DoktorMandrake wrote:
The speed watchers make no such distinction. You are either over the limit or you are not. Despite never exceeding the limit ever ever ever I expect I will also some day get done for a small, safe indiscretion. These sort of people are the reason why. They get hysterical, mistakenly believe that speed alone or the reduction of it makes for safer roads and they make their voice heard. That means more cameras and an enforcement policy that targets speed alone. I would never underestimate the busybody. Nor would I sympathise with them. I hope it rains everyday they are out and one day they have an epiphany and do something worth while with the one life they have.
I agree 100%! I won’t hold my breath on the last bit though.
I think they are fanatical, in that they believe their work aids safety. But this madman I describe is just an accident waiting to happen with a total disregard for others.
DoktorMandrake wrote:
I seldom pay that much attention to speed limits. I tend to use them more as a guide. Just one element in determining the approproate speed.
Me too. IMO it shouldn’t be called a speed limit but a speed guide for precisely the reason it can
never know what is safe. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if, on an identical trip to someone abiding by the limit at all times, my overall average is lower yet my speed is naughtily higher in some places - but much lower where unsafe and where it really matters.
This is why the law-abiding ‘I never speed’ driving makes a total mockery of road safety. I will be under the limit in places because I am wise enough to see the danger instead of the dumb limit, whereas 'the fool' will not. But
I'll be the one who gets labelled dangerous in places for speeding and the non-speeder will carry on almost with impunity ploughing through areas and situations always at the limit where possible.
I'll have safe drivers over slow drivers any day!
I hope you didn’t get me wrong or I implied I am ‘on their side’ Doc; I think they are totally misguided! But if I try to play devils advocate for a minute, ("
some sympathy"), maybe they think that by attacking speeders it will inculcate a driving style which will spill over into our everyday life and side roads etc.? I don’t know. Maybe I should have started it as a separate thread called “What can you realistically do with a potential homicidal driver in your midst?”
I have mentioned it before but there’s a road by me, currently still a NSL, which although I cannot see I hear a biker regularly going along there at a certain time of the day red-lining it through the first three gears between one island and the next. It sounds like an R6 or =, so I’ll leave the math to you what that approximates to as a fellow biker. As a result, following complaints from neighbours, I heard a while ago that a speed camera is going to be erected along that stretch
So then, that biker will see it if he is savvy enough but what of others? Well, if I didn’t have prior knowledge, it will catch people like me out who overtake along there briefly hitting ‘whatever speed' because I don’t look at my speedo to overtake and before long find
I am done instead of the dangerous rider being caught.
I hope I wasn’t taken wrong but what
do you do with a guy like that when people, (neighbours), see a dangerous driver/rider and genuinely want to curb
real dangerous behaviour? I fear all they have is the threat of a speeding violation on the Wish List of something better sadly. Did I put it better this time? I hope so.
DoktorMandrake wrote:
The speed watchers, speed campaigners and other similar busybody types have clearly been at work, it seems. It is a shame. My heart sinks year on year when I see limts being dropped all over the place. Just means the margin by which I exceed them that much greater and I am more likely to get into serious trouble instead of a ticking off. Well, if I ever exceeded the limit. Which I, obviously, never do. So, no, I have no time for people like that. They fail to take into account all but their own paranoia. Like I said, I hope it rains.
Again, I agree 100% but at the same time I can’t rule out that some of them, (one or two maybe
), may feel frustrated at these maniacs using an inappropriate speed for the conditions and impotent to do anything more constructive. So there’s a backlash which manifests itself in misguided individuals or groups doing what
they think is helping the situation
Put another way, I don’t imagine they got their idea from people doing a few mph over the limit but from the minority of idiots spoiling it for the safe majority. I see these speed watchers rather like a parent smacking their son because their son smacked another kid. While greater fools watch on - and learn how to smack...