Safe Speed Forums

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I find that a starting point is the way the authorities treat you as if you are a stupid child killing cash machine that must be controlled and milked as much as possible.

Just thinking about a road with stupidly high speed bumps can get me annoyed, closely followed by that 30mph limit to protect any cows that might be related to the infamous one that jumped over the moon who might jump over the hedges on either sire of the road.

Or that road with chicanes on, that had zero accidents before the chicanes, and has had 4 since, all of which have directly involved the chicanes.

Then there is traffic lights that cause queues (I know because when the lights failed for a week all the queues vanished), or the people that licenced the Tesco Express by the lights so that the mile long queues now take twice as long to navigate because the green lights are blocked by cars wanting to turn right to get a pint of milk.

Then there is ambiguity in the Highway code - you have two lanes merging into one. Do you a) join the left lane as soon as the queue starts even if it is 1/2 mile before the merge, or b) do you carry on up the right lane and get blocked from merging by people incensed that you are queue jumping. The Highway code could suggest that all lanes should be used and vehicles should merge on a one by one basis, but it doesn't.

And of course Speed enforcement in places that you know are miles away from any speed related incidents... But what is the bl**dy limit?? Help!

And people that have never been introduced into indicators, or that were obviously told the sequence is manoeuvre-signal not mirror-signal-manoeuvre. Or that drive with front fog lights on all the time - do they really think that they do anything other than dazzle other vehicles? Or have rear fog lights on weeks after the last slight hint of mist.

And accidents where it take 5 times as long to get the road moving as they should do.

And Traffic information signs that cost a fortune to put in and took years of roadworks, caused no end of hassle with the 2.5 mile reduced speed zones in which you were lucky to see anybody working, ever, and have never told you anything of any use about what is happening.

And those lying adverts that tell you and everybody else, that all accidents are purely down to speeding motorists.

And somehow the speed limits only apply to you, while the Police drive through at any speed they fancy, and how come you got prosecuted for doing the same speed they are anyway?


Where is PaulF when a thread is designed just for him?

In many years of driving, I've noticed there's a basic lack of understanding of human nature when it comes to many of our traffic laws.

A classic case is putting mobile speed traps to scan cars' speeds immediately after a speed limit change. Other ones include setting speed limits far lower than the natural safe speed for the road and putting speed ramps on roads that can only be traversed at a small fraction of the speed limit.

It really is a classic case of things being determined by bureaucrats that sit in offices far too long and don't actually drive out there very much!

All increases the stress burden on honest tax payers who, at the end of the day pay these so-called professionals' wages!

I definatly think that stress levels on the road have been artificially increased by needlessly restricting traffic flow with traffic lights, bumps, chicanes, narrowings, alternate priority chicanes, traffic wardens with targets, artificially low speed limits, stupid road safety ads "don't drive with your eyes shut" - everything to make driving as unpleasant as possible. The day always starts off bad for me when the traffic lights on the main road I use turn to red, no traffic moves from the side road(because their is none!) then it goes green again!

If we start removing some of the restrictions on drivers then I feel drivers will feel under less pressure, driving standards will improve and consequently their will be less road rage.

Talking of two lanes merging into one then I think the highway code should explicitly state that both lanes should be used, and vehicles should be allowed to merge, indeed that is often signed at junctions now. It's simple maths really, if your getting twice the amount of cars through the lights the queue is half as long. Done sensibly I find it rarely causes any problems, I'm happy to let people merge. Where the right lane(of two) is used for a lot of right turning traffic then a filter maybe a good idea, but to be used at the start of the sequence in order to get rid of the right turners.