www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/police-crack-down-speeders-who-6166737
it seems that with the advanced speed cameras available, the coppers are able to do away with the margin of error.
I know speedometers are not supposed to under read so there will be no excuse for speeding.
All it will do is get people to concentrate on their speed and not their driving.
I do try and stick to the limits but sometimes get it wrong - either the car speeds up going down a hill or I don't notice a limit change like yesterday. Usually within the 10% +2 allowance.
Last edited by: zippy on Tue 25 Apr 17 at 23:35
|
Its all a bit silly. Why should there be a margin?
The law is the speed limit. You do not have to drive at it, but you may not exceed it.
Its not like we think you can hit people a little bit, or break into people's houses a little. Its the law.
If you cannot drive AT the limit safely or reliably, then drive under it by the margin you need to be safe and reliable.
If you think the limit is wrong, then that should be addressed by changing the limit, not adjusting the enforcement.
|
>> Its all a bit silly. Why should there be a margin?
>>
It's to do with the variable accuracy of the devices we are able to legally use to measure speed.
|
|
By law speedos have never been allowed to under read. No margin.
|
>>The law is the speed limit. You do not have to drive at it, but you may not exceed it.
Same with road signs and road markings really, but we are human and make mistakes.
But there is a difference between accidentally creeping over the speed limit and deliberately driving over it but the law makes no differentiation.
Good thing they do have differentiation with other crimes, a man convicted of attempted murder got a suspended sentence yesterday (www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-39706425 )
I wonder if someone who drove at 40 mph accidentally when transitioning from a 60 mph zone to a 30 mph zone would get a suspended fine?
Last edited by: VxFan on Wed 26 Apr 17 at 02:21
|
>> Its all a bit silly. Why should there be a margin?
Because there's a very important difference between someone whose intentions are to do the right thing and one who is contemptuous of rules - one will usually be at or within the posted limit but will frequently be a couple of mph over, the other just thinks that rules should not apply to him and will do +10, +20, or +50 if he wants to and thinks he can get away with it.
It makes no sense to penalise the first.
The technology has been around for years for much more rigid and frequent enforcement but it hasn't been used, basically for this reason. And why make the change now when cars are so much safer than they were and increasingly have active safety features?
Your principle of course is correct. But that is not the way that limits have been used. "Limits" are a de facto target, with a tolerance applied. I don't know what they currently teach, but when my son was taught 15 years ago he was told by his instructor to drive at the speed limit where it is safe to do so. That would be a very poor strategy if a 1mph transgression resulted in points.
It's not right or wrong of course, either view is arguable. I have often said that speed limits should be just that, provided they are set realistically.
Whatever the approach, if it's going to be messed about with then the wider context should be considered. Not just road safety, although that might deserve the highest weighting, but raod capacity and journey times. That isn't just about the speed limit, driver behaviour and road design can have a huge effect - lane hogging, poor merging, tailgating, speeding, pootling, poor signalling, bad signalling, parking transgressions, bus stop design, "traffic calming" all have parts to play.
Traffic calming is a blight - if there is an application for rigid enforcement it is in traffic-calmed areas - removing all the physical obstructions (or not building them in the first place) will surely save enough money to ticket everybody exceeding 20mph or whatever. The cost of building those structures is only ever going to go up, whereas tech for enforcement will jusy get cheaper.
|
>>It makes no sense to penalise the first.
Why not? I totally agree that the penalty should be different, but why immunity?
>>Traffic calming is a blight
Absolutely. It is used because it is easier and cheaper to have physical measures and cameras than enforcement by trained policemen.
Entire areas could be controlled by Driving with Due Care offenses and policemen. But people in the UK don't want an effective police force, they want a cheaper one.
|
THe obsession with speed rather than driving standards annoys me - we pander to the lowest common denominator.
In the picture accompanying that article, there are several cars who appear to be driving rather closely to the vehicles in front - hard to tell just from a static photo. As that's a specific offence now, I'd expect the police to be looking for that just as much as for speed.
|
>>The obsession with speed rather than driving standards annoys me
Catching a speeder on a camera is down to speed cameras - camera costs very little after installation.
