I just got pulled over for doing 32 in a 30

[dialdrunkforyou]

I’m shaking as I write this. I just drove out to walk the dogs and on my way back a police car pulled me over. I was doing 32 in a 30 and he said I was “lucky” that he’s not choosing to prosecute me over this.

AIBU or is this total overkill? It’s a dry sunny day, the roads are relatively quiet and I wasn’t driving erratically.

I can't believe you carried on speeding when there was a police car following you/have 'no idea' when the police car started following you. The police were probably more gobsmacked by your obliviousness than by your speed.

I had to do a speed awareness lecture for doing 33mph at midnight on the A38 in total darkness & slightly foggy i never saw a 30mph sign or the camera that caught me on my way back from Bridgewater Carnival .

2 mph extra sounds like nothing but if you did have a collision, you would surprised how much greater the energy involved would be at 32 compared with 30. You are less than 10% over the limit but the extra energy involved would be more than 10% because in the calculating the energy, you use the square of the speed, so hitting a pedestrian at 32mph is much more likely to be fatal then hitting them at 30.

I think the stopping distance is in proportion to the speed, so that will also be an appreciable amount longer. Could be crucial.

It was a nice day, on a clear road. The vehicle behind you was a Police car and you choose to speed.

30 is a limit, not a target. Just accept you were speeding and move on.

Very surprised at that because Speedos are purposely made to over exaggerate your speed to account for different things (can’t remember why now but I watched a programme on it and have read it elsewhere as well). It’s certainly true for both our family cars of different makes. When we have Google maps on it shows you the actual speed and it’s always lower than what our speedos say. If your speedo says 32mph you shouldn’t be doing any more than 30mph, possibly even 29-29mph. Either way, he sounds like a jobsworth. He may just be having a bad day, but a good reminder that you can be fined for even 2mph over so maybe stick to the speed limit in future.

my H has ended up with 6 points, both times from doing 23 in a 20 area - to be honest it’s huge steep hill back to our house and the main route to the uni , and it’s pretty hard to do under 20 and actually get up the hill- it’s not the kind of residential area where kids play out -complete overkill in our city on certain roads-

Of course youre unreasonable a policeman caught you speeding.

Maybe for all the reasons you mentioned he chose a firm word over prosecution. You should be grateful and more cautious in future.

You wouldnt be impressed if a shoplifter said I the policeman is OOT the items I stole were under a tenner

I was stopped one early morning after I had taken my DH to the station, it was Christmas time and the policeman said I went round the roundabout funny which I was turning left and only the police were behind me. He asked where I lived and I said just around the corner looked at my drivers licence and said ok.
I was shaking and I defy anyone being stopped by the police not to be a bit shaken. Also everyone has gone over the speed limit even if its only 32 in a 30 area.

They’ve got nothing better to do (although they should have). What was the point of pulling you over but issuing no ticket? Forget about it. I would

10% is normal practice but individual officers can use discretion (especially when the driver is female, on her own, young, good looking and they want a power trip)

Really? You want people to post those details on a public forum?

My local area had a crack down on speeding at several accident black spots where the actual limit was 30mph or 20mph. It was publicised well in advance, it was made clear that all offenders would be prosecuted without exceptions.

Cue lots of naice local residents complaining that it was outrageous and they were only “a bit” over the limit and the police should spending time catching “real” criminals ie blue collar criminals who commit blue collar crimes. The local FB groups and the residents associations were full of it.

They stuck to the prosecutions and a year or two down the line accidents are notably down. Unsurprising as speed was a factor in the injuries caused in the accidents when a couple of ton of metal hits a human.

Its annoying to be dinged at a couple of miles over the limit but in urban and residential areas that extra speed adds to the injury impact and speeding or failing to pay attention to your speed is entirely a choice made by the driver. Suck it up, use the speed limiter in low speed areas if you are not going pay attention to it yourself.

On my SAC I was shown a traffic census which showed a stretch of road outside a school that showed in one weekday afternoon two cars doing over 80 mph.

After the instructors had let that sink in, they revealed the location. We had already seen it as part of the "determine the speed limit" exercise we had to do.

We were reminded that we all - all 24 of us - had no problem in seeing the school sign and the limit as 30 mph.

-two cars doing over 80 mph
-one weekday afternoon
-outside a school

You got warned, you were aware of the police yet still chose to speed?

Going down hill isn't a reason.

Op why did they pull you over and how? The manned cameras record your speed and send you details in the post. They dont call you over to speak to them. You would have driven off 🤔 maybe ive misunderstood

What model of car do you have that won't go up a hill at 20mph?

I am sure the leeway on speeding has been tightened up…….think it used to be 10%……. That might explain why you were pulled over. However, you were speeding, own it, accept it, and follow the law. Had you hit someone you might be looking at a reckless driving charge rather than a slap on the wrist.

There's no guarantee she was even speeding in the first place - her car indicated she was travelling at the upper limit.

Handheld devices are not 100% accurate which is why there's usually a 10% tolerance by police.

In this instance, two dicks in a car (sorry policemen), pulled her over and gave her a warning. They couldn't do anything else without it being challenged in court which I would do on principle when men behave badly.

When I went to court, it struck me that the five people ahead of me while I was waiting in the courtroom were all female "speeders" and all got off because of the tolerance rule.

Astonishing that no men, who are known to speed well above any tolerance level, were ahead of me on my day in court. Strange that.

Was going to say this, you were doing more than 32.

I’ve said YANBU, but I’m torn really. He pulled you over to basically tell you to keep an eye on your speed. That’s not unreasonable given you were slightly over the speed limit. He’s not going any further than that. No biggie.

You can do all the mental gymnastics you want but you were speeding. I don’t really know what you want from this thread. It’s basic maths. 32 is more than 30, and you were meant to be driving at 30. Consider yourself lucky a speed camera didn’t clock you - I did the same years ago, the exact same mph in a 30 area and had to go on a driving awareness course. Just suck it up and move on (within the speed limit of course).

On my speed awareness course there were 3 people moaning they had been doing 32/33 mph, the instructor told them if they could produce the paperwork stating this was the speed they were doing, they could go home.

None of them could produce the paperwork.

Morally 2mph is fine

and, it’s by the by, but the law should reflect what society finds palatable

It would be a very strange thing to lie about, don’t you think?

In America there’s been cops who have pulled lone women over for this utter nonsense and have then assaulted or even killed them. I bet you anything he would not have pulled a man over for 32mph.

Where does the OP state 2 policemen?