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Apparently so.Originally Posted by jaytip
Whoosh
Apparently so.
Started out with nothing. Still have most of it left.
Surely herds of slow moving old people wandering around the kerbside is in itself a major road hazard.
Pretty much this.
M
Yes of course
I don't always respect the derestricted speed limit but a 30 or 40, completely and absolutely.
"A man of little significance"
Oh the outrage, I can feel it from here. He was speeding, spend 5 minutes imagining the outrage you'd feel if a speeding motorist hit a loved one.
Last edited by oldoakknives; 1st August 2019 at 20:47.
Started out with nothing. Still have most of it left.
Police have to issue the Notice Of Intended Prosecution (NIP) within 2 weeks of the alleged offence. If they fail to do so, they are unable to charge you. Note the fine of 150% is of weekly wage, not salary.
Whilst we all probably exceed the speed limit intentionally or unintentionally from time to time, I do find it hard to reconcile some of the practices employer to catch speeding motorists...... My wife was clocked at 35mph exiting a local village at 1830. The guy was a motorbike cop stood partially obscured next to a hedge..... It is near a school and she is often so careful (and had just changed cars). I wish the police would be equally concerned about how the many vehicles are abandoned around the school before and after school..... To be honest some things you see are disgraceful and equally as dangerous..... But I guess there is no money in that!
The letter referred to in the OP was not a Notice Of Intended Prosecution, and there was no intention of bringing charges. It's basically a wake up call to people who might not realise by what margin they are speeding.
Started out with nothing. Still have most of it left.
Yes, I understand that. Just stating that if there was to be a NIP, the time has passed....
In my part of the world we have the same tactics used by the Police and the local community and all power to them narrow sometime country roads little passing room for error cyclists , horses and riders, dog walkers,farm machinery all competing for their slice then you get as i did today some brain dead numpty driving like a bat out of hell with no room for error
My neighbour got one these a few weeks ago and in effect it is just a warning
BTW i do not have a halo and i do on occasion break speed limits.
Last edited by mart broad; 1st August 2019 at 22:28.
I FEEL LIKE I'M DIAGONALLY PARKED IN A PARALLEL UNIVERSE
Whereas presumably you would be quite unconcerned if a motorist, while driving within the posted speed limit, were to hit said loved one?
Hmmm, that's some counter-argument.
"Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. The third time it's enemy action."
'Populism, the last refuge of a Tory scoundrel'.
That depends on why he hit the said loved one. Was he driving whilst drunk, or not concentrating, or driving a dangerous car, or using a mobile phone etc etc.
Keeping within the speed limit is just one small part of being safe.
It's a fact that there is less chance of being killed at 20 or 30 mph than at 40 or 50 mph. That's why there are lower speed limits in urban areas.
Would you prefer a free for all, go as fast as you like, because you know best system?
Started out with nothing. Still have most of it left.
Incredible.
I am of course only presuming but, am I right in thinking you consider yourself a really good driver and do you get frustrated when behind some 'idiot' doing 30mph in a 30mph zone?
Which has been amply illustrated in this thread; although speed kills, speeds traps are primarily about generating revenue, not safety. As such even though lower speeds áre safer, speed limits themselves are sometimes highly suspect concerning safety vs. cashing in.
Imo it is REALLY bad that speed limits are with reason universally disrepected as sound safety limits.
Same thing the accuracy/calibration in combination with the margins of the measuring equipment. As it is, the State is upholding an at best dubious system which again does not create respect for the speed limits.
Concerning the low cost scare system of the State using vigilantes... BAD!
If speed cameras were about safety they would all be placed before the bend and not after it.
Community Speedwatch groups, and the clue is in the title really, are not state vigilantes.
Rather, they are local people who are usually sick to death of the speeding problem in their communities. They are assisted by the local council and provided with some speed measuring equipment and training, and they are ultimately trying to get a message across to the thousands of myopic morons who choose not to obey pretty sensible speed limits, for whatever reason. They are not a cash raising exercise, the opposite in fact.
It’s good for a number of reasons, it brings communities together, checks whether the problem is real or imagined, frees up Police resources for other things, and helps get a serious message across to speeding motorists without the associated fines and points. I’d have thought people would be all over the last one, a moments inattentiveness is punished with a letter from the police rather than 3 points and a £100 fine.
