Safe Speed Forums

No the current limits set the point you can be taxed

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Steve

Theres a it of flawed thinking here BW No amount of laws are going to ensure that the coook does not spit in ones food. And can ou imagine camera enforcement of this - Bit difficult to measure this trangression so unlike the easy to measure speed. I certainly hope such a law is never passed. There will be a number of cokks who would never have considered doing such a thing until they were threatened by such an unnecessary restriction. So....one simply hopes that the cook like many others is a reasonable person and would not consider spitting, or sneezing or coughing accidentally near your food. But wind him up or warn him not to and you just might goad him into it.

And you'd probably deserve what you got.

I sincerely hope they don't pass a law saying 'You must put your hand in the fire' !

Nevertheless, people who obey speed limits may be doing so to avoid fines that they can't afford or to avoid points that affect their livelihood. Few people I know think that ALL speed limits are correct. I don't see much wrong with the 30mph urban speed limit in most cases. I do see a lot wrong with many motorway speed limits.

Wouldn't put it past this lot! With the rate that new, mostly nonsensical, laws are being passed through parliament, pretty soon nobody will be able to go through a single day without unwittingly breaking several laws - even if they don't drive.
For example, you can now be imprisoned for six months for singing along with a piano in a church hall.

If they want people to respect the law, they're going entirely the wrong way about it. First and foremost, laws must be worthy of respect.

Cheers
Peter

Good on you, Ian. If only there were more traffic cops like you.

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Freedom is freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted then all else follows.

George Orwell.

Not really .....just that for years speed limits were used "for the guidance of wise men". Few people disagreed with their siting or for the occasional enforcement of speeds considerably in excess. Generally they were a good indication of hazard.

Then a band of the politicos, control freaks, and single issue zealost managed to overturn this with arbitrary zero tolerance enforcement, entrapment an proliferation of clearly inappropriately lowered speed limits.Most of those know fully that this is serving political or financial goals.

The real fools are those that actually believe this corruption is actually about safety.

Most people I know want some laws to be changed. The law is a sort of political average, and the speed limit is a level of acceptance agreed by the group. If it needs changing, politics (which is the way collective decisions are made here) provides the method. What is it about motorway speed limits that you specifically don't like? Do your journeys on motorways take too long and is that because of speed limits or because of other drivers?



There is a disconnect between what the speed limits are, and what people believe they should be. A limit is something that bounds, restrains, or confines. It is not a guide.

PS: A limit is also something that is exasperating or intolerable! Perhaps that is what you mean. I can understand why people want to test drive their cars beyond the limit (they pay enough for them and cars are marketed as powerful toys), but not on public roads, thank you very much.

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I stole this .sig

Strange, I can't remember the last time I was consulted on a law. Obviously I am not part of the group....

As far as I can tell there are some road speeds are broken by the majority....does this mean that the group does not agree with the law.

Time for a change then according to your rules.

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Speed camera policy Kills

Hm... you know how it works.



Broken by the majority of drivers, you mean, but drivers are only one of the stakeholders in the speed limit issue. We have passengers, who need to be protected from drivers who would otherwise speed, pedestrians who must have a say, cyclists, horse riders and other vulnerable road users, also tax payers in general due to cost issues such as road upgrades that might be required to allow higher speeds, and the impact speed related crashes have on vital services like the NHS and ambulance services – resources which have to be taken from other needy areas. We also have pollution and noise control issues to consider. I dare say that balancing these priorities leads to some disgruntlement among some of the stakeholders.

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I stole this .sig

Or doesn't quite work as the case may be . AFAICT the NSLs selected at the time more or less matched what most cars could manage flat out, so really those upper limits were only aimed at a very small number of drivers. I very much doubt there was much in the way of consultation and I doubt it was ever in a party manifesto. However, as such a small proportion of drivers were affected it probably wasn't a big deal at the time. For practical purposes there is still no consultation. A few A4 pages on lamp posts does not qualify as consultation IMO - there should be signs at least as obvious as the "New X MPH Speed limit In Force" signs that get put up afterwards. The trouble is that far more people now are affected by a change in limit. That doesn't matter if they get a new limit right, but I don't have much faith in that at the moment.

All drivers are also pedestrians. Many cyclists and horse riders will also be drivers. It's a fairly safe bet that a majority of pedestrians, cyclists, horse riders etc who also drive will break the speed limit as well. Is this rank hypocrisy on their part, or are they mostly just breaking the limit safely?

I dare say that it's a near impossible task to satisfy everybody. Part of the problem is that the appropriate speed can vary by such a huge amount that it would not be appropriate to use either the low end or the high end as the limit. There's a nice straight NSL locally, no turnings or driveways, good for probably 80 in perfect conditions, maybe more. But covered in snow and ice something around 10 or so would be more like it. Pretty obviously neither a 10 nor an 80 limit would be appropriate. So a 60 limit works out about right there IMO. You get quite a few drivers going a bit faster, the TIBMINs don't seem to realise that it's NSL and tend to go rather slower (can't figure that one out), and enforcement is practically non-existent from what I've seen. When they get the limits right it's virtually self enforcing.