Dangerous driving / careless driver needs police to be around & the cost of trained police traffic officers + equipment costs £££s.
|
>> THe obsession with speed rather than driving standards annoys me - we pander to the
>> lowest common denominator.
>>
Agreed!
|
|
I was musing on my recent speed awareness course (for 36 in a 30) that it is the people who are doing 45, 50, 60 in a 30 who need training at least as much as, if not more than, more than me who usually stays in, or very close to, the limits.
|
|
No, we pander to the easiest form of revenue generation, which just happens to be speed cameras!
Last edited by: The Melting Snowman on Wed 26 Apr 17 at 08:28
|
|
The speed limit is not a target to be achieved. Chill out and enjoy the journey.
|
>> The speed limit is not a target to be achieved. Chill out and enjoy the
>> journey.
Its quite surprising the reaction that can be seen from someone forced to drive at 57mph in a 60mph limit by the speed of the cart in front.
Seemingly people struggle with accidentally wandering over the speed limit by 2 or 3 mph and should be given a tolerance, but never slip even 1mph below the limit.
Why is 68 (10% + 2) easier to stick to than 60mph? And if you truly struggle with it, then presumably you should simply aim to drive at 53mph in future?
That is not to say that I necessarily agree with the speed limits, but arguing about the enforcement is the wrong place to start
|
>> Its quite surprising the reaction that can be seen from someone forced to drive at
>> 57mph in a 60mph limit by the speed of the cart in front.
>>
I wouldn't mind if it more ruthlessly enforced but certainly I seem to go through phases of being madly overtaken by people when I'm sticking close to the 40 and even 30 limits that are appearing in many semi-rural areas.
|
>>but arguing about the enforcement is the wrong place to start >>
I have said before many times, on here and elsewhere, speed cameras are but a snapshot in time and in too many instances they penalise minor transgressions by otherwise totally law abiding drivers while the drunk and drugged up oik with bald tyres, faulty brakes and no seatbelt who was doing 90 a few seconds before hand happens to drive past on the limit because he is texting smut to his mate's wife ...
Last edited by: Hard Cheese on Wed 26 Apr 17 at 10:31
|
Its not an either / or situation. All laws should be enforced, or changed.
And if we're talking about a driver who is incapable of controlling his car sufficiently well that he needs at 10% + 2mph margin, then that doesn't sound like a very safe driver to me.
Though quite why you should get your panties in a knot about who or why someone is texting escapes me, I don't want them texting the local vicar about Sunday's sermon while they're driving, either.
|
All revenue driven nowadays.
Speeding is easy to detect and fine automatically without human involvement.
Bad driving is comparatively hard to be framed, will require some human judgement (at least with present technology).
It will be interesting to see what happens with automated cars. No car will over speed and revenue earning will stop.
With many modern cars, the speed limit is often displayed on dashboard (can learn temporary limits too) and these can warn if overspeeding or can prevent you from overspeeding.
Policing has become just another tick-box exercise and person bringing more money or cutting cost are promoted. So sadly this is what we shall get in future.
|
|
Seems simple to me. You know what the speed limit is. You either keep to it, not really difficult, or you take a chance and exceed the limit. If you do the latter and get caught then don't bleat about it. It was your choice so accept the consequence.
|
A big part of the margin being there, however much motorists appreciate it, is to avoid long complicated prosecutions and detailed defences of whether 2 degrees off on the angle of the camera might make a 2% difference in the speed etc etc.
If the equipment shows you were at 40 in a 30 then you were definitely over the limit simples.
|
>> Seems simple to me. You know what the speed limit is. You either keep to
>> it, not really difficult, or you take a chance and exceed the limit. If you
>> do the latter and get caught then don't bleat about it. It was your choice
>> so accept the consequence.
A better place to start would be consistently to enforce the current policy. I am a good half mile inside a 30 limit on a narrow road with houses on both sides - there is a speed sign outside my house that frequently registers people travelling at 50-60mph. Will that change? Or will the enforcment, as it is now, be targeted at the places where it is basically safe to drive at an illegal speed and lots of people will be caught? There are areas of the country where you can nearly guarantee that when you find a sensible overtaking stretch there will be a camera in the middle of it.
|
|
That may be true somewhere I suppose but locally I can't think of any fixed speed camera that is not located on a potentially dangerous stretch of road.
|
>>That may be true somewhere I suppose but locally I can't think of any fixed speed camera that >>is not located on a potentially dangerous stretch of road.
