I guess it is easier to peddle the speeds kills mantra than address the real issues. It is inappropriate speed that is the problem. I stick to the limits in 30's and 40's and the rest of the time I ride to the conditions and my ability. North of Kendal it is less of a problem though.
There is hypocrisy everywhere you look. The automotive industry is kept afloat on the unspoken premise that everyone flouts the law by speeding. Why else would you need a 3 litre car and a host of electronic gizmos to keep you sunny side up? If you aren't going to go faster than 60mph on the open road or 70 on a motorway, you don't need any of these things. The entire bike industry ditto, with the possible exception of Hardly Ableson. Imagine a world where your vehicle was automatically restricted to the speed limit, via roadside captors, or a GPS system (not so difficult to organise). What? What?? What don't you like about the idea? Hey, you're supposed to be obeying the law, not making it up as you go along. See? Such a measure would kill the automotive industry at one fell swoop and bikers would give up biking (except, perhaps, on track). We want the freedom to break the law, because we don't agree with the law. Pretending we are law-abiding is hypocritical (for most of us). The industry knows we are going to break the law - and is hypocritical to deliberately sell us the tools to do it. The government knows we are going to break the law but it still feels entitled to set up tax-revenue driving radar schemes wherever they might generate some useful extra cash. The entire debate around speeding is just chock full of bad faith. It's about time there was some real debate about it backed up by proper stats.
Ther have been trials in the UK of this very thing on trucks, they simply use the inbuilt Road Speed Limiter software and a GPS receiver and a map, it very simple and it works. The technology is already there in every car that has a sat nav. I think that the only reason it isn't in Law is because the Public would see this as the thin end of the wedge and it would end up on cars in a few years.
Well, that's precisely the point isn't it? We have laws but in this case, no one wants to see them applied. Therefore, they aren't serving the majority and they should be reformed/repealed. Give us speeding laws we can believe in, rather than forcing people to live outside them. You can't have it all ways. We are a free democratic country. We should decide on the laws and make sure we are happy with them. In the case of speed limits, we clearly aren't.
would that not depend on the situation,, speed itself is not the issue, but the speed relative to the situation
Risky as regards your licence, or risky as in a high chance of causing an accident (either injuring yourself or someone else or both)?
This is all a load of shite. Speed limits today are used a revenue generator. It's all about money. Stop ripping people off by making them criminals for doing a few mph over the speed limit, on an empty road etc etc. Take the points or pay for a patronising course of drivel about how your all going to kill everything if you speed! The technology is there to limit vehicles. Bring it in now if it such a big issue. Have us all driving around at the correct speeds, do not give anyone the ability to speed! YOU CANNOT LEGISLATE FOR IDIOTS!!! Anyway, the majority of my driving is the commute. 3 hours per day, 5 days a week, 40mile round trip, sitting in a queue of traffic. Still accidents, every other day. Now the important bit here.............not a rant. NI DRD 'apparently' have said they operate an intelligent road management system, whereby the system knows when there is a build up of traffic and reduces the speed limits to manage the flow. So, the motorway signs flash 30mph, everyone slows to 30mph, in theory. The intelligent part of this system is apparently, a person who manages the system arrives for work, looks at the road cameras, if the road is busy, he changes the speed limit. So, its intelligent. I feel better now.
Agree with this, I've been done a few times and most were nothing more than either topping up the treasury coffers or sheer effin stupidity. EG:- I have a picture on my garage wall taken by Suffolk camera safety partnership who incidentally were poaching in Cambridgeshire, doing 80 mph in an open lane 3, was I danger to anyone? hell no, but they enjoyed the FPN. I was also done about a year later coming off of the M11 by Cambs Police, who couldn't process the ticket fast enough, because while one of them was "speeding" through the writing of the ticket his mate was gunning their next victim. Then there was the case of the 35 MPH in a 30, where a woman pulled out in front of me in her car with ALL of her screens iced over and with just a letterbox sized viewing port through the front screen, weaving about and slowing (brake lights on) erratically so I overtook her and a copper pulls me in for speeding. I ask about him and her driving to which I was informed that he was there to capture speeders, NOT dangerous drivers. Don't get me wrong,I've been caught and let go when even I would have nicked me, but there is no consistency, it seems that if they are briefed to generate revenue then they will, and it has sod all to do with safety.
Yep, Northern Ireland, in particular Belfast, has the worst congestion in the EU. Officially reported several months back. Apparently, there is no plan to help improve the situation and DRD have stated that their priority is closing Belfast to accommodate pedestrians, cyclists and public transport. Must be basing it on the London model.
Disregarding speed limits for a second, it doesn't matter how fast you are going as long as you have the skill to anticipate an unseen hazard and have sufficient reaction speeds to deal with it........
Scotland is licence losing central. Some great quiet roads and keen as mustard cops. A dodgy mix... I know loads who've been nicked. But if you know where the sneaky fuckers hide.....
Another point worth making perhaps is that, although the speed limit is supposed to be a maximum, it also seems to be part of driving culture that anyone who chooses to drive at a slower speed is seen to be holding up the others and wasting time. I have sat next to many drivers who have got quite irate at slower drivers in front of them. Thus we are forced to walk a tightrope between the legal maximum and the accepted minimum, with very little room for manoeuvre. The upshot of this is that the speed limit becomes something of a minimum as well as a maximum, and the generally accepted maximum becomes 10mph or so above the actual limit. The whole thing is hypocritical, and daft. For my part, I ride a 63bhp 750 monster, and find it to be perfectly quick enough to "make decent progress", on the right sort of roads, ie single carriageway A and B roads. The faster roads are boring and I avoid them whenever possible. I generally travel at the speed limit in built up areas, but I'm definitely not above the occasional burst up to say, 40 in a 30 limit, if conditions permit. I find that most other drivers/riders do exactly the same. Similarly, in a 60 limit, I regularly go up to maybe 85, again if conditions permit, and again many other drivers seem to do the same. As has been said, its all about reading the road conditions and adjusting your speed accordingly. In fact slavish following of the limits, rather than reading the conditions, seems to me to be a somewhat incompetent and dangerous practice. Riding a naked bike, anything above 90 is literally a pain in the neck, so I seldom travel at hyper speeds and my bike has rarely seen three figures on the speedo in all of its 15000 miles thus far. And, riding since the late sixties, I have never had an accident as a result of this strategy. Some years ago, and not for the first time, I was speed trapped at 42mph in a built up, 30mph area....a main road into the centre of Leicester, in fact. However, this was at 3.15am when the road was completely deserted. Surely if its considered safe to do 30mph on that road in the height of rush hour, then it isn't dangerous at 42mph in the middle of the night I was still done for it though, and my attendance in court to plead my case merely attracted an additional £60 fine. Its all a hypocritical mess in my view, so I just use my own common sense about speed limits now......and waste my attention keeping a watch out for the nasty yellow boxes.
I think it has to do with "Time and Place", I know a member here who got done for speeding on the Tollpuddle bypass (A35) I think he got a ban (100mph) on a Tuesday night (Poole Bike Night).......I used to commute daily for 5yrs on that same road not always at that same speed but mostly well in excess of the limit and not once got pulled as I knew the laybyes and on ramps to slow down for.
New,past 2 years vintage, small cars have the speed limiting technology in them already. You can bypass it via a dash mounted switch at the moment but soon enough that option will be removed. It only seems to work in 30 mph zones at the moment but the software is the key to what gets restricted. As for switzerland, i have never seen so many high performance cars on driveways as i have in the rural parts of that country. Really expensive stuff as well. There appears to be a canyon racing culture out of sight of most people. The swiss state may not like petrolheads but they are there all the same.
