Safe Speed Forums

Indeed. Who's going to pay for it?

People are being "educated" with safety cameras, and reduced limits, yet they refuse to learn! Both of these things are telling you to drive at a speed that isn't higher than the speed limit, yet people still don't!

Speed cameras "educate" you in the same way as your mum telling you not to do something "because I said so".

Unless you know why you're meant to do something you're not willingly going to do it.

I agree that the majority of speed limits are set appropriately, however its the ones that are not where all the enforcement seems to occur, at least in my area.

One thing i've noticed while driving around the country recently is how well the speed limits are set seems to be dependent on the area you live in. I was drving through sussex recently and I couldn't disagree with a single limit, however just across the border in Kent is a completely different story, the limits were set quite clearly using entirely different standards and criteria. What was considered a 50 in sussex would be a 30 in Kent in some locations, for no apparent reason whatsoever.

My conclusion on speed limits is it very much depends where you live, its a speed limit lottery if you like. Some areas are resonable others are silly and set way to low for the hazard density.

One alarming thing i have noticed is that new speed limits appear to be the speed they want you to drive at, not the maximum possible safe speed for the road. This flies in the face of the highway codes stance on things that makes it very clear that the limit is an absolute limit and not a target. Things are getting very silly indeed.

Inappropriate speed limits do not address this.

Fear, IMHO, in this situation translates to a "i don't want people driving fast outside my house" attitude (but will drive fast past other peoples).

Indeed most people caught causing 'fear' to the local residents are the local residents themselves.

I'm not sure I'd agree with that entirely!

My wee lad is three years old and is dead scared of jet engines. (The RAF tend to fly over our house fairly frequently and re-arrange the roof slates)!

Does he have a right to stop them flying over the house because he's scared of them? We cuddle him and reassure him that they aren't going to hurt him. In time, he will come to accept it as being, well, not necessarily "pleasant" but I'd be surprised if, with supportive education, he'd still be living in fear of them when he was 15!

It's all a question of degree. I'm sure if you looked hard enough, you could find someone sufficiently timid / elderly / infirm etc that would be scared of a car doing 20MPH 100 yards away. Should everyone be limited to 10MPH because of this?

It's the same with the group of 30 youths (presumably all wearing "hoodies")! I'd be very nervous if they were hanging round MY car but I'm not sure that would give the the right to get them moved on. They have rights too! There is not question that many such groups WILL cause damage but just moving them on because of how they appear will only lead to the vicious circle whereby they get so used to be treated like scum that they behave like scum.

Bit like motorists really, if you treat them all like idiots because a few are, you'll probably get more of them behaving like idiots!

I wouldn't use the term "educated" or "refuse to learn". Learn what? What are reduced limits and speedcams supposed to be teaching?

Speed does not kill.

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Pecunia Prius Equitas et Salus

Sorry about that - they need to fly around low-level to train for all the little holidays uncle tony keeps sending them on (and to stop things being boring )

However, the minimum low-flying training altitude in the UK is 250ft in daylight (750ft at night), unless you happen to be on the approach to an airfield. Any violations of these rules are taken very seriously (there is even an RAF Police unit equipped with an old anti-aircraft radar that go around the country to catch those that go below 250ft).

If you feel that this rule is being violated over your house then please either write to your local RAF station or if you really want to drop someone in the cack (pilots get paid too much anyway) to:

Ministry of Defence Directorate of Air Staff
Complaints and Enquiries Unit
Level 5, Zone H
Main Building
Whitehall
London SW1A 2HB

or even on-line at http://www.mod.uk/DefenceInternet/Conta ... laints.htm

Even if you don't want to formally complain, it may be worth speaking to someone anyway (local RAF Public Relations Officers are good) as it may be possible to re-route around your house (and you may get free stuff for the lad ).

If they're below the 250ft QFE minima appropriately and safely, then surely it's absolutely fine (according to your own logic!)

I would have thought the key message they put over is "don't get caught"

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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

Nah, it's OK, we understand that if we choose a house in a valley in a rural area with lots of hills, then it goes with the territory! My brother in law is an air traffic controller with the RAF, in fact, so he keeps us abreast of stuff! The good thing about toddlers is that 5 minutes after whatever it was that frightened them, they've completely forgotten about it!

Also, I didn't know about the 250' rule but I have to say I'd be hard put to know what 250' looked like anyway! I reckon they're probably about 255' most of the time so suppose that's OK!

Thanks anyway!

Must be a "first" this - quoting a bit of my own post but I couldn't resist it after seeing this quote from the Gloucester Scamera Partnership on another thread:


"'Speed limits are not decided on an ad hoc basis. Ongoing and detailed analysis is scrutinised when a limit is set. This takes into account factors such as the nature and number of previous accidents, any hidden hazards and the behaviour of other road users. It is impossible for any driver to make a judgement about any road that is more sound than the speed limit set.'"

Deja vu or what?!

I rest my case...

One thing that struck me when I was reading this is "How many other countries use mean speed compared to 85% proven advice?"

Will the UK be the ONLY country that sets road limits by mean speeds?

I dont know what the figures work out to be, but if we are one of the few countries that now have mean speed as the benchmark for setting speed limits, does that not say something (considering we are at the top of table with safe roads in the world (using 85% measuring)) ?

They [lower speeds] create a much worse environment. The cat will not be hot enough to burn the unused hydrocarbons in the exhaust and not hot enough to reduce the carbon dioxide in the exhaust either. The end result of endless cars crawling along will be increased pollution and yet another reason the ban cars from everywhere. Which, it seems to me, is the basic reasoning anyway. It does little for inner city pollution, most of which is now from diesel powered vehicles.

I always remember Oxford, which closed the town centre to cars and allowed public transport to use it. The pollution levels increased.

More similar crap from DfT today:
http://www.dft.gov.uk/stellent/groups/d ... 612470.pdf

I'm going through it.

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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

This is quite astonishing (from page 2):



Clearly the mean speed varies along the route as drivers adjust to conditions. What's absolutely amazing is that DfT can't immediately see that this is a vital and valuable safety behaviour that's highly vulnerable to being messed with.

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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

My taxes are being used to pay people to produce this incomprehensible tosh which is only in existence to provide a fig leaf for pre-decided Government intentions.

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

Yes - why do they think the mean speed drops to<20 mph at one point where the limit is 30? It's clearly not the mean speed tracking the speed limit.

On the bright side, I am a little reassured to see from the table on page 4 (if I'm understanding it correctly) that the speed limit will not automatically be reduced just because the mean speed implies it could be.

Maybe they assume there's a speed camera installed at that point.

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Useless laws weaken necessary laws.