Locally, of 3 out of 5 are on hills, facing down the hill where it is easy to pick up speed even with no accelerator use.
One, in a local village just before a primary school on a main A road, going from 60 to 30 just before the camera was burnt down and never replaced, but this was the most needed one.
There is none on a dangerous main road local road to me that has seen several deaths in the last few years at the same spot because the limit is 60 and the accidents were the result of bad road design (too tight a bend for 60 mph) and no street lighting.
|
>> Its not an either / or situation. All laws should be enforced, or changed.
>>
Agreed, it should not be either/or though the over emphasis on speed means that it is just that.
>> Though quite why you should get your panties in a knot about who or why
>> someone is texting escapes me, I don't want them texting the local vicar about Sunday's
>> sermon while they're driving, either.
>>
That was an embellishment, building a picture of the character, actually I reckon smut to someone else's wife should be compulsory, except when driving ;-)
|
There's more to it than simply targeting speed rather that vehicle safety etc.
Speed enforcement can be negative, counter productive, it dumbs down, as has been said it brings all down to the lowest common denominator, it should be about training and empowerment, that way people drive to the conditions rather than like lemmings at an arbitrary limit whatever the weather, time of day, traffic volume etc.
|
I entirely agree.
But that is not the police force that the people in the UK want to pay for or of which their bible, the Daily Mail, approves.
What the people in the UK want is a cheap police force that catches everybody else.
|
I used to drive about as if my hair was on fire many years ago. Don't bother now. Too many cameras. There is actually a thing on my car which you can set to limit the speed, tried it once to see if it worked and it did, but I haven't bothered with it since. I guess if you mistrust your own concentration levels and such a device is fitted, it could be useful.
Here's a thing though, as some of you will know, I drive about in a large automatic estate car which is often fully laden (so it weighs a lot) and in the 11 months I've had it, it has covered 35,000 miles at what its computery thingy claims is an average of 52 mpg and 36 mph. The first figure seems higher than I'd have guessed and the second seems lower, but I suppose we all spend a lot of time being held up in traffic.
Keeping to speed limits has collateral advantages too it seems.
Can be boring at times but I guess that's what the radio is for.
Last edited by: Runfer D'Hills on Wed 26 Apr 17 at 11:49
|
>> in the 11 months I've had it, it has covered 35,000 miles at what its
>> computery thingy claims is an average of 52 mpg and 36 mph. >>
So in around 330 days you have spent the equivalent of 40 days, 24 hours a day, behind the wheel of your car, around 12% of your time, night and day. Or if you sleep for 8 hours then nearly 20% of your waking hours.
I've been there too ...
|
|
How times change. When I took my IAM test in 1990 I was told by my examiner (An ex traffic cop) to stick within 5mph of the lower limits and ignore the NSL if it was safe to do so. Similarly in 2001 when I did an assessment during training to become a motorcycle escort for cycle races, I was told by my ex police assessor to go as fast as it felt safe on the NSLs but not to exceed the local limits by too much.
|
>>When I took my IAM test in 1990 I was told by my examiner
I haven't had much contact with the IAM, but the little I have had as been with terrible smug, superior and condescending instructors with very fixed ideas and closed minds about what is the "correct" way to drive.
Not very impressed, really.
|
I rather put IAM in the same category as MENSA. For those who somehow wish to feel superior.
Driving a car isn't difficult. Certainly no need for an "Instiute" to provide "Advanced" skills. Just use some common sense.
|
A good comparison.
With the slight point that an IQ test is slightly more objective than a self-serving and subjective driving test.
|
>> I used to drive about as if my hair was on fire many years ago.
>> Don't bother now. Too many cameras.
Same here.
If I was done for a modest transgression (as I have been) I would (as I have been) be cross that I have been punished despite being basically compliant. I am perfectly capable of understanding intellectually that over is over and that is was my responsibiliity, but what has actually been achieved? The punishment (with points) simply does not fit the crime .