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Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler - Einstein

Yes, drivers have power hungry egos, that can be manipulated by the expert mind-management of advertising agencies. Only a few of us are strong enough mentally to sustain prolonged media bombardment- most succumb to buying ever more powerful new vehicles in an endless and futile arms race, where only car companies profit. If only we could go back to the days when cars could manage just the NSL, sigh…



Yes, we could get motorists to pay the full cost of the extra consultation and resources which would benefit them, or perhaps ask car and oil companies to contribute to road and signage improvements.

All drivers are also pedestrians. [/quote]

There is a matter of degree there. It is different to walk up the lane for the paper than to have to negotiate on foot the wretched city streets choking on traffic.

I dare say that it's a near impossible task to satisfy everybody. [/quote]

Shock horror! Do I sense a rare moment of agreement!



You can’t be suggesting that someone changes all the signs every time it snows, so I assume you are saying that the human factor is very important, which it is.



When car drivers are in their right minds, it is. More often that not, they are off their heads, blaming everyone but themselves for their predicament, and refusing to pay to have it sorted out!

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I stole this .sig

Rather a sweeping statement that. If mind management is going on I'd say a significant amount of it is coming from the DfT. However, I'd agree that "power hungry egos" applies to some drivers, but I think the majority just want to get where they need to be, and get there intact. Whether current compulsory training and L test equips them to do so sufficiently is another issue.

Current car advertising doesn't seem anything like as performance obsessed as it used to be. In fact I can't think of a single performance based advertising campaign at the moment. Probably there are some in certain magazines and motoring supplements, but I can't think of one TV car ad that's about performance. The closest I can think of is the Gene Kelly one for the VW GTi, and even that's pretty tenuous at best. While I'd agree that there's a worrying number of people who'll unquestioningly swallow any old crap that appears on the TV (which the government are just as able to take advantage of as advertisers), I think it's unfair and untrue to say that this has resulted in an "arms race" as you put it.

Challenge: name me one current TV ad that promotes either a car's top speed or its acceleration, or even mentions either.

I'm not sure how you got onto that from my comments about consultation bascially being an illusion, but since you mention it we should ask why it is not already coming out of those contributions. In practice of course they already do. There's no ring fencing and so these things are effectively paid for out of general taxation. Personally I don't have an issue with paying for something that benefits me even if it's indirectly. I know you like to say that drivers should pay since they create the danger (arguable) but then shouldn't we extend that to say that criminals should pay for the construction, maintenance and staffing of prisons? Sounds like a great idea, but in the real world we'd simply have nowhere to lock criminals up. Same applies for people without children contributing to education, or healthy people contributing to the NHS, even the blind who contribute towards street lighting they cannot use. So why apply the principle to a large group of people that are basically law abiding i.e. make drivers pay for anything and everything that's vaguley connected with roads? Because you can? Because they'll cough up without much resistance? IMO that excuses almost any legalised mugging the exchequer could dream up, and is immoral in the extreme. If such a principle cannot or will not be applied evenly it should not be applied at all.

How is that relevant to the point that people demand one thing as a pedestrian and another when they get in the car?

Rare, I know, but not unique. We've agreed on TIBMINs being a problem, if not what to do about them. I suspect we might disagree on how to solve the problem of these confilcting interests as well, but I'll happily eat those words if it turns out otherwise.

IMO we need to work towards the best for the most, and that should be determined as scientifically as possible by real road experts. All new limits should be considered as trials for a given period after implementation just in case the experts got it wrong. No limit should ever be considered permanent as any major changes could justify revision upwards or downwards. Consulting locals is fine but their say should not overule the experts, especially if the locals tend to bust limits themselves. Limits should always reflect what is needed, not what is wanted.

Sorry, I thought I made it clear that the 60 limit in force there is pretty much ideal - I don't recall ever seeing or hearing of any crashes there - so no, I don't think there is any need for signs to be changed. As you say, the human factor is what's important there. A sensible limit has been set, the majority comply with it so no-one bothers to enforce it (there's nowhere for Talivans to park either come to think of it), almost everyone drives a bit faster in ideal conditions and almost everyone drives slower in poor conditions. It's absobloodylutely perfect. Well, almost. Like I said I've encountered TIBMINs who seem to think it's about 40-50, but then they also carry on at 40-50 through the 40 zone at the end, and though the 30 zone after that . And of course HGVs are supposed to stick to 40 down there, which can create big queues and frustration as traffic coming the other way often makes overtaking an iffy prospect even to a suicidal driver.

