Safe Speed Forums

Up until they realised they had a cash-cow on their hands (the introduction of cameras in the early 1990s), the 30 mile an hour limits had served us well - only ever enforced on a discretionary basis.

Now it's about cash... The only way to stop this legalised theft is to raise the limits so that the cranks who demand "Obey the Law" at all times can suck their thumbs knowing that no-one is breaking the law as they drive safely... And if this doesn't quite read properly, let me give you another analogy: the current motorway limit is 70 - even in fog or snow. In those conditions, I choose to drive much slower (at an APPROPRIATE speed). The "Obey the Law" at all costs / times crowd are happy because I'm not exceeding their lollipop number.

I therefore want the way I drive (normally, safely) to be made 'legal' so I can stop being the victim of misapplied policing and the theft that currently goes with it.

Make the limits 40 and then choose to drive within them.

Do the French put up withthis shit, by the way?

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We have a complaisant but venal judiciary and police force - all too eager to pervert the Law to satisfy their own aims

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Pecunia Prius Equitas et Salus

I see nothing wrong with a 30mph limit for a busy village or town centre, applied with sensible discretion, but my objection is to these being extended outside of the centres into surrounding rural areas and the rigid enforcement of the limits for 24hours a day, 7 days a week, when there isn’t any justification to apply or enforce such limits, other than for the collection of cash.

I wrote a load of stuff on this, then deleted it, because it's so variable.

I think they need to get away from speed limits, and start proper engineering so that it's physically impossible to drive at what would be classed as an excessive speed for the conditions at the worst case scenario of hazard density.

For example residential areas need psychological barriers to speed (I like the Dutch approach which was highlighted recently here) - Urban areas benefit from islands, hatching, etc. Local to my area they've recently narrowed a fairly wide 30 road which has a high hazard density with hatching and a couple of islands - normally people would fly down it as it opens out on to a NSL - that seems to have stopped now bar the occasional idiot. Not a speed cam in sight.

The 30 limit has served us well for years . It is the misuse of it that has caused problems .

People are taught to drive "to the limit" - eg drive too slowly on a test and you'd fail - so newbies think that at all times they should be doing about 28 - even in a street lined with cars and kids on the pavement - my hair curls and my skin creeps at this .
What has the professional driving instructor been doing all this time - as far as i can see - teaching pupils to drive at 28 ( or fail ).

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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

This reminds me of a conversation I had with my driving instructor when I was learning many years ago (well, 1987):

DS: "You can go a bit faster than this, you know."
JF: "But it's a 30 limit."
DS: "Yes, but it's one of those 30 limits where 33 is better than 27, if you know what I mean."

Imagine how that piece of commonsense advice would go down in today's camera-riddled environment...

Hard to generalise.

For many roads, 30 is appropriate. For narrow residential streets, 20 is better. However for many wide and straight roads, 40 is appropriate. But these are the roads where any remaining 40 limits are being dumbed down.

The appropriate speed limit is the speed at which competent drivers would choose to drive in the absence of a speed limit. Which in the case of a road near me is 40, whereas the limit was (for no apparent reason) recently reduced from 40 to 30. Now we have a mix of drivers doing 40-45 (as they always did) and others doing exactly 30 "because that's the law". So now we have a nice mix of tailbacks and dangerous overtaking.

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Brian