If 'they' go down the zero tolerance route then I would hope for the former tolerance zone (at least) to be fine-only, with no points. It's the deliberate flouters and the recklessly incompetent who need to be off the roads.
|
>> I used to drive about as if my hair was on fire many years ago.
>> Don't bother now. Too many cameras.
I slowed down after I was caught by a cop hiding with a laser & camera - just struck me as like shooting fish in a barrel and even the best observation wouldn't have saved me. So I sit on that road at 70 now as many other vehicles blast past.
>> There is actually a thing on my car which you can set to limit the speed, tried it once to see if it worked and it did, >> but I haven't bothered with it since.
I use it all the time in unfamiliar areas. One less thing to think about.
Last edited by: Bill Payer on Wed 26 Apr 17 at 12:58
|
|
I cannot recall any occasions when I have been speeding accidentally (though how can I be sure?) and my days of doing it on purpose are almost entirely past.
|
|
Have you ever had a sat nav that 'bongs' when you are over the limit? It wouldbe a very unusual person IMO who never got a bong (the noise, not the portable hookah).
|
>>Have you ever had a sat nav that 'bongs' when you are over the limit?
No, I don't think so. I did have a Merc which did the speed limiting thing, I tried it but it only ever triggered when I deliberately tried to go over the limit to see if it would so I never really used it.
Though now you say it, there was a point when the M1 had a 30 or 40 mph limit on it just before the major road works south of Milton Keynes started, and that was very difficult to stick to.
But 60 + 2 + 10% is 68mph in a 60.
I'd notice.
|
>> Have you ever had a sat nav that 'bongs' when you are over the limit?
>>
Technology has moved on, my car reads speed signs, displays them on the instruments. One of the speed limiters can be linked to the speed limit. I don't know how well it works i have not tried it and prefer cruise control.
Last edited by: Old Navy on Wed 26 Apr 17 at 13:27
|
|
No one seems to have mentioned the stopping distance link to speed limits. Particularly the lower limits in urban and semi urban areas. If you are going faster than expected and someone pulls out of a side turning within your stopping distance you have to hope that you can go around them.
|
>> No one seems to have mentioned the stopping distance link to speed limits.
Someone mentioned the point that if you were going faster then you would have already passed the point where someone pulls out. So that one is a bit of a fallacy.
Anyway there is a lot more to stopping distance than speed. Much more likely to be extended due to distraction of some kind, or due to simply not concentrating.
|
>or due to simply not concentrating.
I thought that was exactly what people were saying here; they needed the margin because they didn't have the required concentration to control their speed accurately.
|
>> Someone mentioned the point that if you were going faster then you would have already
>> passed the point where someone pulls out. So that one is a bit of a
>> fallacy.
>>
I think that was me in jest, and in a different context.
Though congestion is a causal factor in accidents and reducing speed by over zealous limits and enforcement causes congestion.
|
Virtue signalling alert. ;-)
These days, I observe the speed limits, by design, strictly.
If I wander over, it is a result of a moment's inattention - but one cannot drive constantly looking at a speedometer. Always corrected when observed,
I find the satnav readout more use (when I'm using it) as the display in its dashboard holder is much more in my eye-line
Just as important, to me, is the financial cost, both in potential for an offence and certain on fuel consumption.
On a recent trip,this week, oop North to collect grandchildren from LBA and deliver to school, (A1 & A1M) I did not exceed 60 mph and as we had planned our timing well, for quite a lot of the trip I mimsed at around 50mph, with a huge benefit to petrol consumption.
|
FWIW I'm no longer a habitual speedster, since doing the IAM some years back. But I don't want to become a habitual mimser either - I enjoy driving, and I enjoy driving fast when conditions permit. I'd hate to become one of those drivers who slows down approaching traffic lights just in case they change...
Manatee sums my thoughts up pretty well.
Also FWIW I was accidentally speeding - my offence was just after turning onto a large nearly empty dual carriageway, which I was on for the first time. It felt like it ought to be a 50 , or at least a 40, so I was gently accelerating (can't do much else in a 1.6 Focus!!) When I reached about 40 I considered it was "urban" so I took my foot off the loud pedal. Then I got flashed. I'm still surprised it was a 30, but it was, and I got done. My mistake, fair cop.
|
Speeding when you misunderstood the limit is one thing, but then 10% + 2 isn't likely to save you. Its also not the "accidental" speeding I was referring to.