Then miraculously it seems that they are in their right minds as soon as they pass the top of the hill to get onto the straight bit. Who could have imagined a geographical feature having such a profound effect on the thought processes of so many drivers that encounter it? 'Course, that might just possibly be a load of b ll cks. Maybe it's just down to so few other road users being about, as more often than not they're off their heads and blame everyone but themselves for getting run over, and wouldn't even dream of coughing up towrds the trouble they've caused without someone putting a gun to their heads.

Actually I think it's neither. It's really very simple. The speed limit accurately reflects the hazards likely to be present and is more or less what most drivers would choose to do anyway. If you dropped it to 40 I am sure that the current tendency to comply with the limit there would vanish overnight - without any real change in the speed of most of the traffic.

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Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler - Einstein

I avoid TV ads - havn't seen one since I couldn't reach the remote in time a few months back now. But I went to four (and only four) car maker web sites at random. Result of all the first screen you see:

www.bmw.de - welche form has Geschwindigkeit (speed)

www.ford.co.uk - the car on screen 1 was actually painting "go faster stripes" on the road!

www.vauxhall.co.uk - ad for 'sport hatch', promoting sport use on public roads.

www.jaguar.co.uk - picture of a car with blurred background and wheels, promoting speed.

Hm.. not too good.

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Yes, and the cheapest version of said car has a 1.4 litre, 90 PS engine

Lots and lots of cars have "Sport" in the name - and very often the implication is as much that it is meant to be part of a "sporty" lifestyle than that is meant to be driven in a "sporty" manner.

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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

Another interpretation is that drivers now actually think that driving should be "sporty", i.e. the ads have warped the culture to the point where ads showing sporty blurrs, sporty go faster stripes etc. barely register as danger promotion anymore. Perhaps you are a victim, PeterE, despite your real-ale/down-to-earth/Stockport lad authenticity!

The media is the message, as Marshall McCluhan famously said. Perhaps we're passed the point where we can tell we are being brainwashed.

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I stole this .sig

If anything, I think more people now are buying cars of an obviously non-sporty nature (SUVs, MPVs, city cars etc) because they realise the opportunities for "enthusiastic" driving are more limited than they once were. But, if you know the roads, it is perfectly possible to find places where "enthusiastic" driving does not involve exceeding the speed limit, or scaring ramblers and sheep.


I have admitted to owning a car that produces less than 100 bhp

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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

'Scuse me while I book a holiday in Germany to see it. Oh, hang on. Can't speak German . Can we stick to the UK please.

More specific if you don't mind. Which Ford and which Vauxhall and are they also TV ads? We're talking about widespread advertising here, and while web access is pretty common now one particular item among the however many billion pages doesn't exactly qualify.

Oh please. Not that ASA crap from you. I'd have thought you could come up with something without resorting to clutching that particular straw. It's not hard to take a very similar picture of a bicycle with blurred wheels and a blurred background. Or even a person running (no wheels there though, obviously ). Would they promote speed? [Jim Royle]My arse.[/Jim Royle]

Edit: Can't get on the Vauxhall site at the moment, so I've still got no clue which car you're talking about. But I can remember what the current Corsa and Astra ads are like and I can't see any connection unless the Wacky Races rip-off counts.

Been to the Ford site, and the go faster stripes have been left by a Fiesta which seems to be defying gravity as well. Promoting speed or being driven by M.C. Escher? The tag line is "loves corners" so I'd say it's handling they're trying to push, not speed or Dutch art.

The challenge was to give an example of a current broadcast ad that mentions or promotes a vehicles top speed and/or acceleration. So that's TV or radio. You could probably find some magazine ads without any trouble, but they'll almost all be in magazines aimed at petrolheads and aren't likely to influence anyone else. I want to see an example of the evil motor trade twisting the minds of your average Corrie viewer... but I don't rate your chances of finding such an ad without going back about a decade.

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Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler - Einstein

Sorry, my German grammer is shot, I meant to type "welche Form hat Geschwindigkeit", which is some bavarian nonsense about speed, I think.



These were pages picked at random - the first four all promoted speed. I can't give you ads - I see none ever.



ASA - what is that? I'm just saying what is plain - ads work, and ads portray speed, at least on web sites, OK?

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I stole this .sig

And I thought i didn't watch much TV, especially on the commercial channels. Anyhow, you may think there's tenuous connections to speed in those four, and there may be in the German one but since that ad isn't for the PCUK I'm not bothered. In any event, I specifically asked for ads that at least mentioned, if not promoted, top speed and/or acceleration. At the least the Ford and Jag examples don't qualify, even if they were on TV/radio which they're not AFAIK.

Advertising Standards Authority (I believe). IIRC they got a complaint against a car company, and I think it was actually Jaguar, for a print ad that showed motion blur on the car's wheels. The complaint was that it promoted speeding or driving fast, and the ASA upheld it and insisted the ad was pulled. IMO it promoted nothing of the kind. The photo shows movement, no more no less, and movement does not equal high speed.

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Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler - Einstein

A simple redistribution of the already unfair tax burden on the motorist would suffice, considering only something like 16% of motoring taxes actually go back into road and transport expenses.