Drivers are always moaning that they should be educated rather than treated as a cash cow and fined, so what’s wrong with the above, other than it causing a bit of alarm and embarrassment?
And yes, I’ve been clocked speeding in the past and attended a speed awareness course in lieu of the points and fine, so I fell off that pedestal a few years back.
Agree with everything you say, would people prefer a fine and points on their licence, or a letter reminding them to lay off the gas for a few hundred metres.
"Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. The third time it's enemy action."
'Populism, the last refuge of a Tory scoundrel'.
When I started driving back in the 70's peoples driving was much more closely monitored by the police - in cars and on bikes. It wasn't just about speed but how you drove including use of indicators, tailgating and aggressive driving that may result in you being pulled over. Police would often give you a good talking to instead of it going to court.
The added bonus was that a number of other issues and criminal activity would be identified as a result of the increased level of interaction between the police and public.
A much better system than cameras and volunteers - I guess that it fell into decline due to budget cuts and it not being exciting or macho enough for the current para-military clothed police force.
I rarely see anyone being stopped other than on motorways or city centres these days.
I read earlier that the police in Spain have started to deploy drones to watch over their traffic, 3 of which are certified to gather evidence. A good use of resources IMHO if it gets problem drivers off the roads. This type of surveillance coupled with lengthy bans for repeat offenders would be a good start to making the roads safer. There'll be protests no doubt, but not from law abiding folks.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...fic-blackspots
F.T.F.A.
I'm of the same era. I remember police checking everyone pulling out of pub car parks. I was a bit of a tearaway in my youth (with a jacked up MK1 Cortina, light on the diff etc) and was always being stopped. I lived in Chelmsford and Essex police had a fearsome reputation in the 1970s (think "Life On Mars"). At one stage I had 7 endorsements but saw the light in my early 20s and been a good boy ever since.
Nowadays, there is very little visible policing and I fear that the young lads who were in my situation won't ever be steered in the right direction because of the lack of policing and the current vogue for a sense of entitlement that people have.
I made a comment earlier, which was made by associates who are in the police, that it is quite common for someone who ignores speed limits to also ignore many other laws of the land, so a pull for speeding and check often reveals other activity.
Blimey, it had changed a lot by 1980 then!
Most people drove after 3 or 4 pints and speeding was pretty much the norm everywhere, although a lot of cars struggled to maintain 70 MPH on dual carriageways or motorways.
I'd agree that, if you did get stopped, a minor infringment would probably get you a bit of a lecture (even in the late 80s I experienced a 'Good Cop, Bad Cop' chat at the side of the road for doing 45 in a 30 - In my defence it was only JUST into the 30 and the speed limit sign was covere by bushes! - which had me struggling not to laugh, as it was so stereotypical, but they were more interested in drink drivers that day, so let me go with the talking to) rather than automatic points and a fine, which I think would be more useful, but I don't recall the police ever closely monitoring people's driving behaviour in any of the many years I've now been driving, more's the pity...
M
Started out with nothing. Still have most of it left.
Spot on! Speeding isn't big, clever, legal or safe but DoT stats show it ranks low in the list of accident (including serious) causes despite which it's the only thing that is enforced. Once saw the stats for "driving without due care" prosecutions. Numbers have dropped massively over the last 40 years against a backdrop of the number of vehicles on the road increasing by many times. In 2018 alone, speeding prosecutions went UP by 7.2% while careless driving prosecutions FELL by 7.8%. in 2018 there were 15 times more speeding prosecutions than for careless driving.
EDIT: I think I also read that mobile phone driving prosecutions had fallen dramatically.
Excess speed may not be a primary cause of many accidents, but it certainly worsens the consequences.
It’s physics Jim...
I also think it’s a shame that roads policing units are far fewer in number than they were 15-20 years ago, a legacy of police numbers reductions across all areas I suppose.
But, we are where we are, and it’s better to have communities helping around speeding and anti-social driving than just shrugging shoulders and saying ‘no resources mate’.
We welcome public interventions in any other type of law breaking, imagine if upon witnessing a break in you just ignored it and took the view it was up to the Police to catch them.
