Safe Speed Forums

I haven't long passed my test (about six months) and don't want to get caught speeding and have to redo my tests again so I stick to the speed limit 99.9% of the time.

However I almost always get queues of cars behind me. I went into town the other day, and there's a road with a 40 limit that goes on for a few miles, and there must have been about 10 cars behind me.

I always try and help them overtake if it's possible.

I bet people who know me dread seeing me up in front

Anyone else have this problem? Well the ones who stick to the speed limit

The road is probably one of the hundreds that have recently been dropped to 40MPH from an NSL. They are often straight,safe roads and drivers who know them well, are used to driving them at 50MPH plus and probaly find them very frustrating at their new lower level. Obviously dropping the limit also encourages a build up of traffic. I have many such roads near me and the build up of traffic on them now, especially around peak times is unbelievable. Thankfully at off peak times many drivers revert back to the 50MPH plus speeds that these roads can safely support.

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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.

Yeah you are right, the road was dropped to 40 from 60 and IMO is safe to drive at 60mph. But I still don't break the limit at off peak times just in case I get caught!

It's the same on 30 roads though. But fair play to most of them, I think on only two occasions people behind me have honked their horns and once someone flashed their lights at me (ba****d) But maybe it was an emergency, who knows?

About a month back a car followed me more or less from town to outside my house. I realised he was following me as I turned up into the housing estate where I lived and then into my street. I knew he had been behind me the whole time from town but thought he didn't have an opportunity to overtake or whatever.

So I pulled up outside the house and saw that he pulled up behind me and was ready for some confrontation because of my Driving Miss Daisy skills.

So this bloke gets out of his car and comes to the driver side and says "roll down your window..."

So I'm thinking, ok here goes. Getting ready to bludgeon a fool with my cheap sat nav, I roll down my window.....

He looks at me and says "your front wheel is wobbling terribly, I followed you up and if you had been going faster I would have pulled in front of you and made you pull over, it don't look to safe to me......"

I was relieved to say the least, I was expecting a punch for driving too slow

Off topic a bit, but the majority of drivers are pretty decent IMO.

darren
There are many ways to explain what is happening here and why.

Fully understanding the roads takes experience knowledge and understanding. My suggestion to you would be to pull over, and allow the built up traffic to pass. Following traffic can become frustrated, which may lead to other problems, so best to let them go, they will appreciate it as it shows courtesy and understanding (that your delay is causing them). It would be wrong of you to hold up traffic traffic deliberately, after all we should never try by our actions to to educate other road users.
When choosing a speed most road users try to select one that best enables safe progress, by driving to the conditions.
So we don't want a speed that is lower than is suitable, nor do we want one that is too high either.
By driving so that we can stop (on our side of the road) in the distance that we can see to be clear in - we can ensure that if anything start to happen we have time to react and can come to a stop safely and without panic.

Without trying to confuse you, statistics show us that the safest group of vehicles are traveling at or below the 85%. Theses road users tend to have above average skill and competence and this is why their crash risk is lowest.
This Country had the safest roads in the World by educating drivers to drive to conditions.
The speed limits were always considered a guide and only if you were driving / riding dangerously or otherwise considered acting unsafely, might you expect to be stopped by the Police.
There is nothing wrong in driving cautiously unless you are so underconfident to the point of being, hesitant and potentially unsafe?
I would suggest that you place the 'P' plates on as that will help indicate to others that any reason for your underconfidence or uncertainty is from lack of experience than any deliberate or aggressive intentions.

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

If you ever believe that you are being followed it may be wise to drive to the nearest police station or public place than drive home.

Do you feel unable to change from this phrase that you use to describe your driving ability ?
By labeling yourself like this, there can be a danger that you 'become' this, with no desire to truly improve and grow, but stay within your set boundaries ?

By lowering your window you made yourself vulnerable and exposed to potential danger, probably not a good idea.

That is worrying that you recognise that your 'slow' driving is causing others some possible frustration and possibly anger.
We must try to ensure that our (driving) actions never cause others to become angered or even upset.
Ensuring that you pull over to allow other traffic to pass, will help ensure that other drivers will not become too frustrated or upset.
If pulling over seems impossible consider using an appropriate (to your journey) left or right turn .e.g left right left type arrangement.

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

When you say "I stick to the speed limit". Do you mean that you drive with your speedometer needle showing a little less than 30mph? With most modern cars that will mean you are doing about 25mph, a good 10mph below the 10% + 2mph guidance speed. If that is the case it is no wonder that following cars are a bit annoyed.

If you really want to stick to the speed limit then you must either get a GPS speedometer (SatNav or Road Angel) or, at the least, calibrate your speedometer by driving a measured distance with a passenger using a stop watch.

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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

A very good point, DCB.

I use a sat nav daily now, since about April, (mainly for its Bluetooth ability and as a speedo). If I were to drive by my car speedo , I would be at least 4MPH below the speed limit. Many cars seem to have satnav or well calibrated speedos these days but its easy to spot the ones which don't because they are usually travelling at 36MPH in a 40MPH.

