Safe Speed Forums

As some of you may know I drove to Germany this Christmas.
I left on Friday, on the day of traffic “chaos”, left myself plenty of time. Arrived at Dover two hours early (I was driving from chesterfield). The only time the road got busy was at the (south) end of the M1 and Dartford crossing, the M20 was lovely. This surprised me because if you watched the news the whole nation was apparently in gridlock. Once at Calais I was a little nervous, but it was okay. Leaving the port I thought it was wonderful straight on to the French motorway (as many of you probably know) and off I went to Germany. I really enjoyed my driving experience though all the countries on the way to Germany. Most of the time lane discipline was good, most of the time I saw people move from L1 to L2 (if safe) to let traffic on to the motorway. Most people seemed to know what they where doing. I even found the Antwerp ring road was okay. Clearly it felt strange going around roundabouts the wrong way and I had to think a lot more a junctions, but it was good. During my time I also took my car on the autobahn (I don’t think I would go that fast again). Why am I bothering to tell you this? Because I wish to compare the above with my experience with the first 1hour back on U.K soil, I will start from leaving customs (which had a speed camera sing on it); 90 degree left then 90 degree right, about a car length then a traffic light (which was red). On to a roundabout, then some traffic lights, and several more as you make your way to the A road out of Dover (A20?). As the A20 leaves Dover it goes up a big hill (as some of you know). It is a duel carriageway. If your car is powerful enough, and/or you select the correct gear, it is possible to accelerate your way up this hill, and pass all the lorries in the left hand lane. What I found to my particular annoyance all the way up this hill, people would pull out to try a pass a lorry, realise they are in the wrong gear, or did not have enough power to do it then pull back in behind the lorry. Also driving back to chesterfield, I was shocked at the number of people sat in the middle lane, with lane one free. I was amazed at how stressed I was driving in the UK, compared with continent, there seemed to be so many more people on the motorway who did not know what they where doing. I am looking forward to driving back to germany.

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Oct 11 Birmingham Half Marathon. I am running for the British Heart Foundation.
http://www.justgiving.com/Rob-Taylor

To be fair, they did have a bit of a clean slate to work with after 1945, where as we have the old 1920's and 30's infrastructure still in place, and no inclination to scrub it all off and start from scratch.

The M6 through Cumbria is very good, given the terrain, and access points are well planned.

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

When I lived in Germany, I loved driving there, even when the snow hit. The only problem is that the lanes can be difficult to see at night and in the wet (no cats eyes).

The autobahn works because of the lane discipline imo, the Germans check their mirrors and if they see an approaching vehicle they don't just move over, they move over fast, one of the consequences have having unlimited speeds in many areas.

Scumbag British Airways cancelled my flight one evening so I hired a car and drove back from Darmstadt near Frankfurt and it took me 4.5 hours to do 370 odd miles to Calais minus a couple of stops.

From Dover to Bucks, a distance of 90 miles, it took me 3 hours, need I say any more?

Well, we often hear how much better driving manners are on the Continent than in the UK.

So why do we still have a better overall safety record?

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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

Very good point, i'm not sure how the figures with Germany compare with the UK however i'd be interested to find out.

On reflection, It may be difficult for Germany because of reunification. I know there a spate of crashes in the early to mid 90s'.

Germany yes, France, yes and no. Italy NEVER

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Speed camera policy Kills

Traffic density is high here, and this lowers risk values because traffic is rarely unexpected.

But I do think that UK drivers are safer overall than most despite shortfalls in 'manners'. We still have the 'take it seriously' culture. We still have RoADA and the IAM. We still have exceptional standards of police driver training. But we're losing ground at a considerable pace thanks to crap policies.

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Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

On a slight topic shift... has anyone heard any stats from Italy since they increased the motorway speed limit from 120 to 150?

A 25% increase should see a significant change in the number of crashes if speed is as significant as we are led to believe.

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Ross

Yes I'm a hoon, but only on the track!!!!

That's a really good question. I've seen nothing. Are there any Italian speakers here who could google the Italian press?

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Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

Italian speeders aren't the problem, italian psychos are!

Same for portuguese, spanish and belgians.

