JUST BECAUSE THERE IS A SPEED CAMERA ON 50MPH ROAD

[NotYoMomma]

Does NOT mean you should drop your speed to 35MPH!!!!

Ianbu!

HATE this, seriously why do 50, traffic moving nicely and then bang on the break just as you go past?!

Note I didn't nearly crash but we had to slow right down and of course it was muggins here who got stuck at the next set.of traffic lights of doom

GRrrr twitch

I'm actually laughing at the "scaredy cats" comment!

Wow, limitedperiodonly, you live life on the edge don't you, you risk taker you! Don't let those scaredy cats hold you back!

Anyway, I've been on a speed awareness course and I'm a safer driver because of it. We were told that at any one given time only about 20 cameras are actually turned on in our city, but you never know which one is on, so you're really unlucky to get a speeding fine. This was from an ex-police officer who knew his stuff.

So I doubt that its all done to make money. If they wanted that they'd turn them all on. The money is an added bonus and it costs to run those speed cameras too. It's not solar powered.

Some speed checks do seem to be designed to make money though. You know the police with speed gun hiding behind some bushes in an area with no pedestrians where the speed limit has just changed kind of thing. These aren't accident black spots; they're places where they're likely to be able to issue loads of tickets to drivers who were slowing down anyway as the come up to areas with pedestrians etc.

It costs too much money not to put thought into where you put a speed camera, but two traffic police with a speed gun can be sent anywhere on a whim. It's hardly 'fighting the good fight', is it?

Also loving the scaredy cats comment.

I think, based on this thread, I'm a shit driver...! In the past 3 days I've done 85 in a 70 limit, 15 in a 30 limit, slowed down for a speed camera, fully stopped at a give way and tailgates. may I permitted to attempt to explain?
85 in a 70 limit - 7:30 on the m27 westbound. I could see two cars infront of me and one behind (covering about 2 miles of road)
15 in a 30 limit - 16:00 along a road that joins a school to its nearest corner shop, cars parked on both sides of the road. If the ice cream can had been parked up there as well your average toddler would have progressed faster than me.
Slowed down for speed camera - driving somewhere I'd never been. 99% certain was a 40 limit, was doing about 37. Saw the speed camera and realised there were lots of lampposts, narrowish road and houses on one side. Had a crisis of confidence and pressed the brake to be doing 30 as I passed. It was a 40 limit.
Stopping at give way. It's a t junction, school on road parallel, often used as a rat run (straight across the bottom). Residential, so fairly narrow, houses up to the corner, so no visibility, and cars parked every fucking where, so even less visibility!!
Tailgating - right hand most lane of FOUR on the motorway. Nothing in lanes 2 or 3. They were doing 65. I may have gotten a bit close up their chuff expecting them to have noticed a) that I was behind them and that b) there were 2 empty lanes to their left. And if it'd been a foreign plates car I wouldn't have tailgated (they are on the wrong side if the road after all).
So, how bad am I? Flame away...!

Maybe some aren't accident black spots but the three places that are notorious for traffic police in our city are all places that are hazardous. The first, is where an accident did take place and killed 3 children. The second, where there is a blind corner and joy riders would use the road dangerously, and the third is at the end of a hill where if you speed and end up skidding you have a chance of hitting oncoming vehicles.

Like I said, revenue is an added bonus. Most drivers won't slow down in a built up area.

Lustybusty, you've just admitted to breaking the law. Tailgating isn't illegal but you can be prosecuted for dangerous driving if you do it recklessly.

Lets hope your real name isn't Lustybusty.

The ones I'm thinking of are definite money spinners. E.g. Coming in to the village where my mum lives. The speed limit changes a long, long way out from the village (it's all fields and no pavements, with good fences keeping the cows in). Traffic tends to slow down slowly from 60 to 30 during this approach (and there's great visibility for the whole stretch). The police like to position themselves to catch people going at 37 as they slow down outside the village rather than inside the village where there might be a problem. In fact, they like this stretch as there is great visibility so they can maximise the chance of catching someone who didn't start slowing down a mile outside the village. They are notorious for doing this; it really isn't a place where there are accidents.

