Safe Speed Forums

I was traveling on the A66 east towards Scotch Corner at the end of the bank holiday weekend recently. After receiving my first points in 10 years of driving for 47 in a 40 leaving Ings village, after passing the danger area of the junctions, in Ernest country at the same time last year I was being very careful to stick to the posted 40 limit to avoid a similar injustice. The particular stretch was coned off with light activity going on around the roadworks and a heavy amount of camera warning signs.

I stuck to 40mph, despite conditions being excellent and there being no extra danger in going faster than this (50mph at least due to the excellent visibility and the straightness of the Roman Road.)

Anyway, the point is that when a gap appeared in traffic coming the other way, in my rear mirror I saw a Highways Agency van moved out of the line of traffic obeying the 40 limit and steam past 5-6 vehicles before sweeping in front of me and streaming off up to the rear bumper of the next mini-queue of traffic 1/2 mile ahead. Tailgating this van was a Range Rover which obviously thought "if he can do it...why not me?"

Obviously the van knew that the cameras weren't there. It's the hypocrisy that gets me. We're told that the limit is there for safety reasons and if we got snapped by a scam it's £60 and 3 points and potentially a ban. But if you know there's no scams around, its okay! Grrr[/b]

Highways Agency don't really have anything to do with speed cams. They're there to deal with road defects, debris, broken down cars and accidents.

Ok, in reality they're there to make themselves feel important by coning off two lanes of a motorway because a truck on the hard shoulder has a flat tyre, but still nothing to do with speedcams.

Is the limit there regularly ignored by most drivers and if so perhaps the drives mistook you for a 40 everywhere muppet (for example perhaps you drive a Rover 75). If it's an S/C I'm often tempted to overtake suspected 40 everywhere drivers just to avoid being stuck behind them later when the road speeds up. Of course if they later give me the impression that they want to go faster than me, I'll be as helpful as I can in letting them overtake me.

It doesn't matter, they're one of the public faces of the whole "road management" system our glorious leaders have lumbered us with, and as such their representatives ought to be whiter than white in their approach to traffic laws. If the government wants us to respect the limits, then government employees need to be setting us a good example, not blatantly flouting the law right in front of us.



Umm, did you miss the bit where he mentioned it being a 40 limit through roadworks? Not that it makes any difference though - even if it'd been a stupidly low permanent 40 limit slapped onto an old NSL stretch of road, and even if every other vehicle had been ignoring the limit, the HA vehicle ought to have been respecting it.

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Chris

He could have mistaken me for a "40 everywhere muppet", but with camera signs all over the place I wasn't prepared to take the risk. If the limit hadn't been set at 40, given the low activity of the roadworks and no access points off the stretch I was on then as I said, 50 mph at least would be perfectly reasonable and safe.

Twister understood my point perfectly - If this limit is there for safety then any "official" vehicles must respect it. Otherwise it makes a mockery of the system and highlights the limit as being set at an inappropriate level. Which it was, given the time of day / conditions. But of course speed cameras don't take this into consideration so any drivers who don't know where they are positioned or don't want to risk getting an unwarranted and possibly unaffordable fine and points have to travel at that speed. Driver control is taken away and behaviour dictated to by external forces. Which p*sses me off.

Let's have a bit less of the 'muppets in Rover 75s'. I drive one and its a very good car,and I don't hang around. Rover 45, Yes !!

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Good manners maketh a good motorist

would HA vehicles have an exemption from any speeding charges,