To ask that you speed up a little.

[Dawndonna]

I live in a rural area. I have to go about my daily business, appointments, shopping etc. So, if you're visiting and admiring the scenery, please pull over. Do not drive at 20mph on a sixty mile an hour road upon which overtaking is either bloody dangerous or impossible.
Drives me fucking mental

'if your scared get a bus' strange comment, driving with care and courtesy doesn't mean you are scared it means you are sensible.

Being scared is how you feel when someone you love dearly is badly injured in a crash caused by fuckwits who drive too fast.

There is a massive difference between people who can drive at fairly high
Speeds and those who are shocking at any speed. My particular favourite at the moment during my commute are those drivers who insist on sitting right up a lorry/van/tractor s behind, then cant see to overtake, finally pull back enough to overtake and pull out at a snails pace thinking they can execute it all in fifth gear!!!!

I do a lot of driving, my car is powerful and I know my own limits so if I go above the speed limit on safe roads then it is definitely not me causing an accident.

Also, it's mirror SIGNAL manoeuvre, not slam on brakes 100 yards from turn off, crawl to a stop and then indicate. ARGH!

It is terrible what happened with you thebody and I can understand why you are still letting it control how you drive. But if you always drive at 50 in 60 limits you are not driving safely and it's not fair on other people. Same with the drivers who are not feeling well, or concentrating on scenery, or on a child in the back.

Yes, they should get a bus if they can't concentrate on driving safely. Yes, it's really inconvenient - but no-one has a god-given right to keep driving if they can't do it properly.

My brother is one of these 'oh, I had to drive somewhere ... oh, I must be safe because I go nice and slow'. He has written off three cars since he passed his test about 12 years ago and I am really glad he is not currently driving.

"... Kinda wonder if speed doesn't kill then why are there do many road safety adverts telling us to 'kill our speed ..."

By far the easiest factor to measure and control.

Appeals on an emotional level.

Trips off the tongue. Here are some of the more nauseating examples: "Kill your speed not a child", " Speed limits life, " and the really trite, " Twentys plenty ".

Not in any way the most effective means of reducing Road Traffic Incidents and, as you yourself have adequately demonstrated, can be very misleading in that an obsession with a particular number becomes more important that other more relevant factors.

These campaigns also divert public attention from the real causes of RTIs and do little absolutely nothing to stop really awful drivers.

The thing is, on shitty rural roads you can sometimes go at 60mph if you know the road, but if you don't know the road and if you don't have a navigator screaming 'hard left' and suchlike at you then you simply have to slow down.

Forget the cars driving too slowly, it's the pedestrians that p* me off! Yes, the country roads are lovely for a stroll or jog but ffs stick to the right hand side of the road, and make sure that your earplugs aren't blocking all sounds out of your earholes. I get so annoyed when they step out in front of you without warning or wander along completely oblivious to the fact that there are 15 cars behind them trying desperately to pass.

Sirzy, you've obviously never had a child suddenly need something that you have deal with safely, you have never had to drive back from something with a slight headache. No doubt you are a perfect, healthy 25-year old man who never looks out the window at his surroundings, thinks all women and children and small cars, and old people and disabled people and pedestrians and sheep and holidaymakers should get out his way pronto because he is fast and of course he is very, very, very important.

janelikesjim I'm none of those things and I think you should pull over to deal with a child or because you feel ill, rather than dawdling along distracted.

There is a massive difference between windy country lanes which are barely wide enough for two cars to pass, and decent width, well surfaced, reasonably straight A roads. Both may be NSL roads, but nobody sane would criticise a driver for choosing 30-40 as a top speed on the former. If you choose to drive at 40 along an NSL A road, ignoring 30 stretches as well as faster sections, you are driving dangerously, you can get pulled over and you'd certainly fail a driving test for it. It's infuriating for those of us with places to be, and looking at scenery, feeling unwell or dealing with kids/passengers is not an excuse - they're distractions and they make you much more dangerous than the driver behind who wishes to drive at 60 whilst giving the task in hand his full concentration.

Just back from nearly driving over a grockles and her two children, because it's a pretty little town with a farmers market, and as they were on holiday there couldn't possibly be any cars driving in the high street, or parking, or doing anything that cars do. So dh, driving into a parking space, nearly ran them down as they stepped into the road in front of him (why bother looking; we're country bumpkins here, can't possibly have anything as modern as cars) and then as he tried to reverse - cars do that when parking - stepped onto the pavement behind him!

What do people think they're doing on holiday? You're not in the bloody jungle.

