Safe Speed Forums

Classed as dangerous driving, Like doing 30mph in a 60 limit? thanks for all replies

Unlikely to be classed as dangerous driving, but if driving well below both the speed limit and the typical speed of traffic on the road, can result in a prosecution for careless driving:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/3694201.stm

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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

cue quotes of "its her right to drive that slowly, she shouldn't have it violated, its the people behind who are at fault for wanting to go faster than 5mph"
It can be dangerous in that it causes frustration (fundemental human psychology) in following drivers who may out of frustration attempt an overtake in a dangerous spot, and also you find a lot of the very slow drivers will blantly block you from getting past.
Common sense prevailed, the lady got pulled up for her actions, and by what - Traffic Police! not cameras!

Hmmn.

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What is the offence here, driving slowly or driving slower than you could?

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"The road to a police state is paved with public safety legislation"

My mum got pulled up for slowing , they didn't do anything, juts told her to pull her finger out and pass the bloody horse box

Six points seems ridiculously harsh.

Seeing bloody horse boxes around here never seem to excess walking pace that seems reasonable. In fact some of the horse boxes round here are so knackered that I wouldn't be surprised to see the horses pulling them

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When I see an adult on a bicycle, I do not despair for the future of the human race. H.G. Wells
When I see a youth in a motor car I do d.c.brown

And the point of prosecuting this little old lady was???????

Yes she was a danger but would not a better course of action have been to send her on a driver improvement course. Have her driving properly evaluated and if she is capable of driving safely with training spend the £200 fine money on driving lessons.

If she cannot drive safely and is not capable of improvement then advise her not to drive. If she fails to listen then next time if there is one prosecute.

If the reports are accurate she drove so slowly that a big tailback built up behind her but she failed to pull over to allow vehicles to pass. She braked almost to a standstill on corners but still approached those corners at 30 to 35 necessitating sudden braking. She was having such trouble with her vision that she braked when vehicles approached from the other direction. Her driving was so erratic that it caused others to take evasive action. She clearly thought she was at risk, which is why she drove as she did, but opted to continue. Just how bad would driving have to be before you consider a penalty to be appropriate?

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I am not a lawyer and can't give legal advice. I do have experience of the day to day working of courts and use that knowledge to help where possible. I do not represent any official body and post as an individual.

I think this is where driver responsibility messages are so lacking. In this case she failed to recognise that her actions really needed her to pull over and seek help. Even a taxi back to her home to retrieve her old glasses.
Should opticians also be reminding people to break in new glasses in, and to keep the old pair about for some time - it would help maybe as a good reminder - or perhaps at least posters !
Night myopia is also a problem where people drive badly at night yet little is even mentioned about it, and drivers carry on with the potential to cause an accident. Happily many choose not to drive at night for feeling uncomfortable, but the reasons should be widely publicised, so many are more aware and more knowledgeable. The classic signs are someone braking for oncoming cars because they are 'blinded' by oncoming headlights.

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Safe Speed for Intelligent Road Safety through proper research, experience & guidance.

I was about fourth in line of a queue travelling at 30MPH in a NSL today. I could see that the lead car was a driving school so thought "well we've all got to learn" and was more frustrated by the second in line not overtaking on some decent straight stretches.
After following for about 2 miles, then we came to a 30MPH limit where they proceeded at 25MPH, then we came to a very busy island and my thoughts were that we would be stuck there for quite a while, as it's a difficult island to pull onto for an experienced driver but was quite suprised to see driving the school car quickly turn left without hesitation (or indicating) . It was only then that I noticed there was no one in the passenger seat and it was the instructor who had been holding us all up with his demonstration of "good" driving", including lack of indicating.

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My views do not represent Safespeed but those of a driver who has driven for 39 yrs, in all conditions, at all times of the day & night on every type of road and covered well over a million miles, so knows a bit about what makes for safety on the road,what is really dangerous and needs to be observed when driving and quite frankly, the speedo is way down on my list of things to observe to negotiate Britain's roads safely, but I don't expect some fool who sits behind a desk all day to appreciate that.

Fisherman wrote “Just how bad would driving have to be before you consider a penalty to be appropriate?”

By this I take it you mean a financial penalty. Why does it have to a financial penalty? A driver improvement course would be a penalty in the same way that a Community Order is would it not? If the lady would be willing to listen to words of advice from a traffic officer and take an improvement course, undertake an assessment of her driving or surrender her licence would not that achieve the same overall result of making the roads safer? As it is she could take the view, as an offender once did with one of my colleagues “ I’ve paid my fine” as if was some sort of tax, and then carried on with his offending behaviour.
My point was that this was probably a little old lady in the evening of her life who may not have been in trouble with the law before so why does she have to be brought before the Courts when other options may have existed?

I don't think the police are allowed to dish out summary justice without any recourse to the courts, and nor would I want them to be.

If they were allowed to require people on their whim to attend a driver assessment it would set a very dangerous precedent.

