Safe Speed Forums

No, it was still NSL today. The 60 repeaters have gone up but are still bagged over. In one case the bag had come off so there were 60 and NSL repeaters in the same field of view

Assuming Knowsley are in the process of reducing the limit at their end the signing is abysmal - coming off the M57 you pass no terminal signs, then an NSL repeater, then a 60 repeater...

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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

it's changed slightly - there is a short stretch of 50 (terminal signs in place) from the motorway eastwards, then the lights at the junction with the business parks / industrial estates, then a long climb with no terminal signs, then a single 60 repeater (then the "welcome to St. Helens, home of a rugby league team and not much else worth mentioning" sign), then a pair of 60 terminal signs on yellow backings.

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COAST Not just somewhere to keep a beach.

A young loner on a crusade to champion the cause of the innocent, the helpless, the powerless, in a world of criminals who operate above the law.

I haven,t yet seen the "new" traffic lights & lower speed limits on this stretch of road but as I do use it occasionally I will no doubt come across them but as it appears that what the thread says is quite logical they have been installed purely to slow traffic down, obviously without any thought for the vehicles that use this road .

What seems to have gon amiss here is the fact that all these beaurocrats who design these "superb" pieces of road engineering have to justify their bloated salaries by introducing ridiculous schemes such as these cos if they didn,t do this they would be out of a job! .

As I have said previously it is not the "speed" which causes the accident it is the "nut" behind the wheel as speed is only a factor in the incident which could have many factors as part of the cause but our friends at "Brake" would have us believe that only speed kills or causes injury.

No matter what systems you put in place there is always some idiot who will want to try and beat the system

Ad Infinitum

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Spannernut

The problem is, as I've discussed with PeterE in the past, that at 60mph and with the amber phase of the traffic signals in Britain set to 3 seconds (?), you've only got a little more than half a second to make that go/no-go decision before you either a) fail to stop in time and end up running over the stop line, or b) end up running the light at 60mph - particularly bad if oncoming traffic is present and making a right turn, as they'll choose that moment to turn across your path.

Well, I tend to take the view that if approaching traffic lights on an NSL road (60 or 70) I do back off a bit in the expectation that they may change, which seems common sense really.

I understand that it is now recommended that when designing new road schemes, no traffic signals are to be placed in limits above 50 mph, but that does leave a large number still with us in NSLs and 60 limits. Only last week I spotted a new one (to me) on the 70-limit A133 near Colchester. I'm not aware of any evidence that, in practice, these do cause a significant safety problem associated primarily with speed rather than failure of observation.

I worry that, if we protest too loudly about this, we will end up with 500 yards of 40 limit enforced by a Gatso on the approach to every set of lights on a road with a higher limit

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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

I have seen ....... in Austria, a system of traffic light control which I like very much. The "Amber" phase is divided between 1st, a "Flashing Amber" and then "Solid Amber". The flashing amber warns you that it is about to change ........ and the "solid" like here is for action to stop.

It gives information about timing, (what is OK on a bright dry warm summers day is quite different on a cold wet winters morning at near freezing point)........

Additional information like this coupled with conditions AND: "How far behind me is that cretin away from my rear bumper?"...... is very useful!

Ther is another scenario on this topic and that is the one where as I was told on my advanced test by the examiner (a serving PC) there comes a "point of no return" situation whereby with all the forethought in the world you have gone past this point and it is intrinsically safer to go through the lights rather than trying to stop bearing in mind that if you stop can the following vehicle also stop .

Purely and simply to stop would very likely mean that you would be across the stop line when you actually come to a stop.

Another safer option for traffic lights on a road with a NSL would be to have the road surface sensors for the lights spaced further away from the lights so as to give time for the approaching vehicles a longer warning / braking distance of lights about to change.

I.E taking account of the braking distance at say 60 /70 mph to allow for time for drivers to react to the lights sequence earlier.

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"There But For The Grace of God Go I"

"He Who Ain,t Made Mistakes Ain,t Made Anything"

Spannernut

Or a longer amber period to account for higher speed coupled with either the above or a second sensor located further back

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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

Good point, well made. I'm sure we've all been in this situation, and it's amplified particularly badly when there's a safety camera at the lights.

I find the worst situation to be in is when you've slowed down, anticipating the lights, and you get to that infamous point, where you think you'll make it so start to accelerate... only to find you're in 6th gear, maintaining a wonderfully constant speed towards the lights...

