would rise up in the millions - even non-speeders would speed just to jam the network..

Already people are spraying speed cams in places they shouldn't be - I'm all for a speed cam outside a school but on the open road in the middle of the night - no way...

As it is the roads are busy enough to 'self-regulate' their own speed - this is natures own way - this is why cops have jack all to do on the roads anymore and sit in 'sneak zones'

I predict victory - freedom and good times ahead...

Believe me - just reject this new labour new regime bull**** and it WILL go away..

Flatcapdriver

Perhaps you can explain why Europe is so keen to go it alone with it's own Galileo GPS system then and then tell us why a simple black box, probably with telemetry is going to be so expensive? You do realise that it's not the satellites that will track cars, don't you?

As for the original question, the whole speed limit situation reminds me of a certain very illegal war in the not so distant past, when every attempt at justification was undermined by a sceptical public so the Government was forced to come up with new and inventive reasons for justifying something that was unjustifiable.

Similarly, speed cameras and control started off as a 'speed kills' message which wasn't supported by the figures which showed a flatline situation with the amount of road deaths per capita in the UK. Next it was introducing speed cameras at accident black spots and yet funnily enough I've never seen one outside a school - there must be one somewhere? Now, it's the environment that can be enhanced by slowing down the nasty motorist polluting the atmosphere whilst conveniently forgetting the aviation industry or indeed industry itself - both of which are far more environmentally polluting.

I wonder what the next lame justification will be?

If the Government truly wanted to increase road safety and lower congestion then it would look at driver training and the whole speed limit issue in detail. The surrounding lanes around here have a combination of 40,50 and 60mph limits and yet here in the village the speed limit is 40mph on a much narrower road - madness! And yet we have the local do-gooders who have never exceeded the speed limit in their life demanding the Parish Council forks out for a scamera that the **** Blue Rinse Brigade can operate on our behalf and yet we haven't had a fatality in the village for decades.

So, in answer to your question until the normal people can regain control from the holier than thou's, you haven't got a chance in hell of getting a sensible speed limit structure in place.

unclebuck

Strange as it sounds, I agree with everything Flatcap says.

Here are the latest reports on just how advanced the plans are for EU wide road charging and GPS control.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4555298.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4552132.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4610452.stm

Note that the official spin is that Motorists are already beginning to embrace the idea of satellite-navigation units in cars.

Apparently we can't wait.

Leslie

Spot on FCD.

Les

flynnstudio

yeah, agree flatcap...

re the gps: if it's not eye in the sky then what tech are they going to use - there is no way they can network the entire country any other way - mobile towers don't cover all - and neither do those pointless stupid blue poles they put up at a stupid cost which have yet to serve any purpose and no doubt will soon need 'upgrading' at yet more silly money - all those thousands of miles of rural country roads where only a few people ever drive - it's just nuts and a total **** away of good money that could be spent on better things like schools or healthcare or PENSIONS! huurah- there's something for the old grannies to think about when they're moaning about speeding on roads they never use - stop the gov spending your pension money on utter sh*te!!- I mean they can't even maintain basic GOOD tarmac on all the roads never mind a load of sh*tty speed tech - and as we know this stuff is unreliable as anything - network crashes, endless upgrades, tech coming in and out of production - it'll just be stupid - passports, GPS - they're fooking mad. It's just when I see people ( sorry uncle buck) who just say 'Nothing can be done' I just say 'boolls' your already accepting it - your saying 'nothing' is giving them carte blanche by saying that - I say NO - everytime I see that 'oh it's inevitable - we've already lost' attitude I say No - tell them and everyone you know that they should sod off and think again how to spend our money..

as you say - training. - better driving tests - mandatory advanced car handling and road driving lessons for people with cars over 100bhp - there are lots of ways..but then 99% of people drive (and even live) like they're already half-dead anyway - all this crap and effort it just to clamp down on a few testosterone fuelled teenagers - I say let nature sort it out - if they acquirre good enough driving skills they'll live past 25 and then ( I don't know why) but you just sort of 'slow down' and act sensibly anway ( most of the time!)..

Flatcapdriver

If Snooper can develop a simple speed camera locator which doesn't look as if it costs more than a tenner to manufacture, then I'm sure HMG could persuade some Far Eastern company (why provide some jobs at home, huh?) could knock one up for less than that. A simple SIM card could upload the information but don't ask me as I'm not a techy.