But speeding when you know the limit and claiming it is accidental seems an unacceptable excuse to me.
|
|
I must admit that I seriously try to keep to the limits but due to distraction or otherwise find myself above it by 1 or 2 mph and also 1 or 2 mph below and it's very annoying when signs are not seen that vary the limit or, like on one of my local routes there are so many different limits to the extent that visitors are easy prey for the camera van!
|
|
As my car sees and displays the limit and my satnav knows and displays it, along with me seeing the signs it should be covered. The problem is there is a brain between information and right foot. :-)
|
" Its all a bit silly. Why should there be a margin?
The law is the speed limit. You do not have to drive at it, but you may not exceed it.
Its not like we think you can hit people a little bit, or break into people's houses a little. Its the law.
If you cannot drive AT the limit safely or reliably, then drive under it by the margin you need to be safe and reliable.
If you think the limit is wrong, then that should be addressed by changing the limit, not adjusting the enforcement. "
Disagree.
Mmmmm... recently someone found and took a £10 note on the floor of a shop and was later prosecuted for theft. OK you may say.
What if it was £1 only - should they be prosecuted? It's the law, you say, correct - it certainly is. Surely they should be prosecuted, after all, it was theft. Why should there be a margin ?
|
Why have the law if breaking it is not dealt with? Why not simply remove the law? Why doesn't the law of theft say "unless its less than £x"?
The discretion if such is needed, lies within the penalty, not the enforcement.
In your example, if the money from the shop floor was a crime under the law then that needs dealing with. If you disagree, then campaign against the law.
Or do you really want to live in a place where subjective enforcement has gone a bit wrong? Because I do and I have done, and you wouldn't like it.
|
This is not Chile - in UK it's called discretion. It's a sensible use of resources (or some might say it's just going after the easy targets).
Nit picking, simply repeating " the law is the law " isn't a valid argument in my book.
I'm not engaging further in this thread.
|
>> I'm not engaging further in this thread.
Sorry, not quite grasping why you think that was worth mentioning. Will it make a difference?
|
The obsession with speed limits is because quite simply nearly all drivers are themselves obsessed with speed. Every motorist always wants to go as fast as their car or the road conditions or the law will allow. It is an obsession almost exclusively peculiar to driving. Most people dawdle when walking. Very few walk in the way most people drive - always faster, always instinctively determined to close the gap on the person ahead, always looking at the rate of progress others are making in adjacent lanes. Nobody jostles into prime position in order to cut up other walkers on a bend. Few people regulate their food consumption or weight in order to achieve a faster walking speed, or better acceleration.
Ordinary cyclists do not try to pedal as fast as possible all the time.
Motoring distorts people's perceptions of what they want, and strangely, they are willing to spend many thousands of pounds trying to achieve it. Faced with this compulsion, law enforcement needs to be equally skewed. There is no point in trying to appeal to reason, commonsense and better training - something happens to a person when he gets behind a wheel, and he turns into Mr Toad.
|
|
People do indeed act differently once they are in cars. Once you that metal box you are immune to the social pressure that would be exerted by your fellow man if you were walking.
|
It is an obsession almost exclusively peculiar to
>> driving. Most people dawdle when walking. Very few walk in the way most people drive
>> - always faster, always instinctively determined to close the gap on the person ahead, always
>> looking at the rate of progress others are making in adjacent lanes. Nobody jostles into
>> prime position in order to cut up other walkers on a bend.
I don't know about that, ever been to a shopping centre? There's nearly always people you describe trying to get in front of others, walking very briskly who obviously are trying to get everything done as quick as possible. Same but a lower number in supermarkets more noticeable around the till area.
|
>>simply nearly all drivers are themselves obsessed with speed. Every motorist always wants to go as fast as their car or the road conditions or the law will allow. It is an obsession almost exclusively peculiar to driving.
I have to disagree with that!
|
>> >>simply nearly all drivers are themselves obsessed with speed. Every motorist always wants to go
>> as fast as their car or the road conditions or the law will allow. It
>> is an obsession almost exclusively peculiar to driving.