Ithinkitsjustme YES. And those same stupid dozy fuckers meandering in the middle of the effing road holidaymakers walking in the road who you just slowed up to a crawl for to pass them safely, always ALWAYS turn and look at you as if you have just shat on their heads without asking first.

I AM FOAMING-AT-THE-MOUTH-MAD with people who do that.

GAH.

Thanks for letting me get that out

Sorry if you are so ill it effects your driving you shouldn't be behind the wheel. If a child needs dealing with you stop. I find it quite scary anyone would disagree but it does explain why roads are so dangerous!

I think some of the comments on this thread, very sadly, display a complete lack of caring about people. I'm actually sad to read lots of these comments (PeppermintPasty - I am speechless at yours).

What on earth is happening to women? Looks like caring and compassion are being replaced by selfishness and rudeness.

Why do people become monsters behind that little tin of metal we call cars?

Oh come on! Are you serious?!!

I don't know where you live but I live on a tiny country road that is treated with total disrespect by visitors on foot or in the car. One man, with 2 children in the back, sped up same road so fast that his tyres smoked when he met me in my car, narrowly avoiding hitting me at a terrible speed. When I expressed my dismay through the open window, I included the expletive "shit!" in shock (shoot me).

Do you know, that stupid stupid ignorant fool told me not to swear in front of his children.

I then expressed my genuine surprise to him that he clearly felt that killing his children was preferable to them hearing a stranger utter the word "shit".

I said in my post above that my objection to the idiots in the road was the way they looked at me when I slowed to a crawl. RUDE just doesn't cover it. And if you don't like the language I used don't come on AIBU!!

Oh, and I have been hit in my car on said road 3 times in the last year. 2 of these were insurance claims that I made, and the 3rd I had to write off as the little toad who ran into me at speed lied about it later.

8 years ago I was almost hospitalised by a driver hitting me at about 60 on this road speeding down the hill "to get to the surf". Broke the wishbone at the front of my car which was a write off. What a tit.

With those odds perhaps I should move

My personal favourite was the loon who drove into a hedge becuase he wanted to "see into house as it looks quaint". He seemed to think that this made his crash my fault.....

It is not OK to stare into peoples houses and gardens.
It is not OK to be so distracted when driving that you veer off the road into hedges.
If you do drive into someones hedge, expect them to claim the costs back from you.

Crikey, what did I start!

People don't look before they step out near me sometimes, but they aren't on holiday, just in a world of their own.

Some people just don't pay attention, do they?

I was driving out of our village earlier today - on 30mph stretch. There's a footpath at one point that crosses the road. No pedestrian crossing or lights, pedestrians should stop and wait for a gap (and it's normally a quiet road, so they don't have to wait long).

As I was approaching this part of the road in my car, a pair of teenage girls leading a pair of horses along the footpath just walked right out. Not even a glance at the road to check for traffic. Not during any part of their road crossing did they pay any attention to the road. Luckily for them I've got good brakes. I didn't sound the horn for fear of spooking the horses, so I've got no idea if they even realised a car was on the road.

Some people are just stupid. Like those idiots who persist in walking along a beach under cliffs which have recently been the scene of landslides, where there are signs saying Danger, where a couple of people have just DIED.

DON'T WALK ALONG THE BEACH!!!!

I have a feeling that the same people who meander so dozily on foot, are the same numpties who insist on doing 50 or 60 along country lanes.

It's a complete lack of awareness of anything outside their own little bubble, save when a shiny catches their eye, leaving them hypnotised.

JenaiMarrHePlaysGuitar - whilst I agree with your general point, 60 mph is the national speed limit, so 50 to 60 mph isn't unreasonably slow on most country lanes.

If you'd said 30 or 40 mph, I'd have been with you all the way

Noooo pato, I mean the ones who insist that it's OK to do 60 on a country lane because it's "the speed limit".

I think 60 is way too fast on a lot of lanes, 40 is pushing it sometimes.

Sorry - I thought you meant 50 to 60 was too slow, not the other way round!

Anyone who insists on driving at a fixed speed that's not the same as the fixed speed limit, is being unsafe. That doesn't mean it's always safe to drive at 30 in a 30 zone or 60 in a 60 zone, but the only reason to insist on driving at one arbitrarily chosen speed is because you're in a zone where that's the limit and feel it'd be safe to go faster. In that situation, you have to go with the law and limit yourself. Otherwise, sticking to a limit you've picked out of thin air is just going to take your attention off the road. You should be slowing down and speeding up according to the conditions, not anything else.