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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

This is leading me to a line of thought that motoring "offences" are different from other offences such as stealing, fraud and bashing little old ladies etc. and should be dealt with in a different judicial system.

Most motoring offences are breaches of quite arbitrary regulations eg exceeding a speed limit which may or may not be appropriate or have fairly loose thresholds such as careless or inconsiderate or dangerous which are quite different from the criminal offences eg stealing (in its broadest sense) is clearly taking something which does not belong to the thief. Accordingly while the standard criminal system should apply to criminal activity, motoring offences should be dealt with by a separate system where those who sit in judgement should be highly skilled in the art and science of public road driving.

It also strikes me that much effort (whether real or intended) is put into "rehabilitation" of those convicted of real crimes while punishment, often unduly harsh, is inflicted on those who commit motoring "crimes" and there is no attempt to correct their behaviour or improve their standards.

Accordingly I suggest that motoring offences be brought before a Bench of expert road drivers who judge the allegation on its merits. This would reduce "Exceeding the speed limit" to the status of a minor parking ticket (eg 20 pound fine with no points and/or allow the defence of "Inappropriate limit") but enable Traffic Police to bring a higher charge, say "Drive without due consideration", evidenced by video. As the legal profession would have no part in proceedings (its about standards not legislation) it could be swift action. Penalties could include a requirement for re-qualification (at a higher standard perhaps) within say 3 months failing which a reversion to L-plates instead of a ban which teaches nothing and generally de-skills. Serious matters which would demand heavier punishments could be referred to a higher Court.

I realise that the terminally anal retentives may have some difficulty with this concept but they should remember that the objective is to improve safety without being excessively restrictive.

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The only thing that should be prohibited is prohibition.

I have to agree with this. A fine doesn't really improve the driving of some people because some of the worse drivers don't even realise what they are doing wrong and don't get caught anyway. Take the lady I saw yesterday in the left hand lane of a roundabout with her right indicator flashing. She probably didn't know what she was doing wrong or why. Surely a re assessment of her driving and explainations of why she is a nuisance is better than just a fine with no explaination . Obviously the guy doing 60MPH through a 30MPH or someone overtaking on double whites kjnow they are breaking the law but most of the "bad" driving that I see on a hourly basis is people not following the highway code because they a) either don't know it and b) don't know why those rules are important.

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My views do not represent Safespeed but those of a driver who has driven for 39 yrs, in all conditions, at all times of the day & night on every type of road and covered well over a million miles, so knows a bit about what makes for safety on the road,what is really dangerous and needs to be observed when driving and quite frankly, the speedo is way down on my list of things to observe to negotiate Britain's roads safely, but I don't expect some fool who sits behind a desk all day to appreciate that.

I have thought that for some time. As I see itthe so called motoring laws should be more akin to the regulations of a professional body than to criminal law. They are a set of rules based on many years of experience - but incorporating recent developments - which are known, pragmatically, to be the best way to conduct their business and do least harm. All such professions have disciplinary procedures which have various sanctions up to a lifetime debarment from practising.

The parallels with motoring are obvious.

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When I see an adult on a bicycle, I do not despair for the future of the human race. H.G. Wells
When I see a youth in a motor car I do d.c.brown

Perhaps said professional body should also be involved in setting the rules in the first place rather than leaving it (as so often happens today) to ill-informed laymen.

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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

Most definately. Just read on a daily basis how many Local Councils are dropping speed limits against the advice of the police...who do you think knows best, some guy in a council office, who probably doesn't even live locally or plod who drive the roads regularly?

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My views do not represent Safespeed but those of a driver who has driven for 39 yrs, in all conditions, at all times of the day & night on every type of road and covered well over a million miles, so knows a bit about what makes for safety on the road,what is really dangerous and needs to be observed when driving and quite frankly, the speedo is way down on my list of things to observe to negotiate Britain's roads safely, but I don't expect some fool who sits behind a desk all day to appreciate that.

A couple of years ago, someone made a very wise post on here which I've never been able to track down. Basically he was saying that there was a vital conceptual difference between many motoring offences and the generality of normal "criminal" offences.

Theft, for example, is something that is always morally wrong, regardless of the amount involved. On the other hand, driving a car in a forward direction is not in general morally wrong. It is only considered an "offence" if the speed exceeds a particular value in a particular location. Therefore it is a relative rather than absolute offence in terms of both degree and location.

It seems to me this is a very important distinction. Most motoring "offences" fall into this category – they are not things that are always wrong, they are things that are wrong only in that particular context. And they are also in general characteristed by an absence of mens rea or guilty intention. That to my mind strongly supports the case for treating them (at least, maybe, up to the level attracting imprisonment) as something governed by a code of rules that stands entirely apart from the criminal law.

And before people start bleating, this is not to say that there should be no rules, or even that the rules should necessarily be less onerous, merely that they should be recognised as governing something entirely different from theft and assault.

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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

There is a distinction between (say) theft and bad driving. Theft is harmless to health,
while bad driving often kills people.