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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.

Doesn't a SatNav measure your speed across the map rather than along the road?

If so, then a bendy road with many twists and turns will produce a lower speed reading than a long straight one!

Or does the software work out the speed for distance covered in the time?

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Time to take responsibility for our actions.. and don't be afraid of speaking out!

I thought 10%+2mph was when they started to hand out tickets not the maximum you could get away with.

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Driving fast is for a particular time and place, I can do it I just only do it occasionally because I am a gentleman.
- James May

The GPS can, of course, only measure your speed across the map. With cheap GPS he position is measured about once per second and the distance travelled in that second used to calculate the speed. Some smoothing is applied to take out false readings and missed samples. As we are concerned with speeds in the range 40ft/sec to 100ft/sec there will be some under-reading on bends. I don't know typical bend radii on British roads but I suspect that it of the same order so that the error will be small. Gradients also cause a small under read as the GPS is measuring the horizontal speed. The GPS will also under read when accelerating as it is telling you how fast you were travelling a second ago

Despite all that a GPS can be used to calibrate a speedo provided the road is straight and level

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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

Isn't not getting a ticket the same as getting away with it?

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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

Yes, I suppose it does. It depends on who was giving the guidance you mentioned, drivers or the acpo, the way your post read to me was that you were implying the driver might have been doing 10mph more, i.e at the 10%+2mph erm limit

I thought, though I might be wrong which is why I asked, that

>=10%+2mph can attract a ticket

<10%+2mph should not

so while the driver may get away with adding 9mph, adding 10mph could be cutting it a bit fine if he is really worried about those points - lets face it who isn't at times. If it comes to it if Darren is that worried perhaps he should stay well away from the 'limit' as he will end up watching his speedo too much

I know you were not suggesting he goes faster, rather trying to explain why he ends up at the head of a queue.

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Driving fast is for a particular time and place, I can do it I just only do it occasionally because I am a gentleman.
- James May

My sat nav has a speedo on it, so yesterday I tried it and according to that my speedo is out by 4 or 5 mph.

The next chance I get, I will check it with one of them speed reading things at the side of the road to make sure my sat nav isn't give me a false reading.

Thanks for the advice everyone

It is neither of those things. In theory you can get nicked at any speed over the limit, but they wouldn't bother about minor excesses, partly because of concerns about the accuracy of speed measurment, and because most police officers will use some discretion and allow you a bit of leeway.

Best wishes all,
Dave.

There is some doubt about the accuracy of those things. Stopwatch over a measured distance is best.

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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

Well a very interesting question.
If I don't have a route plotted (often) I can then can see the speed reading.
By comparison to the speedo it alters less than the speedo might given a twisty road, but then it is rare to enter a corner 'above' the posted limit (using the excellent slow in fast out best practice), so it won't become an 'issue' with legality.
However if on sweeping Motorway bends and hills, it seems to be a little delayed and that of course can alter too much for any camera precision at the change and start of posted limits.
I wonder which Sat Nav has the best accuracy and speed update ?
Perhaps we can ask the main one's .... what's the 'big' list ; TomTom, Garvin, Navman, Sony, Packard Bell, RAC, Navigon, Binatone, Becker, Pioneer & Snooper. Any other's?
I have now asked one store (http://www.thesatnavwarehouse.com/) about speed accuracy so we will see what they have to say !

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

The satnav is much more accurate than your cars mechanical speedo.
And the speed and location measuring part is separate from the map display.
The gps uses signals from at least 4 sats to locate itself within a 3 dimensional space....since it "knows" the precise distance it is from each of the sats being used (up to about 9) it "knows" its precise location within an area of space...which happens to be on the ground. All it has to do is calculate how long it took to get from A to B and then calculate the speed from that.
the map part of your satnav is just a user display...the satnav works quite well without the map...if you go to the satnav menu you will find a "page" that consists of just location data (lat/long) and other dtat....you can see from this that the satnav is not that interested in hills.....just another location...your satnav works quite well within an aircraft as well....

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The world runs on oil, period. No other substance can compete when it comes to energy density, flexibility, ease of handling, ease of transportation. If oil didn’t exist we would have to invent it.”

56 years after it was decided it was needed, the Bedford Bypass is nearing completion. The last single carriageway length of it.We have the most photogenic mayor though, always being photographed doing nothing

Like I've said before, the sat nav on my pedal cycle can quite accurately measure the circumference of my wheel as I travel along: you can set it to auto detect the wheel cicumference and it get's it millimetre perfect. The measurement is subsequently used to calculate speed according to the wheel rotation sensor, which is useful in tunnels and built up areas where the satnav is understandably crap.

It's not so good at doing heights though, and relies on a barometer to supplement the height measurement from the satnav reading.

Which is pretty damn clever when the absolute accuracy of GPS is rarely better than 10 meters

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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