Safe Speed Forums

Whilst driving along the road today at a safe speed (which happened to be well under the posted limit) other than thinking I was not as safe as I could be because of watching my speedo, I had a thought..

Forgetting all the technical stuff & rights & wrongs for a minute:

How many speeding tickets are issued every year? It's around 12M isn't it?

Is there any other law in the UK that's broken over 12,000,000 times a year? Doesn't this simple statistic prove that it's a bad law?

Now now, we can't have this sort of thing. Common sense! Whatever next?

Sorry! A moment of madness there...

(Note to self - remember - speed kills, speed kills...)

If we assume there are 25 million drivers, and they do an average of one journey per day, and 95% of journeys include an instance of breaking a speed limit, that's more like 8.5 billion speeding offences

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"Show me someone who says that they have never exceeded a speed limit, and I'll show you a liar, or a menace." (Austin Williams - Director, Transport Research Group)

Any views expressed in this post are personal opinions and may not represent the views of Safe Speed

Times that by £60

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Useless laws weaken necessary laws.

No, it maybe proves that a good, sound law is being enforced in an over-zealous manner though. Which in turn gives drivers an excuse to complain when sometimes they have no grounds to, i.e. when they have actually commited a genuine breach of the law but want everyone to believe that they are just another 'victim' of the speeding clampdown.

Good point - broken x BILLION times a year and offenders caught 12 Million times a year.



How can it be a good, sound law when it's broken so many times? Remember that it's an absolute law. It's either adhered to or broken, there's no grey area. Irrespective of how it's enforced.



As I said above - the law is absolute, therefore every breach is a genuine criminal offence.

In that case God had better repeal the 10 Commandments!
Just because a law is regularly broken doesn’t make it right to carry on doing so. However, in the case of ‘speeding’, the law is applied in the name of safety but people regularly break that law but in a manner within the spirit of the law - safely. Law…ass…

I thought last year's total was ~2M?

Reminds me of a stanza in a poem by Mike Harding...

"She had teeth like the Holy Commandments,"
"Ten of them, every one broke.."

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"Politicians are the same the world over... We build bridges where there aren't any rivers." - Nikita Kruschev

OK I feel a pedantic moment coming on:
1. Thou shalt have no other gods before me.

OK I really doubt 12m people defy this one, even an atheist like me abides this one.

2. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.

But I am great, does this count? Again, I doubt seriously that more than 12m people break this one and claim to be a god. Although there are a few on death row.

3. Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me;

Yeah right - like whatever, but doubtful again. Mainly coz no one understands what he is on about. But I wish 12m people bowed before me

4. Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain: for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain.

Oh for gods sake (D'Oh!) alright - probably this one is broken a lot!

5. Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy.

Hell yeah - the sabbath day is for beer! (Jewish sabbath being Saturday)

6. Thou shalt not kill.

We'd be in real trouble if we had 12m murderers a year. No speeding don't count, even at government stats, 5,000 fatals per year @ 12% = 600

7. Thou shalt not commit adultery.

Why? Have no idea, but I bet Mrs. Bobbit had a lot to do in reducing this one

8. Thou shall not steal.

Tell that to the scrote who put a brick through my window!

9. Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour.

12m perjurors a year - I doubt it!

10. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's Ass.

Both my neighbours are retired - eeeew!

So no, comparing to 10 commandments is utter tosh, think of another. How about a law to make stepping on the cracks in pavements illegal, that would be similar!

Oh and really pedantic, it was Moses who delivered the sermon from mount Sinai, not god. Was it gods words, or was Moses on drugs?

Of course not - but it shows that the vast majority of people have no respect for it as a law, & clearly don't believe it's a "good" law or we would all religously adhere to it.

Which of the 10 commandments would you put in the same category?

I don't know how many tickets were issued, that's why I asked the question to start with, but 2M or 12M the argument's the same.

Odin (oddly enough) answered that one for me. Heck, I couldn’t even remember all 10

[OK, maybe not all 10 should be repealed but I'm sure you appreciated where I was going with that]

You need a true atheist to tell you all 10

Still not sure about the neighbours ass thing though

So what is your proposed solution?

I'd better go get a bible first so I'm sure of my facts

I'm not an expert. I know it's wrong just now but I don't have all the answers, that's why we have x thousand employees in the DOT!

But - to have a stab at it...

Because of the idiots out there, clearly the law has to stay so what I would do is:

- Review all limits to sensible ones - 85th percentile
- Perhaps variable limits in built up areas - eg 20 from 7am to 7pm, 40 otherwise. Introduce a new 2 part speed limit sign with both on it.
- Camera enforcement only allowable in areas with a limit of 30 and below AND where there is a significant danger - eg outside schools (but only in school time)
- Personally I'd also get rid of the chicanes - and severely limit the humps.
- Educate that speed limits are not absolute and that safe speeds should be used at all times
- Bring back the "green cross code"
- The return of the trafpol to catch dangerous drivers
- Increased penalties for dangerous driving and driving without a licence or insurance
- Amend transport policy to get vehicles from A to B as quickly and smoothly as possible, not to drive users off the roads. ie better roads, not extra taxing. Immediately dump all plans for tolls, gps tracking etc.

What would you do?

This thread has some bearing on your question and the supplementaries.

Rigpig, btw, didn't respond to my thesis. I assume he found it too difficult to grapple with.

Yes I did. Can you re-explain it all in small words so I can grapple with it more easily because I'm really as thick as mince me

To be really, really pedantic:

Moses brought down the tablets with the Ten Commandments from Mount Sinai.

The Sermon on the Mount was preached by Jesus in approximately 30AD.

The two are totally separate in terms of content and time

I though that might rattle your cage.

My last post on the "Can the majority be wrong?" thread is here. I don't think you did respond to it - and no I'm not going over it all agan. You know very well what it means but (I suspect) you struggle to reconcile the straightforward logic with your beliefs.