AIBU to think th speed limit is not a target.

[EmmaLL25]

Driving home, busy cobbled street, bus coming towards me I need to slow down for to let pass, lots of pedestrians and children about, traffic lights at end of road.

It's a 30mph zone, I'm doing about 15mph due to all of above and some old guy behind me starts beeping and flapping his arms.

Within 30 secs he has to wait in the same set of lights as me. He then drives sbout 100 yards more and stops to park.

I'm really wondering if the minute he thought he'd gain by harassing me was worth it.

I'm a cautious driver I know but I do think he was being a prick.

Just needed a moan.

Am I the only person left wondering why a bus would be going down a cobbled street in the first place ? Are they actually cobbles in the traditional sense of the word? If so I think most people would be hard-pushed to do 30mph.

15 in a 30 is bordering on dangerously cautious OP. If there is a valid reason for the speed limit to be 15 then surely the council would have it as a 20 zone?

Lots of buses on cobbles around here - and these are proper old bumpy cobbles!

limitedperiodonly- TTWK It can be unsafe to do do 26mph in a 40mph limit and traffic police officers have judged it so, if in their opinion the slowcoach is driving without due care and attention. It's their job to police traffic speeds and driving standards; not yours.

No one doing 26 in a 40 would ever be charged with careless driving. Never, ever. Unless they were doing something else careless at the time, like applying make up or shaving! The motorway has a limit of 70 and a minimum of 30 when traffic is free moving. So if the police aren't worried about someone doing 31 in a 70, they won't care about 26 in a 40.

Disappointed

Speedos can show up to 110% of the actual speed + 6.25mph, but not less than the 'actual' speed, so you're right in that sense -- though some speedos may be calibrated more closely to the actual speed limit. As NetworkGuy points out, the speedo is also making assumptions based on the factory condition of your car - different-sized wheels or even over-inflated tyres can mean the car is travelling faster than the speedo thinks it is.

My safety comes before your need to get somewhere a few minutes earlier. If I felt it was safe enough to do 60 I would.

Yes, this! There is so much variation between NSL roads, and it isn't safe to do 60mph all the time on each and every one of them. Single-track roads with sheer drops on one side can be NSL but there's no way it's safe to do 60mph on them. Near me there's a stretch of narrow NSL road with lots of double hair-pin bends, and I was in a car that went off one doing about 40mph. There's no way I'll let some person in a rush behind me pressure me into driving faster round those bends than is safe.

Yeasayer

Cobbled streets with 30mph limits and buses down them here too - no-one drives more than 20mph down them as there are far too many hazards and, as you say, cobbles are not conducive to great speed.

Just wondering - if you did knock into a person / another car whilst going at 30mph in a 30mph limit, but where the conditions made that dangerous, would it be a defense that 'the council hasn't changed it to 20'? My understanding is that regardless of what the signs say, it is the driver's responsibility to drive according to the demands of the conditions, but I don't know where that stands legally speaking.

It's a proper cobbler street and several buses go on it as it's part if their route.

Yes I think it's fair to say very few folk ever go 30 on it. Knacker your suspension.

If the conditions were dangerous and you didn't factor this into your speed, I assume you would be at risk of being prosecuted for driving without due care and attention.

There have been quite a few petitions around here to have speed limits reduced (people tend to use the side roads as rat runs). If there are genuine hazards then perhaps this could be an option.

emzii, the gracious thing to do when you are wrong is to accept it. Of course you may just believe that you're above the law. The law might annoy you but how does "aggressive over-taking and finger-sticking-up " at people who are just obeying the law help other than to put them and other people in the road in danger? You clearly didn't know you were in the wrong and you are justifying it using a lot of sweeping generalisations and the word of a cousin who happens to be a police officer. Well my husband is also a police officer and that "you can be 10% over and it's fine" thing is a load of old rubbish. Careless driving is about more than breaking the speed limit.

You may be blasé about driving at 35 in a 30 but here are the actual stats:

"If you hit a child when driving at:
•40mph– you will probably kill the child
•30mph- the child has an 80% chance of survival
•20mph– the child is likely to survive with minor injuries."

Of course you can plead as many incorrect technicalities as you like but 30mph speed limits are there for a reason and if you'd like to be the driver doing 36mph recently in our 30mph area who ruined a whole family's future then fine. Apparently you "don't lose sleep" over that possibility. Crack on.

Driving at 50mph on a free flowing motorway is dangerous. Lorries which are limited to 56mph will be forced to overtake you, reducing the speed in the middle lane and pushing more traffic into the outside lane.

Speedos can show up to 110% of the actual speed + 6.25mph, but not less than the 'actual' speed, so you're right in that sense -- though some speedos may be calibrated more closely to the actual speed limit. As NetworkGuy points out, the speedo is also making assumptions based on the factory condition of your car - different-sized wheels or even over-inflated tyres can mean the car is travelling faster than the speedo thinks it is.

Yes, I know. I drive one of my cars on a track too, so have had the speedo recalibrated to take account of the mods.

I always stick to the limits in town, or drive slower when necessary as experience has confirmed that the majority of the time, the stated maximum is a very reasonable gauge of the road.

Outside of town and in clear, good visibility roads, I again drive to the conditions. Make of that what you will.

THIS

I have also been known (gasp) to accelerate out of the speed limit and not wait until I pass the sign if I judge it safe to do so.

