Sign here for retention of fun

[vibrac]

Now a 50mph limit instead of 60 would affect my enjoyment of the big Vin but thats what its all about isnt it? cutting the fun out of using the roads and nothing to do with safety.

Sign here

http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/noNSLreduction/

and pass it on

 

[bmetcalf]

Is it really proposed that you could only go 50 mph on the motorway? If it were the US, it would have originated from the "hate cars, force 'em into mass transit" crowd. After we got the 55 mph maximum in '74, traffic deaths continued to fall at the same rate, so little to do with safety.

Now a 50mph limit instead of 60 would affect my enjoyment of the big Vin but thats what its all about isnt it? cutting the fun out of using the roads and nothing to do with safety.

 

[Tnecniv Edipar]

signed.
The UK national speed limit applies to main roads other than motorways and derestricted dual carriageways.
Originally the speed limit in the UK was reduced due to the Suez fuel crisis but the reduction was not removed after the fuel crisis ended !!

The UK has a ridiculous policy for road safety , just slow everything to a crawl until even if you did hit anything it would not result in injury or damage !! I expect before much longer that the men with red flags will be back !!
One thing we do need , badly , is a jaywalking law. Some pedestrians seem to think that they can jeopardise their own and others lives at will just because the law defaults to them in an accident.
Then we have cyclists adopting the same attitude.
Or take the moped speed limit , which government brain donor decided that restricting these infuriating devices to 30 mph was a good idea ??!!
Whoever it was , have you ever considered disproportionate speed ? Mix a 30 mph speed restricted vehicle with 50 or 60 mph highway traffic and what do you get , A HAZARD !!
The best bit of stupidity though is the recent amended Motorcycle driving test ! It includes a hazard avoidance swerve test that is actually resulting in injury causing accidents to the test candidates !!
Roll on the revolution !!

 

[vibrac]

further comments

Its the 50 mph on non motorway that is the big stupidity The speed limit on a motorway is academic I try and avoid the damm boring things when on my bike.
As for imposing limits on the vehicle itself apart from mopeds see on dual carridge ways how the lorry speed limit fills two lanes for 10 Min's as the relative speed of 1/2 MPH difference crawls up the length of a large truck and see the frustration and maneuvers created behind by the blockage.
we should watch the road not the speedo.
Incidentally a thought re 'speed is the major cause of accidents' .If you were a copper at the site of an accident and putting down the cause whats the easiest reason? what else could you put down that would not cause endless paperwork and hassel? how about' speed is the easiest cause to put down on an accident report'.

 

[lindie]

d'ya mean to say that the 60 mph mark while it is still legal is never overstepped by you if even in spurts for the fun of it but?

 

[Tnecniv Edipar]

Probably results in less paperwork and easy conviction , rather than driver error or other more likely reasons which require more investigation.

All I can say is that during the time I've been driving / riding , which is 25 years now , I can say that I see more potential for accidents resulting from driver incompetence , inattention , distraction or outright stupidity than speed itself. If drongo drivers were prosecuted for not indicating before a lane change , inability to negotiate a roundabout or junction , tailgating , driving too slowly in inappropriate circumstances , lack of observation etc the roads would be much safer. Of course that requires more work and less speed tax revenue for the Government.

 

[Tnecniv Edipar]

d'ya mean to say that the 60 mph mark while it is still legal is never overstepped by you if even in spurts for the fun of it but?

Mate , I treat speed limits with the contempt they deserve !!

 

[bmetcalf]

Incidentally a thought re 'speed is the major cause of accidents' . how about' speed is the easiest cause to put down on an accident report'.

One of the US car mags looked into the speed kills statistics and found that not only did the states have different stds, the reporting local agencies did also. They found anomalies such as "too slow" was lumped in with "too high" and if the guy was blind drunk and going too fast, that was also counted as "too fast". Our politicians are too craven (is that redundant?) to suggest that driver quality is the true answer.

 

[Tnecniv Edipar]

Same here , well known fact that non of the official road accident stats bear thorough scrutiny. Of course statistics can be biased any way required depending on the data used and how it is used. The latest scourge on UK roads is average speed detection camera's. The previous generation of camera could only detect speed over a specific , measured short distance. So , drivers would slow down for the cam then when out of the zone just speed up again. These latest cams detect average speed over any required distance. They are heavily used on road work's , so we now have to endure mile up on mile of 30 , 40 or 50 mph on motorways even when there is no visible work taking place !!

 

[bmetcalf]

These latest cams detect average speed over any required distance. !

I have had bouts of paranoia about our toll roads, where they give you a time stamped ticket when you enter and then turn it in when you exit and the attendant sees where you got on and tells you the fee, somewhat distance based. It would be a simple chart to see that if you got on at X and you are leaving at Y and it is less than Z:zz on the clock, you averaged over the limit. I've never actually heard of it happening, but easy enough to do. The transponder toll road passes could do it just as easily. In addition, the OBD II "black boxes" in our cars have could yield speed info. That with GPS could make it a real Big Brother scenario.

A bit different from George Brown making testing runs on the Great North Road or Ted Davis on the road on a Lightning.

 

[Tnecniv Edipar]

I think that is done on French toll roads.
Actually , we have one private toll motorway in the UK and it is not speed policed , you can just get on it an nail it !!

 

[vibrac]

. These latest cams detect average speed over any required distance

Three points
1. they work from the front
2. they cant see through another vehicle
3. Most important enter the zone on camera 1 slow lane exit the zone camera 2 on fast lane or vice-versa they do not cross refer across lanes -yet!
As for GPS black boxes etc etc Mr Miller has a job to run a 6v horn let alone electronic jimcrakery

 

[Tnecniv Edipar]

Regarding point 3 , I think the latest gen cams can now cover lanes regardless of which lane is used to enter or exit the monitored zone.