Safe Speed Forums

I hate driving in specs camera zones. Firstly I am well peed off at how early they drag you down from NSL to 40. I also get annoyed at those who slow down at the "40 mph 1 mile ahead sign" I am usually left in lane 2 or 3 with nothing in front or behind slowing to 40 when there is no risk to justify that level of caution (other than the yellow vultures)

Then I find my self looking for a car to follow, (not a truck or van, I want to be able to see ahead)

After 2 miles I get peed off because they drop down to 35 or even 30 so I move out a lane and travel at 40 and find it creeping above.
I also find my self looking around a lot more than if I was driving a normal road works.

I find driving at insufficient risk level EXTREMELY stressful and tiring.
I am usually a calm person; however I am not good at computer programs where you have to repeatedly wait for the egg timer. I have to run a game on the second screen, or browse the news.

My colleague is SO different from me. She is totally content with watching the egg timer she drives every where at exactly the speed limit, she has great difficulty getting out to lane 2 before the motorway splits. She is very good the boring part of our job (rules are rules you know)

I am a safe driver, I have not had a prang for 20 years. I usually have a decent gap in front of me but my standards and temperament slip in these zones.

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Speed limit sign radio interview. TV Snap Unhappy
“It has never been the rule in this country – I hope it never will be - that suspected criminal offences must automatically be the subject of prosecution” He added that there should be a prosecution: “wherever it appears that the offence or the circumstances of its commission is or are of such a character that a prosecution in respect thereof is required in the public interest”
This approach has been endorsed by Attorney General ever since 1951. CPS Code

Basically, a large proportion of my attention is diverted from driving normally and safely within these SPECS controlled zones as I make absolutely sure that my average speed is OK. If I go 30 seconds at 2mph over I then concentrate on doing 30 secs at 2mph below to make everything work out.

This can only be a bad thing in terms of overall safety.

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Malcolm W.
The views expressed in this post are personal opinions and do not represent the views of Safespeed.

Agreed. My first 2 cars didn't have cruise control and I found these zones very annoying, my current car does so I whack it on for the Specs zone. This ensures I am safe from being snared but does not stop me feeling bored and the concentration levels definately drop. Like you say though, some people do not find this to be the case and have no issues driving at mind numbingly slow speeds through wide lanes on a usually fast motorway.

More annoying than Specs in general, is spec zones 7pm-7am, where no work is being carried out (make that 24hours a day for 10%+ of the time the road is shut) whatsoever

I do drive a lot out of normal comuter times. a specs section at night is depressingly slow. 5 miles at 40mph in two lanes wide enough for for a bus with cones flashing past is very soperific

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Speed limit sign radio interview. TV Snap Unhappy
“It has never been the rule in this country – I hope it never will be - that suspected criminal offences must automatically be the subject of prosecution” He added that there should be a prosecution: “wherever it appears that the offence or the circumstances of its commission is or are of such a character that a prosecution in respect thereof is required in the public interest”
This approach has been endorsed by Attorney General ever since 1951. CPS Code

Over the past few months ,I have had to do the Gretna bit with average speed cams - got to be sort of a game - do I change lane between cams or get up close to a HGV -a month back and no NIPS recieved it appears thsat I didn't get caught . The game was to relieve the borebom .

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lets bring sanity back to speed limits.
Drivers are like donkeys -they respond best to a carrot, not a stick .Road safety experts are like Asses - best kept covered up ,or sat on

I've got into a habbit of using the car's average speed display. It is always 3 mph under the speedo reading at constant speed, proving deliberate over-reading, hence gives me peace of mind when it says 48mph in a 50mph speed limit even if I've blipped.

Then again I wonder if they'll get me for having my hand reaching forward everytime i pass under the camera.

Did anyone look into thresholds for Specs. I know someone who told me they always drove 10mph above the limit and never got fined on the M1, and I've shown how much error there is in a specs style system as you can't tell exactly where the car is from the camera picture.

AIUI every SPECS system is set bang on the ACPO prosecution thresholds.

I drive through one every weekday on the M60 at Bredbury

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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

Damn, my front number plate has had a corner broken off and the back one's dirty.

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The world runs on oil, period. No other substance can compete when it comes to energy density, flexibility, ease of handling, ease of transportation. If oil didn’t exist we would have to invent it.”

56 years after it was decided it was needed, the Bedford Bypass is nearing completion. The last single carriageway length of it.We have the most photogenic mayor though, always being photographed doing nothing

If I park under a tree. Ocasionally a leaf gets stuck to the number plate.

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Speed limit sign radio interview. TV Snap Unhappy
“It has never been the rule in this country – I hope it never will be - that suspected criminal offences must automatically be the subject of prosecution” He added that there should be a prosecution: “wherever it appears that the offence or the circumstances of its commission is or are of such a character that a prosecution in respect thereof is required in the public interest”
This approach has been endorsed by Attorney General ever since 1951. CPS Code

For me it depends how heavily loaded the road is, if the road is empty or lightly loaded and I can just set the cruise control or keep up a constant speed then they can just be annoying rather than stressful. If the road is busy so there is little opportunity to exceed the speed limit then the specs are irrelevant except that the traffic often seems to be caused by drivers being careful and keeping to 10mph below the limit, again mildly irritating but not stressful.

Where I noticed myself feeling very stressed was while driving through a 50mph roadworks section where it was clear enough to drive faster[*] but busy enough to use all three lanes, most vehicles were travelling in a very narrow speed range. What I noticed myself doing was slowly catching the car in front at 2-3mph, speedo discrepancy probably, then as I passed the car would accelerate slightly leaving me with little or no passing differential, normally I might add an extra few mph to get clear pull back in and slow down again. In a specs zone you cannot do this so you end up in an elephant racing situation, even if there is no vehicle catching up in my lane it makes me feel very uncomfortable being a couple of feet from another vehicle. The other option is to follow the car in front, this means that you have to start paying a lot of attention to their minor speed changes, given specs you also have to be very careful if they drift up in speed. In addition there is going to be another car following you so you start to have to manage their gap to you in relation to the gap to the car in front and making sure that if they get a bit close you open up the leading gap. If in addition I now get another car elephant racing past me I start to feel very boxed in so my collision avoidance sense goes into overdrive and I start to feel increasingly uncomfortable in having to rely on the drivers around me not to do something stupid.

It is not unusual for a motorway to be busy enough to have work hard to manage the space around you but the way specs forces all vehicles into a narrow speed range and the extra burden of keeping a very close eye on your speedo turns the situation from a high workload one to a stressful one.

[*] I am not saying that it would be safe to be going constantly faster through the road works just that it would be possible to do so if the safety aspect was not present, i.e the road capacity was available.

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Driving fast is for a particular time and place, I can do it I just only do it occasionally because I am a gentleman.
- James May

Specs is a nightmare.

The concentration required on an open stretch has got to have a detrimental impact on road safety.

I thought the average speed cameras were only an experimental thing? Have they started rolling them out full time? Are they on motorways? If they are then that is completely rediculous. The government can't even justify having a speed limit on the motorway in the first place. This is just another money making attempt.

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Currently undergoing training with the I.A.M.

There's some temporary ones on the M27. Temporary for a few years or something stupid.

They are an obvious danger. You have to make sure not to pass any potential pair of cameras in the same lane, if there's a large vehicle around then you have to drive as close as possible to it to hide your numberplate, you have to keep looking at your speedo and braking if necessary, and on the M27 because they have loads of other spy cameras you also have to concentrate on hiding your face from them too!

Is it actually illegal to have your front numberplate inside the front windscreen? I mean, as long as it's fully readable?

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Andrew.