@SaulGood - Just to add to your point, the below is from a Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health report on child mortality

"After the age of one, injury is the most frequent cause of death; over three quarters of deaths due to injury in the age bracket of 10-18 year olds are related to traffic incidents."

The UK is in denial about this. Tabloid newspapers are much more likely to campaign against a supposed "War on Motorists" than they are against one of the leading causes of death in childhood.

IKnow

Yeah, but do you give the finger and overtake ASAP if a driver in front of you doesn't?

Personally I think that saying someone is a "cautious driver" is a polite way of saying they are a shit driver. Being cautious is what any decent driver does, but these hesitant idiots who will sit at junctions for ages until there is nothing coming, or trundle along a national speed limit road at 30mph are a pain in the bloody arse.

Not its not a target, but it's incredibly frustrating being stuck behind ones of these idiots when you have to be somewhere ASAP.

IKnow, at least you acknowledge your complete disregard for the law. I don't think you need the mocking little (gasp) tbh. This isn't a tale of derring do in the face of a load of pearl hoickers, nor is your judgment of the safety of the road necessarily better than the laws put in place. There is a law. You agreed to abide by it when you took your test. For whatever reason you have now decided you are above that law. I genuinely hope your self belief is enough to protect you and the others around you.

I'm quite anti-establishment tbh and am not necessarily the first person you'd find advocating blindly following the rules and regulations. I do get increasingly fed up with people who deem their driving and judgment superior to everybody else's. I've see this blithe assumption kill on three occasions now. I decided quite a long time ago that whatever temptation put in place, however late I am or how well I know a road, I actually won't break the speed limit. Not when the ultimate price you might pay is so high.

I really don't mean to sound like a sanctimonious shit btw. This is very close to home right now. I've seen very recently what speeding (even just by 5mph) can do. You should probably ignore me.

Well my husband is also a police officer and that "you can be 10% over and it's fine" thing is a load of old rubbish

You are extremely unlikely to be pulled over for speeding let alone prosecuted if you are within 10% of the limit.

You've been very unlucky then Saul as exceeding the speed limit is only a factor in a small percentage of fatalities on the road. Travelling above or below an arbitrary figure has very little to do with road safety, travelling at an appropriate speed for the conditions is the key.

No one doing 26 in a 40 would ever be charged with careless driving

TTWK They could be, but that is in the opinion of the traffic officer taking other things into account including obstruction, road and weather conditions and the maximum speed of the vehicle and competence and manner of the driver.

I wish there were more police officers about to give advice rather than speed cameras. Sometimes it doesn't need a ticket; just a ticking off at the roadside.

But cameras are cheaper and in some cases, revenue-raising.

BTW have you never seen police escorting wide and slow-moving vehicles down motorways?

I've seen it a lot. They do this because people get confused and frustrated at hold ups and the police would prefer that everyone gets home alive.

Those drivers have arranged their passage with the police. They aren't just driving slowly because they're incompetent.

limitedperiodonly, no they wouldn't. On a clear road, on a fine day, a driver doing 26 in a 40, and in all other respects driving normally, would not be prosecuted for anything.

I think if you have to be somewhere ASAP then give yourself plenty time, don't rely on being able to zoom down the road. That attitude could cause accidents.

I would rather be a cautious driver than a risk taker. So maybe I'll just have to accept the odd a-hole getting wound up.

For the record I'm not taking about dawdling on main roads/motorways. I mean driving suitably in a busy built up area with lots of people and cars about when there's limited space.

When I was taught to drive hazard perception was really important.

I decided quite a long time ago that whatever temptation put in place, however late I am or how well I know a road, I actually won't break the speed limit. Not when the ultimate price you might pay is so high.

Perfectly aware of the risks thank you. I'm quite happy to speed on a quiet motorway if safe to do so. I'm quite happy to accelerate coming up to a higher speed zone, if safe to do so.

Twice car drivers have hit my motorbike & ripped a pannier off and once someone drove across the side of it over my foot & ripped the mirror off.

In all 3 cases the speed was under 10mph. Shit drivers are shit drivers whether going 10 or 80 mph, speed is a factor in any accident where one vehicle hits another, but don't confuse that with the cause which is likely to be distraction - whether using the phone or telling the kids off.

You choose to focus on speed, I choose to focus on arseholes not concentrating watching the road

penis, you're quoting me out of context. What I said was that "you can be 10% over and it's fine" thing is a load of old rubbish. Careless driving is about more than breaking the speed limit and I was acknowledging that choosing to disregard the speed limit is part of careless driving and justifying a 10% increase in speed because it's unlikely to get you pulled over, is explaining away a behaviour which goes hand in hand with careless driving. Not always but often. As the poster said above (the one to whom I was responding in my quote), she isn't worried about doing 35mph in a 30mph and sees no problem with aggressive overtaking and gesticulating rudely at people who are following the law. She justifies this because she's annoyed and heck, she won't get pulled over for that 10%. It's not a defence. It's a poor excuse.

And actually, research tells us that accidents caused by low level speeding (the sort that's being justified on this thread) are increasing. And because it only causes 14% of deaths, is it any less worthy of discussion? I know quite a lot of people who have been in car accidents. I've known 7 people die due to cars in my lifetime. Three of them as a result of speeding which is slightly more than general population wide statistics. Three people too many.

Speeding is part of an attitude. You are deciding that your ability to drive well or your need to get somewhere faster is more important than doing what everybody else is expected to do. But as it only causes 14% of the dead people, I shan't bother worrying about it, hey?