It does but even for KSI (Killed or Seriously Injured) accidents, speeding is (per official stats, presumably from Police reports) one (of potentially more than one) causation factor in only 17% of cases.
I'm certainly not against speeding enforcement. I'd just like to see a "holistic" approach to deal with all driving offences.
Whilst there is still a large number of idiots that think it's OK to hold their mobile phone while driving, the decrease in prosecutions for the same is almost certainly due to the almost universal adoption of standard hands-free equipment in newer vehicles. The law should be simple - if caught with a mobile phone in your hand whilst driving you get a 6 month ban (first offence).
If we used your argument we wouldn't have to wear seat-belts because not wearing doesn't cause accidents.
It’s a great idea, but realistically even the historically higher numbers of roads policing units couldn’t possibly police all motorists all the time.
Instead we rely on people self policing, like in all areas of life really, to know the law and stick within it.
That’s enforced not by nabbing everybody who drives badly, but by setting examples via the courts of what might happen to you if you do break the law. The idea is to both raise awareness and educate as well as punish the errant driver.
Driving a motor vehicle is one of the most complex and responsible things that most people do, and by and large most people do it pretty well or at least manage not to cause carnage every time they go out.
I just feel that most people don’t see speeding as a crime at all, as the vast majority of the time there are precisely zero consequences for doing it.
Interestingly....... "On 31 July the High Court handed down a judgment which clarifies the law on the offence of using a mobile phone whilst driving.
The judgment states that it must be proved beyond reasonable doubt that the phone was being used for an 'interactive telecommunication function' at the time of the alleged offence.
Previously any interaction with your phone whilst driving was deemed an offence and the law has been slow to catch up to the numerous other purposes for which we use smartphones these days. Now there is a clear distinction between using the features of a smartphone such as navigation and music and the telephony features.
There is still the catch-all legislation of driving without due care, so this this is not a green light to drive one handed whilst holding your phone in the other and looking at a map. A good car mount should still be considered an essential but it does at least now mean we can use the SatNav and music functions and interact with them without fear of a fine so long as common sense is applied."
Without wishing to sound stupid, what is the difference, or definition on weekly wage?
I’m self employed & pay myself a salary but also receive dividends from the business.
Thanks
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Philip, I'm fairly sure you are much smarter than that comment implies I therefore sense some disingenuity. Whilst both scenarios would involve grief and anger I'm fairly sure there would be more of the former and much more of the latter in the case of speeding.
The speed limits, particularly 30s and 40s, are a compromise between utility and safety for all users of the road and the space around it. You can argue that some 30s should be 40 and vice versa but generally I think the limits are generally more or less correct most of the time.
It's interesting to speculate how much 30/40 speeding is wilful and how much is due to a lack of attention to the road, a condition that is endemic and of even more concern.
You all probably remember the recent horrible accident in Stevenage where a car taking part in a ‘cruise’ event left the road and crashed into about 20 people.
My 82 year old mother-in-law has twice had speeding tickets in the roads around there over the last 10 years, doing 45 on the 40mph dual carriageways which are common in Stevenage. Both deserved, both lack of concentration - she is a cautious driver with no accidents in 60 years of
driving.
Meanwhile the police have known about the illegal
drag racing for at least a year and refused to get involved. You can sympathise with the cynics when it comes to traffic enforcement.
I disagree, and that was the point I was trying to make.
It behoves motorists not to collide with any other road users (loved or otherwise!). But I think that the anger of the victim's loved ones would be the same regardless of the cause (and assuming that the event was avoidable). I can't imagine that the level of grief and anger would be lessened and that anyone would think "the motorist hit my loved one because they were distracted by their phone/not paying attention/tailgating/whatever but I'm OK with that because at least they were keeping to the speed limit".
Speeding is the cause of somewhere between 4% and 17% of accidents, but receives a disproportionate amount of publicity - probably because it can be measured quantitatively and automatically (which in turn allows easy automated revenue generation).
What are we doing to prevent the other 83+% of road incidents?
I'm like you, pay a salary and draw a dividend. My weekly wage being my monthly salary payment multiplied by 12 then dividend by 52 is how I would calculate it. Not sure if whoever was enforcing the fine would see it that way.
