Safe Speed Forums

Er, firstly, do you actually know the difference between the words "careless" and "dangerous"?!?!

Secondly, once you've figured out the difference between those two words, perhaps you would like to tell us all whether or not you were on that jury. I suspect not...

Thankyou for taking the time to do the quotes properly - it makes your post so much easer to read.

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That's fair enough. But that wasn't the general tone of the thread when I first read it. The general tone seemed to me to be "we hate the authorites and because of that this is wrong so bummer he was caught".



Fair enough. So what would you actually classify as careless driving?



In your opinion! Like a lot of other people on here, you probably have a very high opinion of your abilities. You're also probably not that willing to accept that crashes can be caused by a whole variety of reasons, not just your own skill level, which your speed would then make worse and more likely.

There are a lot of boy-racers in my area. I bet they too think that they can drive at speeds of 50 or 60 through residential areas perfectly safely.

Talk about nitpicking. Out of everything I've written, you've managed to find one comment that doesn't stack up. It's like reading a newspaper columnist's article: "well, they said such and such a thing in line 43, so therefore the entire argument is rubbish". It's a bit desperate.

Anyway, what would YOU say was careless driving? (as in, please give some specific examples) (And remember, we're talking about careless driving, not dangerous driving.)

Ooh, ooh.... can I have a go at that question.

What about This video

May be considered as 'dangerous' though.

Mike.

Video taken by me by the way.

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Do I detect a little ad hominem?

I for one believe one cannot drive in such a described manner without inherently posing risk to other road users (robbing them of their chance to reliably judge your actions).

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How is that nitpicking? I am asking you a reasonable valid question. What is the difference between flipping a camera a couple of V's, waving to your friend on the street as you drive past, even riding with one hand off the steering wheel or off the handlebar?

As far as I know none of these are classified as careless driving. If, and without any further information I cannot disagree or agree with the conviction/s, the prosecution's evidence was solely that he removed his hand from the handlebar at 105mph while passing a speed camera and this constituted careless driving then I am further disappointed by the judicial system.

As others here know, I ride a motorbike. I don't just ride it when the road is bone dry and there's not a chance of rain in the next month, I ride until ice or snow force me into the car. I see carelessness on the roads every day. Cars pull into lanes without checking their mirrors or using indicators. Pedestrians step out into traffic without looking or while talking on a mobile phone.

If sufficient funds were made available that traffic police could be brought up to the numbers that they were prior to speed cameras then these sorts of incidences would be caught and the bad feeling towards speed cameras that results in normally law abiding members of the public react in more extreme ways would probable, not definitely I hasten to add, become less frequent and we wouldn't have to waste 4 pages of forum postings discussing why a motorcyclist (scum as far as most people are concerned and already a target for both our own government and the EU and the police) was prosecuted for nine counts of careless driving based on the apparent evidence of nine photos catching him giving V's to a speed camera.

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Oh for god's sake, can you not write a single post without talking about some debating point?! It's just the sort of thing that Michael Gove would do.

I don't know if you detect a little ad hominem - please tell me and in what way. However, I would suggest that if you are going to go through my posts trying to pick them apart for debating flaws, that you also do the honest thing and do the same to everyone else.



Nice to hear.

It is nitpicking because you have edited this one thing out of everything I have said. And as I was basically admitting, it's obviously not the best thing I could have said!

(Now will posters accept that humility graciously, or pounce on it?)

JR135
Out of curiosity have you ever sat on a jury?

As a bike rider I don't, on the face of it, see giving a camera the Vs careless riding. Nor do I much appreciate that so much time and effort went into finding the rider, even if he was careless (see above). There's much worse going on purely in terms of road safety that should have been given all those hours attention. I do wonder if he wanted to be caught, being snapped nine times just seems plain dumb. And finally what's with BMW helping the cops like that, makes you wonder how the question was put to get the info?

Barkstar

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I will accept your humility graciously as I hope that I have proven that the edited version of the events as reported by the press and the singular point by which you gleefully revelled in this man's prosecution are one and the same. We do not know the full facts of the case and without those we have no proof as to his guilt or innocence.

Was he guilty of speeding? More than likely or he wouldn't have been caught by the camera. Note that I say likely as the Home Office never specifically type approved any speed cameras for use on motorcycles and we all know that they can fire irregularly.

Was he guilty of careless driving? We don't know as we don't have all of the facts.

Should we dance merrily at the prosecution or question what seems to be the motive for his prosecution, he dared to show contempt for the establishment which is a big as demonstrated by Brunstrom.

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This is a biggie…..



Because it is flawed and doesn’t add anything to the debate………



Not these days – no, simply because of the large-scale deception brought about by those tasked with making the roads safer.






Errrm, yes ‘we’ are (or at least were before you interrupted).
I believe it was you who used the word ‘speculation’.
What evidence do you have that the jury were right on this?
Are we not free to discuss using the info available?


I have already answered yours; granted I gave you a legal definition but I agree with it.
That’s rich coming from you! How about you answer mine which came first.

Then answer this: is exceeding the speed limit, looking at a road sign and changing gear considered as ‘careless driving’? If not then what is the difference?"

So what were you referring to when you said “this is only speculation.”. Also, your very next sentence:



Yeah, show us where he looked at the camera and raised his arm while at 105mph


So why do you keep referring to the intelligence of the rider?






Arrogant: perhaps! Misplaced, not necessarily! This is a forum specifically tasked with discussing issues of road safety.

Yes there could have been other photos; if these other photos existed, don’t you think it likely that the details of them would have been broadcast too? (as opposed to the ones which throw doubt onto the case)

It doesn’t take away from my original point.



Hey, you brought this up; feel free to discard!


Actually, I said that no-one was defending the biker’s speed (my first post in this thread), which was in reference to your comment of ‘speed’ in your first post. The difference is significant.


Let’s recap: you keep asking ‘us’ why we don’t condemn the reported actions; we give justification as to why ‘we’ can’t whilst prompting you as to why we should from the available information describing the actions of the rider – it is us who have repeatedly sought for you to argue for the charge of careless driving. You cannot justify why the action should be deemed as careless, so how can we?

You are accusing 'us' of thinking we 'can drive at speeds of 50 or 60 through residential areas perfectly safely' (which many would believe to be dangerous), without any basis for doing so.


If I find any
TBH, I only have time to focus on your posts; it is reasonable for me not to bother combing through posts of those who share my opinion. Feel free to highlight any flaws yourself.

If a police mororcyclist pulled next to a speeding car and removed his hand from the handle bar and pointed at the driver to pull over would he be treated the same as this biker?

The Police have exemption from some laws while executing their duty; of course this does not apply to dangerous driving so there's seemingly no reason why it also shouldn't apply to careless driving.

However, it was stated that it was a combination of factors that led to the biker being convicted, exceeding the speed limit being one of the factors. This is one rule which active Police are exempt from; hence I reckon the parallel charge of careless driving as in your described case doesn’t stand.

I'm hoping that you don't get this response steve_k

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The point I am making is that the Police officer will be trained to a high standard and removing his hand fron the handlebar and making a gesture while traveling at high speed must be safe otherwise this practice would not be part of the police training.
The fact that Police motorcyclists can do arm signals and still control their bikes at high speed is a major advantage over an officer in a car when performing traffic management dutys.

And so is the fact that motorcycles in the past didn't have indicators so removing your hand to signal direction changes was required and thus cannot be defined as careless driving.

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If the hand signal is two fingers it become careless driving it must be a new law.

Does that mean that one finger is dangerous driving

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