Safe Speed Forums

Decided to post Ju-Ju's "rant" up here. She makes an interesting obervation in that people slow down to bizarrely low speed levels when they see a car broken down on the hard shoulder . but do not slow to anything like on the residentials where such low speed would be very appropriate.

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I think that email somewhat exaggerates the extent of peoples idiocy.

I cannot believe for a second that someone would slow down to 20mph on a motorway for that reason. To do so would be horrendously dangerous and if this were common it would turn our motorways into bloodbaths. Lots of silly people feel the need to use their brakes, but lets be reasonable.

Yet, the people who drive far too fast down residential areas are unlikely to be the same people who slow down when their is a car on the hard shoulder. I daresay the people who slow down for cars on the motorway will drive at quite a low velocity in residential zones.

What she is actually comparing is the incompetence of drivers with relation to speed at both ends of the spectrum.

Why? If someone from the car steps into the road you would risk running in to them.

There might be debris on the road. Don't want to hit that, either. There could be a vehicle recovery operator working on the car. Don't want to run him or her over.

Like the story about two guys bowling along in their car when they see a woman parked in the road. "Pigs!" She yells at them as they sweep past her. "Cow!" The driver shouts in reply. And runs into a herd of pigs that were in the middle of the road...

Ju-Ju's post raises an interesting point. Just because you can't spot a hazard ahead does not mean the driver in front of you did not, and that there's a perfectly good reason why they stopped or slowed down.

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But Ju-Ju says she has been stuck for hours from J8 to J13 where the broken down car was sitting the other night. No one working on the car .. driver behind the barrier. No debris. She saw the road past J13 simply clear and the wave brake cars accelerating away at that point. She says this is fairly frequent on the M60 .. yet she sees the same cars speeding past rows of parked cars on the way up the A575 to the local supermarket.

M60 has apparently had a really bad fortnight though with couple of fires, jacknifed lorries and three multi-car pile ups on Barton Bridge and up in the Stockport SPEC zone per both Ju-Ju and Jazz.

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If you want to get to heaven - you have to raise a little hell!

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It makes folk wonder just what you REALLY got up to last night!

Smily to penny.. penny to pound
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Enjoy life! You only have the one bite at it.

I might expect some of the stupider members of the rubber-neck brigade to slow to 20 whilst passing a particularly extensive accident/roadworks scene, but I have *never* seen anyone do more than lift off or dab the brakes momentarily just for a boring old broken down car with no recovery vehicle in attendance or other human activity in the vicinity. So if people were crawling past this particular one at 20, it'd suggest to me that your sister got caught up in the ripple effect caused by the initial disturbance in the traffic flow when the car first broke down, and then maintained by the minor disturbances from later arrivals at the scene lifting-off/brake-dabbing on seeing the car already on the hard shoulder. I doubt any of the other drivers actually *wanted* to be doing 20 past the breakdown but, like her, had no choice in the matter...

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Chris

Actually, i am inclined to agree. people do slow down to ridiculously low speeds when there is no need.

Don't get me wrong, if someone sees a potential hazard, and they feel the most appropriate course of action is to slow down in anticipation, then fair enough, but as mentioned in another thread on here, taking your foot off the accelerator would slow you down enough in case you need to take action.

What i find more infuriating is the people who slow down to look at an accident or incident on the OTHER carriageway. WHY???

i know people are curious, but these people cause the very tailbacks that they complain about.

PERHAPS.. but Julie .. sigh.. I am happy enough as a passenger with her. I sometimes think "you missed chance to go there" as she perhaps as she say the "James May" type driver as in "competent enough .. but a just a bit on the slow side" I know she not take offence at me when she read as she will.. - but she know me well enough und I really like her as pal anyway.

But Julie (Ju-Ju). She travel from her Worsley home to Altrincham each day. She IAM driver anyway. She says J13 ist so badly designed that whoever designed needs to have his "bits publicly removed" She say it like the "dodgems" in the peak hours.

She see folk slow for zero reason - one example being a normal collision between a car entering M60 und causing a 5 car ricochet. It affect the East side.. but cause the West to congest because of what she call the the "Rubber Neck Retard"

In her original rant to her brother . who my husband .. she say she most audaciously suggest "mindiing one's own business und concentrating on getting from A to B without upsetting anyone.


I take this opportunity to point out we one large family. We have similar ideas. We know Jazz und Julie should post in own rights.. but we (as collective und thoroughly decent/fair minded ) do not want a forum bolstered by like minded members of one unusually large family. It more important for Paul to know he has a much wider spread of support for his splended work to date. ]

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I suspect it has to do with something happening outside of the normal parameters.

On a residential street, it is normal to have parked cars and humps and all the other things Ju Ju describes, on a motorway it is not so normal to have a car at the side of the road.

So people are slowing down because they have come across something they don't expect and aren't sure how to deal with it. Either that or they are slowing down to have a gawk.

Since I use the M6 a lot, a car at the side of the road (often with parts smashed up) is a normal sight for me, though in free flowing conditions I will move into L2 for such a car just in case they do open their door, or are changing a tyre and I haven't noticed or something. It's one bit of risk removed from the equation (assuming L2 isn't full, of course)

Surely you don't believe its safe to slow down to 20 mile/h on motorways under usual conditions? If its that clear, that that it might be, then pull into lane 2 to give the risk a wider berth. I do.

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Richard Ceen
We live in a time where emotions and feelings count far more than the truth, and there is a vast ignorance of science (James Lovelock 2005)

Pretty much every day on my way to or from work I slow to 20 (and lower) on motorways in what could be considered usual conditions (i.e. without the presence of any accidents/breakdowns/crashed UFOs/etc by the side of the carriageway). OTOH, if you mean conditions where speeds aren't being constrained by congestion/weather, then I'd suggest that if someone genuinely felt the need to drop the anchors because of something they'd seen ahead (as opposed to someone who completely misread the situation and panic-braked rather than reacting more appropriately by lifting off/changing lanes), it wouldn't be a usual condition - I'm thinking a vehicle ahead suddenly veering across lanes, or bits of debris strewn across multiple lanes coming into view, or any other unusual situation where changing lanes might be more risky than hoping whoever is behind you is sufficiently awake to be able to slow down at least as quickly as you're about to do...

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Chris

I guess that I mean conditions not constrained by weather. Or congestion where one is prevented by slow moving traffic doing 20 or so in every lane . Or emergency unfolding just ahead in the carriageway. I can't think of any motorway situations where speeds this low are appropriate or even safe

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Richard Ceen
We live in a time where emotions and feelings count far more than the truth, and there is a vast ignorance of science (James Lovelock 2005)