OllyK

GPS will be used, but only to send the timing signal, it wouldn't be used for upload. You car would have a black box in it and it would log where you go and when. It can then upload that to a central database, either via an inbuilt mobile phone on GRPS (much like active tracker systems work now) or as you pass roadside beacons via a radio transmission.

flynnstudio

Its a waste of good money. Totally pointless for all the reasons I have already pointed out. It'll take a decade or more to get installed and by then the first part of it will be obsolete. It's just pointless.

If it's speeding there aiming to limit why not just limit the cars mechanically in the factory ? why put in all this sh*te..It'll never happen - it makes no sense on any level..

If it's 'lives' they're worried about then they could save MANY more lives ploughing this money into health and welfare related industries than all this endless tech nonsense will ever do...

Seriously, just reject it now on all levels and I guarantee it will never come to pass...

Flatcapdriver

Yes, but just think of the revenue that will be generated not to mention the control that this will give future Governments so don't think the Tories will roll it back because I can't see that happening.

unclebuck

Right again. The building blocks are being put into place with all haste:


I'm afraid that the "ignore it and it will go away" approach won't make any difference to the inevitable outcome.

unclebuck

This is about the State, whatever puppet government is in place it's the State that will ultimately control the population

flynnstudio

well with all this hi-tech there won't be any need for road coppers anymore so when I disable mine with an accidental hi-voltage shock to it's ECU I won't need to worry about being stopped. Simple.

Bring it on!!!

unclebuck

If the signal is lost for any reason your ECU will simply immobilise the vehicle. If it is subsequently found that the tracker was deliberately disabled then a (very) hefty fine will be issued to the registered owner.

Flatcapdriver

Err no. Because by then 'speeding' or any mobility offence will carry a penalty of long term incarceration and will be veiwed with far greater disdain than, say, kiddy fiddling.

flynnstudio

What kind of orwellian nightmare are you envisiging here - by thinking like this your doing their dirty work for them...they're using your 'approval by lack of dissent' to validate this crud into operation.

It's all green fields and blue skies out of my window. Stop visiting those dark places that brood on this rubbish.Stop clicking the articles and believe me it will lose it's impetus and it's power...

Besides - got to catch me first!!!There will be roads filled with slow drivers and only me and the one road copper left..easy!!sod the 'imaginary public lynch mob you've imagined will exist...

unclebuck

Sure is keep taking those happy pills and everything will be just fine...

flynnstudio

This is nuts - please think about what your saying before you engage fingers and issue yet another delluded orwellian perversion upon us all.....so if the sat goes down - every vehicle in the country stops - think of the deaths on the road that day!!

flynnstudio

You need the happy pills mate - all you see ahead is woe. How do you get up on a morning..

I mean this with all sincerity - stop harbouring these dark fantasies in your head - it's not going to happen. There will be no apocalypse, there will be no global meltdown, there will be no energy crisis. Just change your script mate - someone's programming your head with negative thoughts...erase em - go buy a dog and get outside - go to the beach, the woods and enjoy yourself. This crap your spouting is the same kind of millenium disease I had to endure when people said planes would fall from the skies at Jan 1st 1999...

ever watched jurassic park - remember LIFE WILL FIND A WAY...celebrate good times!!

unclebuck

Trust me, I have thought very long and very hard about these issues. I've seen it develop from a concept, to where we are now with the components actually being put into place at great expense, and frequent announcements by various government agencies that this is indeed the future of motoring in this country.

It is Owellian, but it's no delusion. I can't do your research for you, but the links I posted above should give you a good starting point.

Flatcapdriver

I am by nature, extremely optimistic but I suggest you visit Oz to see how far advanced this has gone and how accurate Orwell was in his thinking for which the Anglo Saxon mindset seems so accepting of it, whereas the Latin temperament would never go for it.

In the Anglo Saxon world, the Government is perceived to be the State (run by politicians) whereas the Latin world sees the State (run by bureaucrats) as the Government which although quite subtle is a massively different way of looking at things. That's why the holier than thou's fail to get too much their way in Spain, for example where speeding, tax avoidance and the suchlike are tolerated (unless perpetrated by the bureaucrats) as being too insignificant to worry about - they are far more tolerant than us lot.