Just watching traffic cops and they have just stopped a guy for going TOO SLOWLY. And the police officers both said that driving too slow is as dangerous as travelling too fast.

But I guess those on here that say they are safer going slowly know more than traffic police.

Thankfully, no, my parents didn't christen me lustybusty! And I do hold my hands up, I occasionally break the speed limit when conditions allow. I do not, and will not ever, break a 20 or 30 limit. I have been known to do 45 or 55 on my way home from a nightshift at 3am (in a 40 or 50 limit respectively) and will, in the right conditions go max 70 in a 60/single carriageway NSL, and 85 in a dual carriageway NSL. BUT, if I were to get stopped by the police, I wouldn't lie about my speed, or try to defend it (unless they asked). I am breaking the law, I know I am, and coppers are not (afaik) stupid!

Lusty you don't sound like a shit driver to me at all - you were adjusting your behaviour to the conditions at hand.

Lustybusty, you've just admitted to breaking the law.

Oh FGS!

My late grandmother developed a slightly strange and alarming driving quirk in her later years. She had previously been an extremely good driver and, apart from this one thing, she was a good driver/parker/manoeuvrer right up to her death.

If she was driving and trying to hold a conversation at the same time, she would gradually ease off the throttle while talking, until she was doing about 10mph with irate drivers piling up behind her. When she had finished talking she would accelerate back to the speed limit.

And nothing you could do or say would make her remotely contrite about this habit. She used to say that she was quite entitled to drive at whatever speed she liked, within the speed limit, and that everyone else should just leave home earlier and not be in such a hurry.

It got so bad that I refused to be a passenger with her - I used to finish up mouthing "sorry" as people screamed past us, hooting and glaring, and my gran sailed along serenely - at 12mph.

Scaredy cats do hold me back fakebook but I've never gone into the back of them. I've never been convicted of any road offence or speeding either, so unlike you I haven't been on a speed awareness course.

I've been driving since 1984 and have probably driven an average of 30,000 to 50,000 miles a year since then.

I need my licence and I don't want to hurt myself or anyone else. That's enough.

So spare me the lesson and less of the cheek.

Arf at your gran.

I suspect my aunt would have adopted the same habits and attitudes if she'd carried on driving

Ok limited. .

And I'm glad you're so assured fakebook

I must say I've found this thread very therapeutic - it's allowed me to express resentments I've feeling for years!

Crabby. You are a useless driver and those that drive near the limit should be hung drawn and quartered. I can't believe that more don't drive around with their head in the clouds not paying attention. You should be ashamed.

Will that help lol

Highway code stopping distance from 96km/h excluding thinking distance is 55m. Most modern cars will easily out perform that from 100km/h even some fairly crap cars like a 1.6 Audi A3 - 37.5m. This is part of the reason that motorway limits should be increased preferably German style with some derestricted sections.

Well said AKAK.

I never eat and drive crabby. It can be dangerous.

Abra1d Mon

Not always. The 30mph limit in towns has not changed for about eighty years. It is 30 because that is the highest speed a human being can be hit and hope to survive. Even at 35mph survival limits are far, far worse.

Not the case any more. The survival rates for impacted pedestrians are far higher now. Crumple zones which absorb damage, plastic bumpers, softer metal bodywork (and even bonnet airbags now) have all reduced pedestrian death rates. The anti-motoring lobby insists on retaining their 1970s survival figures because they look bad.

The national speed limit of 70mph was picked because that was 2/3 of the maximum speed of the typical family car. A typical family car nowadays is capable of nearer to 130mph than 100mph.

This thread has shown me how society has changed over the past 20 years or so - and how aggressive many females have become - it ain't pretty!

I'm out of here and hope I don't come across Crappybig Mouth Bottom on the roads, or in real life. Somehow, I don't think we'd get on.

Itsyonlime. You don't need to worry about Crabby. She doesn't use her mirrors as she drives so fast and won't see you in them for dust even if she did. Lol

Crappybig Mouth Bottom

Now that wasn't very nice, was it?