>>
>> I have to disagree with that!
>>
Try driving at 70 mph in lane 1 of a motorway, and virtually every car will pass you.
I don't think the drivers know why they have selected 75 or 80, it is simply that their car is capable of that speed, so they try to use it whenever they can.
It makes very little difference to the journey time, and even if they can shave say 20 mins off the time, I have never found anyone who on being challenged can say what they have done with the extra 20 mins of active life they have secured. I have tried that question in the past on this forum. No one has performed a life-saving operation, written the outline of their new novel, invented a new quantum equation, or made any improvement to the world whatsoever.
The most anyone does with the time is have another coffee or get to the next traffic queue faster.
If cars came in two options - those that had a maximum speed of 70, and those that for an extra £10,000 would do 85, most people would I think opt for the faster.
|
I suspect there is an element of people driving as fast as they feel safe at - and often taking offence at anyone who wants to drive faster!!
When I was younger, and used to hoon around in faster cars than I have now, doing much longer journeys often for work, 100 on the motorway was not unusual and was well within the car's limits (I'm talking about cars built to do 147 mph). I also felt comfortable and confident driving at those speeds. But often people who's comfort zone seemed to end at 75 or 80 seemed to appoint themselves as fake police and create and maintain a one-man rolling roadblock to stop faster cars getting by. Which seemed odd to me - they were happy to break the limit but only them, and only by the amount they decreed.
My current car starts to rattle and hum over about 80 so I'm quite content pootling along at 70 or thereabouts. It is nice that I don't have to be watching the needle like a hawk to make sure I don't transgress by a mph or two. I don't see much point in driving slower than the limit where conditions allow but I am no longer a pushy driver.
One thing I would say is that people often seem to not allow themselves enough time for their journey. Again I have been guilty fo this but now I can afford to take a 4more leisurely attitude. But even on the speed awareness course, where there was a good chance of being kicked off if you were late, quite a few turned up at the very last minute (and a couple just after). I suppose maybe they were sitting in the car waiting for the appropriate time but I suspect not.
|
Late to this thread, but
About a year ago a friend of mine accepted one of these "don't be a naughty boy" courses, in the classroom another hardened criminal mentioned the "speed allowance" and was told that "one mph over the limit can result in prosecution"
Perhaps it's a good idea that computers are going to take over our driving, at least it will mean that we NEVER break the law,
Wonder how "they" will make up the revenue ??
|
>> Wonder how "they" will make up the revenue ??
>>
A tax on electricity used as road vehicle fuel?
|
The last published figures I can find I.e. 2006/2007 show that the Government received £104 million in speeding fines. They point out that in the same year they gave £115 million to local councils for road safety measures.
|
|
I think they stayed roughly the same until 2010 when a cut in the grants saw central government 'make' about £30 million, peanuts in government terms.
|
There is a simple device that prevents drivers getting anywhere near the speed limit let alone exceeding it, and it has been round for longer than the car itself.
It's called a flat cap.
Last edited by: Robin O'Reliant on Wed 26 Apr 17 at 20:22
|
>> There is a simple device that prevents drivers getting anywhere near the speed limit let
>> alone exceeding it, and it has been round for longer than the car itself.
>>
>> It's called a flat cap.
You also need to grip the wheel tightly with both hands together at the top
|
Been practising that method since you got a Volvo then?
;-)
|
Volvos are hands off. It does all the steering and braking itself
I even think it avoids busses
|
|
Yeah be careful with that, Humph thought he had the same system and look what happened there when he was parking.
|
>> You also need to grip the wheel tightly with both hands together at the top
And shake your head and tut when anyone overtakes you, even if you're driving at less than the posted speed.
|
>>Perhaps it's a good idea that computers are going to take over our driving, at least it will mean that we NEVER break the law,
Nah, that won't work.
Google have said that their cars deliberately speed to keep up with traffic otherwise they would be dangerous (rear ended).
I can't see Google accepting liability for any fines if the car being used by an independent passenger.
Edit found this: www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-28851996
Last edited by: zippy on Thu 27 Apr 17 at 00:39
|
10% Plus 2 set to end? - No FM2R
