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Speeding


Guest tom-zero

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The comment I made previously was not meant to be abusive, it was meant as a bit of advice. This is from myself who, to be honest, sometimes has to admit that getting to the age of 56, with hopefully many more year to come, has been more by luck than sensible judgment. I,ve had accidents in the past with nobody to blame but myself. At the age of 17 I broke both my legs in a Motorbike accident. (that's the worst one) Lost 2 good mates, killed in bike accidents. One killed in a car crash. I,ve had one speeding fine. Was once chased by the police when doing 80 in a 30 mph area. I got away with that because in those days the police had to follow you for a certain distance. The copper give me a real talking to and added the advice "stop being a pi---ck and grow up" good advice. No offence was meant in passing this on.

Dave.

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  • 4 weeks later...

There's no "one size fits all" answer to that but the current route of speed equals dangerous is just as bad.

 

The best method is to have enough police out there on the streets that can exercise some common sense/discretion. There are times and places where you could quite safely be doing 10+mph over the limit without putting yourself or anyone else at any increased risk of having an accident. In these cases a copper could pull you over and warn you that you are going a bit fast so slow it down and carry on. The only penalty to you being the time spent getting a bit of a dressing down and whilst the copper checks that the person driving is the owner and insured to drive (can't do that with an ANPR camera).

 

There are other occasions (places, weather, pedestrians or whatever) where even doing the speed limit is dangerous and therefore the same copper could pull you over and give you a ticket for 1mph over the limit.

 

Speeding may become to some extent the norm but it would be kept within tolerable limits. I'd also suggest many people would be more observant because they wouldn't know where to be looking out for the cameras (even the mobile ones only tend to plot up in certain common places where they can "hide"). I'd suggest speeding is for most people the norm anyway so I don't see that this policy rather than automatic enforcement would realistically increase it.

 

And hey with that number of Police on the road maybe the scroats would commit less crime because suddenly they need to worry that maybe the next car that drives around the corner might be a Police-car or that even, if it's just a neighbour/passerby that sees them, a call to 999 might illicit a response to a crime in progress in under 45 minutes because there IS someone in the area.

 

Iain

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Guest Ian & Carole

Come off a 3 lane motorway towing my caravan @ 60, the legal limit.

Left motorway onto a single carriage way, smooth and wide, probably better surfaced than the motorway.

 

Set the cruise control @ 58, so as not to wind up all the HGVs behind me.

Towing speed, I know, is 50 on single carriage way, so yes I made a deliberate decision to speed.

Got flashed by a speed camera that reads speed and the height of the vehicles going past.

Did the naughty boy course at £90.00 for doing 58 in a 60.

I now travel @ 50 in a 60 with queues of HGVs capable of doing 56mph in my wake getting very angry with some trying to come past.

 

Is any form of speeding OK probably not but ............................... just occasionally common sense could be allowed ?????????

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well the law would consider it roughly 10% over the posted limit as that is generally the limit they set on the speed traps. Which would be around 77mph on a motorway. 100mph is significantly more than that.

 

Whilst i can't speak for everyone i think the reason this has peoples backs up is that setting cruise control to 100mph is not a very good idea as your feet aren't even on any of the pedals, getting the feedback from the car etc when at those speeds you'd want to be as alert as possible.

 

It's rather an emotive subject and i was actually quite pleased that the majority on here condemn speeding as it's quite easy to feel that you need to drive fast to prove something especially if others aren't standing up and saying actually its not a good idea.

 

If i had a blow out at 100mph and killed a family happily driving along at 70mph minding their own business, i don't think i could ever live with the guilt. It could still happen at 70mph but at least at 70mph it would just be a sad accident. Everyone would have been aware of the risks of driving at 70mph within the safety parameters set by law. By exceeding that by 30-40% you are taking away the choice of other drivers to use the road within predefined limits and risk.

 

I've heard it said it's not speed that kills its the difference in speed. At 100mph there is a difference of 30mph. I don't want to be hit at 30mph in a parked car let alone when i am already moving at 70mph, that is going to be pretty hard (impossible) to control.

 

hopefully everyone will take something away from this thread and i think it's worth talking about after all we all clearly love driving and can all improve the way we do things.

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Guest mower man

We were hit headon at a combined speed of 90+ mph by an idiot with 6 people in a Fiat panda ,fortunatly no one killed but one girl with serious back injuries , my wife and I had sternum fractures and massive bruising ,neither of us was speeding 40/45ish on a 60 mph road in dry fine conditions no alcohol involved they were on their way home from church! what was missing ? common sense !! mick :acute:

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It is interesting topic to discuss....and I think there are 2 different topics at the heart of this debate.