My view for
what it is worth is salary is qualified as monthly or annual, weekly wage is......errrr....weekly...
Exactly. There is no link between enforcement activity and the really dangerous drivers. And I say that as someone who tries very hard to stick to the limits but does enough driving to know the types of things that are genuinely dangerous.
This actually goes against all the (peer reviewed) evidence.
The problem with making a phone call while driving is due to the cognitive load on the driver, especially as there are no non-verbal clues available within the conversation, and has little to do with whether they are holding the phone.
The evidence shows no appreciable difference in driving impairment between conversations made using a handheld device and a hands free device. Both are on a par with the impairment seen by drivers over the drink/drive limit. (Obviously there are different types of conversation - a simple "I'm running late because of the traffic and will be late home" call will (probably!) impose less cognitive load than a 30-minute work related conference call, or a job interview.
Banning all telephone conversations by drivers would have a definite positive effect on road safety (although it would obviously be very difficult to enforce), but there is nothing to suggest that penalising only those who hold their phones would actually make any difference.
That was my very point. Policing speed is absolutely fair enough but it makes no sense to not detect and prosecute other motoring transgressions with the same vigour.
You could have a PCSO drive round in an unmarked car with (hidden) cameras on all 4 sides. You'd catch dozens of people. Whenever you stop at lights these days, a glance in the mirror more often than not you see the top of the head of the driver behind as they use their mobile phone.
"Safety camera" partnerships are funded by fines (as I understand it)./ Why not apply similar to some unmarked safety cars?
I think that's right - well, the bit about hands-free being dangerous. I saw a lorry driver texting as he came through a junction the other day. Sadly, I don't have a dash cam or I'd have been straight on to the Police.
It did my head in when it was announced that the EU is planning to make automatic speed limiters mandatory on new cars before long. At the same time, most new cars that are sold have a massive colourful distracting tablet device fitted.
I'd ban smoking and vaping by drivers too, by the way!
3 of my cars allow you to type text messages on the built-in head unit. It's the distraction caused by the typing which is suicidally dangerous; not whether the device the driving is using is hand held, in a cradle, or an integral part of the car.
What I said doesn't go against any evidence at all and in no way contradicts what you've said. At no point did I say hands-free calls are not distracting. However, it is not illegal to hold a hands-free conversation currently and so the only prosecutions can have been for holding a phone which, under current legislation, remains illegal. Therefore, my point about the decrease in the number of prosecutions for holding a phone stands. The reason will be because there has been a dramatic increase in the number of vehicles equipped with a hands-free facility.
Understood. I was taking issue with your suggestion that
as (based on the evidence) this would not be a particularly effective way to improve road safety.
Can't argue with that.
Just because other things will also work toward improving safety, does not mean that clamping down further on the use of a hand held phone would not work toward that aim too. If you're effectively removing a hand from the steering wheel to do something other than change gear etc, this obviously impairs ability (even automatic cars have control stalks on each side of the wheel) as well as the conversation itself - assuming of course that the reason you're holding the phone isn't to read or write a text which is monumentally stupid.
- - - Updated - - -
Certainly can't argue with that
And the fact that this utter cretin only gets a 12 month ban:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-eng...ned-for-a-year
shows how little the punishment fits the crime for, what I regard as, serious motoring offences.
One of the hidden dangers of driving, and I forget the technical name for it, is that if you do something slightly risky (drive a bit to close to the car in front, change lane without looking properly etc) and nothing happens, it conditions the mind it's OK such that you gradually move closer to the car in front as no danger is assumed. Until it's too late.
As a commercial pilot, I go into a flight simulator twice a year and practise handling potentially dangerous situations (engine failures on take off etc) so that my motor skills are honed for the one in a million chance it may happen in real life. I experience the difficulties of handling the plane and the potential negative effects of making the wrong decision.
A motorist doesn't have the benefit of refresher training and so bad habits accumulate over the years and the whole road system becomes and accident waiting to happen. Every day we all witness shocking examples of bad driving, some negligent, some by aggressive idiots with no concern for others. Sadly, without visible policing, these events will continue to rise as bad driving is rarely seen by a camera.
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