I don't think UK safety is as good as it was. I understand the UK has slipped to 4th place now in the safety league due to the manager of the team selling off many of the older players to Canada, Australia and New Zealand, along with providing many others with pensions.

As for getting stressed out upon returning to the UK, what do you expect? It's a tiny island carrying 60 million passengers, all of whom seem to think they are more important than their fellow man. You've all heard of the people parking in disabled spaces without the orange badge, or the parent and child space without the child, because they can't be bothered to walk 60 yards, then you may have seen these same people walk the 60 yards to get a shopping cart because the rack at the doors is empty.

Britain has lost all of the courtesy and kindness it once had. We showed the world how to be nice, then stopped bothering to be nice ourselves.


No wonder I left!!

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Once a Cornishman, always a Cornishman

Spain is like a cross between France and Italy... Their lane discipline is generally pretty good and they're reasonably polite, but they tend to be very aggressive. A few years back about half the motoring population used to think that they were Carlos Saintz, but nowadays things have changed... They all think that they're Fernando Alonso!

Oddly, they don't seem to speed much on motorways, they tend to save it for rather more innappropriate places!

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"Politicians are the same the world over... We build bridges where there aren't any rivers." - Nikita Kruschev

I think the word is progression. On the continent every one seemed to want make progress. It felt as I was allowed to make progress at whatever speed I wanted to go at. Most of the motorway was two lanes; whenever they wanted to overtake they moved lanes once they had overtaken quickly back into L1 leaving the way clear for people who wanted to go faster. Not many people stayed in L2 longer than they needed to. Over here L1 seems to be empty, with people sat in L2 not overtaking (and large gaps between cars) and L3 full of cars.

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Oct 11 Birmingham Half Marathon. I am running for the British Heart Foundation.
http://www.justgiving.com/Rob-Taylor

Italy and Road Safety are 3 words that should never be spoken in the same sentence.

Lunatics, all of them. I've never seen so many blind overtakes, serious tailgating for no reason, horn-honking eejiots.

Be very very careful when considering speed limits in Italy and trying to gauge improvements in safety. They are nutters over there.

I have only ever driven in Italy once, for about 2 weeks. At first I thought of them as crazy. My first "crazy" experience was on a two-way highway with no divider. The traffic coming the other way was fairly regular with virtually no overtaking opportunities.

I was stuck behind a fairly large vehicle waiting for a gap when the guy behind simply pulled out and overtook me and the vehicle in front. I was stunned

The really amazing thing was that when I saw him pull out I moved over to give him room, as did the large vehicle in front of me AND the vehicles coming the other way. No flashing lights, no tooting horns... and he was gone.

After the second "nutter" passed me I decided, "well, if that's how they do it here I may as well join in" and passed the vehicle in front. No flashing lights, no tooting horns and I was past.

My next experience was one of a 5 line motorway funnelling into two lanes near the Florence railway station. Other than the occasional toot the whole episode was painless. If you were 1" ahead of the guy beside you, you had right of way.

Yes, they may be crazy, but I had to admire them and I never felt in danger. Even when two motorcycle cops sporting fully automatic guns pulled me over for speeding (I was driving a BMW, wouldn't have happened if I was driving a Ferrari) and then waved me on when I could not speak Italian.

I loved their roads and I enjoyed driving with them.

Never got to the supposed "major nutters" in Rome though. We only got half way down and then cut across to Nice (I think - it was 15 years ago)

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Ross

Yes I'm a hoon, but only on the track!!!!

I actually find the driving here less stressing than in France for instance.

Two example:

- 1/ Traffic light passing slowing from Red to orange and then green GO.

Everywhere else on the continent, it is RED and GREEN GO GO GO...and if you drive in Cities (Paris, Marseille, Madrid)... you will probably hear someone using his/her new horn after a few seconds !

- 2/ Watch out and be on extreme alert in France, especially when crossing towns...with their crazy accidental give way to traffic coming from the right even if you are on the main road. And with french drivers knowing that their insurance will cover, they nearly never slow down. How stressing is that !

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The only stress point I find here in the UK is the Direction Posting/Signing...not enough, never enough...UK is probably the best place to recommend a GPS.

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Taxi rides in Rome scared the sh*t out of me!