Safe Speed Forums

Hi,

I got pulled over by the police this morning for reckless driving by doing 40 in a 60 zone in the outside lane.

However, this is not quite what happened.

There are temporary 40mph roadsigns on the middle carriageway of the motorway for about 1/2 mile before the roadworks.
No-one actually drives at 40 until they reach the roadworks.

I generally follow the flow of the traffic but do drive at 40 before the roadworks.

This morning, I noticed a police car in the inside lane (3 lanes) and slowed down as I would have overtaken him. I slowed down to 45 and the car in the middle lane undertook me and sped away.

I was told I could loose my license for reckless driving as the other car had to undertook me. The copper was shouting at me never to use the outside lane except to overtake and that there were another 2 lanes I could have used. This was not strictly true as the other lanes lead to slip roads.

He would not give me a chance to talk and told me that I should know my highway code inside out as I passed my test 2 1/3 years ago.

It was apparent he just wanted to mouth off at me and was going to let me drive on so the less said the better.

So, after discussing this with some people, there are some who see the speed signs as a warning to slow down for road works whereas I believe that if the sign says 40 then your max speed should be 40.

Is this correct?
If the temporary sign says 40, then should I have been doing 40 and the police should not have stopped me?
Thanks.

You paint a confusing picture Tam.



Are these physical signs or on the matrix boards overhead the lanes? Why were you in L3, and what speed were you doing before you decelrated. Did you brake sharply or ease up?

And if it was on a motorway, why was it a 60 zone, albeit limited down to 40?

Generally, and in theory, you should slow down towards the sign until your speed matches that shown on the sign itself. Doesn't always work like that (as you appear to have discovered) and you appear to have found yourself in one of those situations where you feel you are obeying the law but by so doing are creating a problem, similar to the driver who sits at 70mph in lane 3 of the motorway but gets nailed for causing an obstruction.

Oh, and welcome.

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Political Correctness is a doctrine, fostered by a delusional, illogical, liberal minority and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end.

Although I sympathise if the situation is as you say it is BUT I am GLAD that there are some coppers out there looking to tell off lane hogs and drivers going to slow, it's a nice change from being penalised for going 5mph over the limit.

reckless driving? i think causing an obstruction would be more accurate

however, under the circumstances, if there are signs saying then that is the speed limit and if you were going much over that then you would have been done for that instead. i think someone was having a bad day and wanting to let off steam.

incidentally, if the traffic is light and there are no roadworkers around, i dont stick rigidly to speed limits through roadworks. i do slow down and move over a little when i do come across the workers though. driving according to the conditions rather than following the speed limit blindly

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Richie

SSAFA supporter
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=126025031585

If it was not a instead a 40 on a matrix sign with two lights flashing above and below.

Sorry mate I have no sympathy. As I have been behind some on slamming there brakes on at what is a recommend speed. Even with a good gap someone going from ~70 down to 40, does make you need a change of underwear, luckily for me and her L3 was free. If see the matrix sign with a recommended speed, I ease of the speed. Think of the knockon effect on traffic behind you. That sort of braking could lead to a small traffic jam.

http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/TravelAndTr ... /index.htm

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Oct 11 Birmingham Half Marathon. I am running for the British Heart Foundation.
http://www.justgiving.com/Rob-Taylor

Personally I drive at the speed I feel is safe, unless a is about ....

HOWEVER, I find it slightly worrying that a policeman can kick off at you for driving at a posted limit, whether advisory or mandatory. I'm also slightly confused about whether it was a 40 or 60 limit.

Saying that, my signature will tell you what my feelings are on lane discipline. Irrespective of whether a sign was telling you to do so or not, I would advise that if you want to go slower than the other vehicles around you, you should keep to the left. It doesn't matter whether you're driving at the right speed and others aren't, 'keep left unless overtaking' is a hard and fast rule.
In the case above - if I'm reading it correctly - you should've smoothly changed lanes to the left THEN gradually slowed to 40. This is probably why you were undertaken.

The purpose of the police is to inflict the law upon us, no matter how stupid it is.
However the highway code is not law.

Legally you can drive in any lane and overtake in any lane, as long as you aren't driving inconsiderately or dangerously, etc.

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Andrew.

Yes, the chavs who make people's life hell on sink estates also believe the police are inflicting the law on them when they don't think they've done anything wrong. Perhaps we should just let the police enforce the laws that everyone universally thinks are sensible so us poor dears don't have to have it inflicted on us.
In fact, the police are currently inflicting the law on some bloke who is accused of murdering several young women.

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Political Correctness is a doctrine, fostered by a delusional, illogical, liberal minority and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end.

Or some kind of representation-by-voting system that ensures only laws that "everyone universally thinks are sensible" remain on the books?

We could call it "Democracy".

Unfortunately, you can please some of the people some of the time etc etc etc.
Some facet of the law somewhere is going to meet with someone's disapproval.

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Political Correctness is a doctrine, fostered by a delusional, illogical, liberal minority and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end.

I seem to remember that in (at least one) of the classical Greek "Democratic" city states. Any citizen had the right to propose a new law however anyone wishing to do so had to do so standing on a chair with a noose round his neck!

If the law wasnt approved by the assembly, the chair was kicked away!

Sounds like the idea has some merrit!

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"The road to a police state is paved with public safety legislation"

Quite.



There's a difference between someone and everyone!

Er, exactly

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Political Correctness is a doctrine, fostered by a delusional, illogical, liberal minority and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end.

Not very many years ago, we could all tell the difference between 'criminals' and 'responsible people'. As regulations increase we're all becoming criminals, and when everyone's a criminal, there are no criminals.

I'd rate this trend as bad, bad, bad.

We need to have a society where the trust vested in responsible people is maintained until - in comparatively rare cases - a real and important line is crossed. Not that I know how to get there from here... Scrapping speed cameras would be a good start.

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Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

When mayor Giuliani introduced zero tolerance policing into New York it was heralded by many people as their light at the end of the crime tunnel as the real criminals would, they thought, be taken off their streets. And it worked apparently, with overall crime rates massively reduced. So result then, happy days
BUT, many 'responsible people' got a bit of a shock however when they discovered that the tough new approach also applied to the 'minor' offences such as fare dodging and littering that they committed. I can only presume that their surprise stemmed from the fact that each had a tolerance threshold of behaviour below which they would categorise someone as a 'real criminal' to be dealt with accordingly, but above which they would see the individual as being a responsible person breaking a silly, trivial law. Unfortunately for them, the policing method didn't discriminate because it recongised that turning a blind eye to low level crimes can lead to an environment in which bigger ones become the norm. So they were roped in as well...oh dear
It is up to all of us to make society a decent place in which to live, and if people (yes, even responsible ones) didn't increasingly take the piss then we wouldn't need all these new laws.

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Political Correctness is a doctrine, fostered by a delusional, illogical, liberal minority and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end.

Yeah, interesting. Thanks.

I can't claim to have the answers. But I feel it in my bones. Something is going horribly wrong.

It's going wrong on the roads and I've got a good grip on that - at the most basic level we're gradually replacing skilled responsible judgement with dumb rules compliance.

I don't think the wider society issues are quite the same. It seems to have more to do with losses in trust and respect.

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Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

Oh good, so you do understand then!

Er, yeah. Oh yeah of course I do, absolutely

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Political Correctness is a doctrine, fostered by a delusional, illogical, liberal minority and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end.