When there is a (proven dangerous) red light camera on a set of lights there is a point which I call the "floor it" point. You chose between the brake and accelerator pedal, and depending on the state of the amber light you press one of them to the floor.

I'm pretty sure SafeSpeed has issued a PR suggesting the use of an extra 3 second green + amber on 'faster' roads.

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Andrew.

Botach I agree totally on your suggestion about bringing back sanity on speed limits as I have said all along that it is not speed that does the damage in an accident but the person behind the wheel!

Any vehicle will only go as fast as the driver wants it to!

Speed in the right places and on the right occasions is acceptable as long as it is not in a dangerous place or in bad weather conditions etc. because lets face facts any normal person wouldn,t drive at 30 mph on a supermarket car park?

I still fail to see how the "anti speed" brigade such as "Brake" keep on trying to get speed limits reduced to as they say "reduce accidents" and how can cameras catch motorists who have a blatant disregard for the law and drive without insurance / tax / mot these are the real bad drivers who unfortunately get the law abiding motorist a bad name and a fine plus points for a split second mistake.

To err is human but to hear the likes of Charles Brunstrom claiming that motorists who exceed the limit are "Criminals" is absolute rubbish but again remember that a speeding conviction is regarded as a "Crime Solved" in the wonderful world of this targets and statistics obsessed government so it looks good on the crime figures never mind the robbers and burglars who are hard to find let alone prosecute.


Another thing to bear in mind as one thread said about reintroducing more traffic police, "Safety Cameras" generated an income last year of something like over £1.6m in fines so we would need a lot of traffic officers to generate that kind of revenue from the poor motorists!!!!!!!!
Think of the furore if that went ahead instead of "Safety Cameras" as cameras are an easy way of getting the hard pressed motorist to part with their (very likely) hard earned cash to fund more "Safety Cameras"



Ad Infinitum

_________________
"There But For The Grace of God Go I"

"He Who Ain,t Made Mistakes Ain,t Made Anything"

Spannernut

More news. The 60 mph lollies seem back in view for the drivers per the relatives in the area. But..






These are the traffic lights in question.

The only ones with no "traffic light cam" and which an inquest recommended along with police that there should be a pedestrian/toucan setting to allow folk to cross.

Per the photo here - quite some distance between the two sets of traffic lights as well. My sisters say people are soon up to 50-60 mph from the A575 lights off peak (bit crawl in rush hours.) Incident happened about 9.30 pm after she'd celebrated her Year 9 SATS. I posted up the original article as it appeared in the press at the time. The parents per the press article were shocked to find she had consumed cider whilst out at her pal's home - but no one concluded that this was a significant factor nor were any drivers charged as none were speeding or breaking a traffic light signal per the inquest as reported at the time in the region's local press.


Wrong place... wrong time seems callously indifferent somehow. I am sorry as I really do not intend to be "unfeeling". But that's the tragedy of an accident. Does not take away the deep hurt on each side all the same.

But knee-jerk reactions do not resolve and 50 mph can still be a killer speed on that road. What then?


Inquest held that the road needed a pedestrian setting at those lights. Residents want either this or a bridge per my sisters who chat with their neighbours. (Both live near to this road themselves and they have kids too. They tell them that the East Lancs is not a play ground and to be extra careful, making sure all traffic has actually stopped at the lights if seeing a mate in the new houses around there.)

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Reducing the speed limit is a lot cheaper than reengineering the junctions, or installing pedestrian bridges.

Still, people will die and in a few years they'll try another crackpot scheme. And still, nobody will do the obvious thing and fence the road off, while installing bridges, or improving the crossings.

Its a shame really as its an excellent long straight piece of road with superb visibility and a great surface.

Good Question, and I myself didn't realise until I recently traveled back through Holland on their now 60mph motorways...

The first thing is "Bunching" traffic comes along in "packets" of closely packed vehicles of all types.

Everyone is SCARED! If you speed you STAND OUT ........ You are too busy watching for cameras, unmarked cars and that LORRIES wheels just 3 feet away beside you are really scary! (What if he has a blowout NOW?) But you can't excellerate away from them because a camera may get you and take your licence away.

What it does friends, is to take away the "normal" process of vehicle type seperation by speed differential. We NOW have to ride alongside heavy vehicles tyres which IF they blow out, can be be dangerous for you in your little micra........ when before we would pass by as quickly as possible.

I've noticed that exactly this is now happening, particularly on the stretch between the Leigh By-pass and the Greyhound roundabout.

It's SCARY...and like I said before, May as well close the second lane down! THIS is supposed to be safer?........ I'd URGE the silly Leigh Councilors to think again before they kill many more people!

