... I thought when my eye fell on my comic's lead story today. '40MPH Rural Speed Limit!', it bawled. Not what you want to see first thing in the morning (well, last thing in my case, but you know what I mean). Doesn't put iron in your soul to face all the inside page carp about the deadly diseases you already have, or richly deserve, or will probably die of any minute, all the El Qaeda and Nasa and little green men, or rather people with the newly inclusive terrorflag.
Apparently 'government' is to make it easier for local councils to bring everything to a standstill. I thought it already had, but never mind that. On the way to the shops, on an A road, at the bottom of a steepish hill between high wooded banks just before a 60mph (for the gung-ho) bend with a couple of hazards on and just beyond it, leading into a half-mile straight where anyone could safely hit 140 in the right car, one of those damn deer, a stag too, surged out of the shrubbery and clattered across the road in front of me.
Fortunately I was so depressed, and the car was so cold, that I was doing less than 50 and there wasn't a 'moment'. I know a couple of other places where deer paths cross roads round here but I didn't know that one. What moronic beasts they are. Even cats have more sense.
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just think! if you`d put your foot down, you would be barbying venison now! and you would have a nice new hat n coat rack on the wall!
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Speed limits are funny things. Light traffic, sorted car, driver in top form and some of them are preposterously low. Dense traffic, bad weather, driver tired or inexperienced and the opposite applies.
Empty motorway versus main road outside a school at chucking out time. You see the difference...
But what else could be the rules?
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>> Speed limits are funny things. Light traffic, sorted car, driver in top form and some
>> of them are preposterously low. Dense traffic, bad weather, driver tired or inexperienced and the
>> opposite applies.
My trip to work and back applies. On a 'good' day, clear, 5am, decent car, I'll hit a ton. On a bad day, 25mph is too quick on the same road.
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>>But what else could be the rules?
Common-sense, and trust in your Road Angel not Guardian Angel?
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>> >>But what else could be the rules?
>>
>> Common-sense, and trust in your Road Angel not Guardian Angel?
>>
Unfortunately common sense isn't as common as one would like it to be.
If I'm plodding along at 40km/h, with the car lit up like an Xmas tree, in the fog, because I can't see jack too far ahead of me, then why come past me at 100?
You got radar?
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My car's got collision sensors.
They're called air bags.
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I had the same reaction, AC, but I'm not sure I'd actually notice the difference. This afternoon I drove 30 miles each way between home and Aylesbury, on roads that 20 years ago would have been NSL all the way except through the villages. Today there wasn't a single stretch with a limit above 50, and plenty of 40s without a building in sight. And that was mostly Buckinghamshire; Oxfordshire is worse, with 30 limits in the middle of nowhere - I've complained before about the A4155 between Henley and Shiplake and it's far from the only one.
My beef with this is that applying unnecessarily low speed limits brings limits themselves into disrepute. Why, goes the reasoning, when this limit is plainly absurd, should I take any notice of that one? And out of that window goes any safety benefit.
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>> applying unnecessarily low speed limits brings limits themselves into disrepute.
All speed limits are an imposition on the red-blooded motorist. Who do these damn people think they are anyway? Tchah!
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If the national speed limit on unclassified roads is dropped to 40mph, all the Darwin candidates who wrap their cars around trees at 80mph will then wrap their cars around 40mph traffic just around the next blind (at 80) bend.
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There is if course the practice of 'driving according to the conditions'. After a bit of practice you know when you have to be tense and ready, but tend increasingly to prefer a relaxed mode. It isn't much slower as a rule.
Even so, I loathe silly speed limits and exceed them when possible. Many drivers waddle along a bit below them which sends me up the wall.
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>>All speed limits are an imposition on the red-blooded motorist<<
In the 15 years I've lived in rural Cornwall I've lost count of the red-blooded motorists that have deposited their red-blood on the counties roads (especially bikers!)
Of course, having a 40 mph or any other limit wont reduce the fatalities one iota, people will still drive as if accidents only happen to other people.
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My all-time favourite proof that speed limits are set by the politics of the time rather than need was my old route to work.
Heading south from the Polish War Memorial on the A40, the first piece of fairly ratty old road is NSL (60mph), despite running past some flats, having a pavement, several side turnings and a couple of crossings. I then come to a roundabout, where I get to join the Parkway. This is a new dual-carriageway, with proper slip roads, decent signage, full-lighting, no pedestrians, all the latest mod cons and......a 50mph limit. So far, so daft. No prizes for guessing which bit has the cameras, but if you reckon it's the one where people are actually endangered by excessive speed, you'd be wrong.
After a few years, TPTB spotted the obvious lunacy of this and decided that the old NSL bit at the top should be reduced to 40mph, despite a marked lack of any reason to do so other than a desire on the part of TPTB not to look like the bunch of complete plonkers they are.
Icing on the cake here was that they only changed the signs on one side of the road and it took a few months before anyone noticed that and sent the lads back to do the other side. This left me with the amusing situation of being able to legally do 60 southbound, but only 40 northbound (may have been the other way around, a long while ago now) on exactly the same piece of road....
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>> Even cats have more sense.
Not our cat. Every so often it will bite the hand that feeds it.
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...or the tail that follows it.
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OFFS, - devonite