 

The first is speeding.....This is straight forward enough; A road has a speed limit and if you go over that limit you're breaking the law.....You may argue that the speed-limits are too low....but that's not for the policeman to negociate with you at the side of the road.....You should always know the speed limit of the road you're driving on and if you break the limit don't be suprised if you get caught and punished.

One question to ponder or a different way of thinking about speed limits;

If the limit is 50mph, 60mph or whatever, why do we all seem to drive (myself included) either on or slightly over the limit? My engine has a rev-limit but I don't drive around with it bouncing off the red line all the time......We just seem to fall into the trap of thinking that the speed-limit is the speed that we should travelling at.....and then push it a bit more....

 

 

 

The second topic at the heart of all this is dangerous driving....This is a whole different can of worms and can be applied to circumstances above or below the speed limit. Did someone mention common sense......are we not all noticing that 'common sense' is not so common anymore?

We may have an accurate perception of what is or isn't dangerous driving......but the student down the road from me who has just passed his test might not......so how does the 'powers that be' do their bit to try and keep him and everyone else around him safe?....well I suspect one part of that is imposing speed limits on the roads.......and yes I've seen first hand instances where the speed limit is probably too low for the road...

 

So after all that waffle....my view is that if you do speed then you have to expect to get caught sooner or later and accpet the punishment that goes with it.

Dangerous driving on the otherhand is far harder to safegaurd, but at least speed limits go someway to helping.

 

For what its worth, I got 3 points back in 2002 so cannot deny ever speeding.

Edited by steamer
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I have been thinking about my driving since this topic started and this is what I have concluded, I don't speed at all in 30 or 40 zones, on single carriage roads I do speed- but only when no other traffic is around, on motorways my top speed is 80 as I think the standard of driving on motorways is so bad that I wouldn't like to come up behind a car at any more than 10mph speed difference as their actions are unpredictable.I am sure we have all started to pull out into the fast lane to find that the car in the distance is doing 100 and is almost on top of you. I have been caught speeding once - in 1978 doing 95, and I am a fast driver, but I choose when I feel it is safe to speed.

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I tried to reply by message Dan but it won't send

Its a general enquiry about what the members posting think is acceptable speeding and unacceptable speeding is .

However in my opinion you can't justify speeding a bit if you are chastising someone for speeding a lot.

And then there are the ACPO views on speed

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So for me i rarely speed. On motorways i try and average 65-70mph as i have a real time mpg meter and i try and get as much mileage as i can. I have never been caught for speeding as generally i don't (at most i've done 80mph passing on the motorway and immediately dropped back to <75mph once past). I travel on 60mph roads through the forest but only do 50mph as i have seen too many deer, boar, badgers, sheep,cyclists, walkers, tractors and whatever else in the road. I try and aim for 28mph in 30 zones although i have occasionaly noticed i've rolled up to 35mph and i immediately reduce my speed.

 

I do drive fast around the twisty bits but remind myself constantly that i am not nigel mansel and if my car rolls i will probably be dead.

 

If i have passengers i travel with even more care as i am the one responsible for them.

 

I don't change the cd or adjust the seat etc if a car is coming the other way.

 

I don't turn my lights on (at that time of day its just starting to turn) if i see a car coming the other way or waiting at a junction incase they think i am signalling them to pull out or distract them.

 

I often count 2 seconds to make sure the gap is big enough in front of me.

 

I turn my fog lights on when its foggy

 

Does that mean i can berate everyone who does speed? probably not. I'm sure i've done some dangerous things within the speed limit.

I have an opinion though and i think everyone should try and drive safer whatever the circumstances.

 

I think there are times when it is more acceptable to exceed the speed limit but there are limits to that and does depend highly on the situation. I personally don't believe anyone should be doing more than 80mph on a motorway and there are numerous times when that is still way too fast with the amount of cars on the road.

 

If you speed consider not speeding, one less thing to kill you or someone else

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having just been zapped at 36 in a 30, I read the paperwork which told me the criteria for prosecution is the speed limit plus 10 percent plus 2mph.

In my case I'm 1 over and feel a bit peeved, but going to court and losing will be far too costly and the penalty more severe.

 

I'm going on the naughty boy course , what a great 65th birthday present to myself.

 

Oh, and your mate is a complete idiot to take such a big risk.

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