It's a "Numpties Charter".......... Some numpty up front will Not EXCEED THE LIMIT TO CLEAR HIMSELF of traffic". So all the people behind are riding alongside huge lorry wheels inflated to a huge pressure that can kill.

Safer ......... Yeah right!

Does it matter? I don't know about you, but I would have gotten a right good smacking if I'd gone anywhere near that road at that age (though admittedly part of that would have been due to wasting money on a train fare to Liverpool, but the same is true for any similar local road)

I realise that it sound harsh and someone died and all, but seriously roads like that are not a place for unsupervised (or improperly supervised) kids.

When I lived in America, I really appreciated the longer yellow phase of the which was always about 5 seconds as the transition was made from green to red. There, I would see no problem having a traffic light on a 60 road.

We must be one of the only countries in the world whose traffic lights go through a red and yellow phase after red, before turning green. I would say get rid of that red/yellow phase, and add the time on to the yellow only phase as the lights turn from green to red.

In some countries (Austria near the Swiss border) the green light flashes when about to turn to yellow. Of course, some people interpret this as STOP! In other places, I've even seen a kind of timer thing, indicating how long it will be before the lights change.

But... Britain always has to be different.

Near Vienna, the solid Amber phase is followed by a flashing Amber phase before it goes Red. I like that! It conveys information to the driver who, in a moving "fluid" situation, has a decision to make. Anything that can aid a driver like this IMO is a bonus. I think we should follow this example.

I share a similar frustration at this sort of thing. My view in general is that, pedestrians get killed on roads for walking out without looking, almost always you could really lay the blame entirely at the hands of the pedestrian. Sure, the faster the car the longer it takes to stop - which is why as a pedestrian you should bloody well look properly before stepping your little feet onto the road into the path of an oncoming vehicle. Motorists are always blamed when people are run over - does my head in when at the solution to a lot of it is simply drilling it into peoples minds to look properly before crossing - it'd save a lot more lives than reducing to 50

A little news for you A580 users.......

I was traveling East today (around 1pm) after leaving the M6 on the A580. The first traffic island as you all know is the Golbourne island. On the rise over the railway bridge was a Plod leaning on the armco barrier.......

When you got over the bridge, the outer lane was cordoned off, A Police van was parked on the grass on the down slope (with a petrol generator connected at the rear) At the lights, was a Policeman with a line of traffic directing several vehicles to turn left (presumably whether they wanted to or not!)........

Now EITHER it was ANPR, .....OR..... There had been a remote speed trap BEFORE the island. (luckily ....."I" had been a "good boy" and hadn't been in a hurry).

Fellow (A580) East Lancs Road users beware.......... They're collecting for the Christmas Policemans Ball rather early this year it seems!

Hi all!...

A little more news for you users of the A 580 and associated roads. I was travelling south from the Greyhound island (A574) the other day, just after passing "Bents" garden centre I noticed a large van coming the other way.
After it passed I looked in my mirrors. YEP! Red and Yellow chevrons on the lower half, black windows, and a "Camera" style sticker to make it all legal near the top.

A few minutes later I returned, wary, because I knew that if he was from the Warrington patch, he would be "out of his patch" before the A580!

Sure enough, there he was, large as life with his rear flap open! (OOoo Missus!) opposite "Bents" garden centre where the road widens.........

My experience of this road is: that they tend to target it ALL along it's length from the A 580 to Warrington". And when they start, they tend to keep at it for up to about 3 weeks or so.....(I think they must borrow the van).

Keep your eyes peeled everyone..........





Oh!.......I almost forgot!


Today (Friday 12th) I was travelling east from the Greyhound at 13:19 precisely (OK, give or take a minute or two ) At 60 mph I was overtaken by a livered Traffic Police car ........... "rather smartly" I thought.
So I accelerated, and overtook the vehicle in front in order to check his speed on this newly imposed 60 mph stretch.

Well. I reached 70 mph and he was STILL going away from me.......my estimate is: 75 mph, No Blues, and when he reached slow moving traffic in front? STILL no Blues! he just sat there behind them.... So obviously not on a shout!

Now, I'm NOT going to say that he was doing anything wrong, IMO he wasn't. But! I despise the double standards...OK for him, but NOT for you, to make the same perfectly safe judgement.


I wonder what the aforesaid camera-van would have made of him........at 15 mph over the limit?

Oh how I wish I'd have taken his reg for future use......... plus I need a digi camera on the dash-board. Let's see how they like it!