Safe Speed Forums

Cor, where are the mods bringing up people for ad hominin attacks?

Not that I mind, I'm more robust that that, but seriously!

There is no way travelling at 90mph in a one tonne vehicle could be described as safe thing to do, its very high risk.

i) I can't say with any certainty that it was directly aimed at yourself ('you' is often used as an impersonal descriptor); hence I can't agree that was an ad hominem fallacy.
ii) In keeping with the spirit of the campaign, the moderators tend not to act unless the issue can or has become a problem.

Let's assume he was meant to say 'I believe drivers who cannot travel safely at 90 mph, where appropriate, must have very poor driving skills', how would you respond to that?





In the right circumstances, 90mph can actually safer than 20mph in a city. Drivers encounter relatively very, very few unexpected hazards on clear motorways and such.

How on earth do you work that one out???

I refuse to believe that a senior police officer would drive in an unsafe manner!

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Pecunia Prius Equitas et Salus

You make it sound like the 60mph limit is:
a) Set correctly, and
b) High Risk of Death over this...

Would 61mph kill you?

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Pecunia Prius Equitas et Salus

Ummm, nothing did happen, so it evidently was safe...

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Pecunia Prius Equitas et Salus

Not necessarily, there could have been unnecessary risk (but I sincerely doubt that in this case).

My point was that it wasn’t necessarily dangerous or 'deadly', a view apparently not shared by Brake or weepej.

Hmmm, I'm struggling with this one. There's risk in everything we do. If, as you say, it wasn't necessarily dangerous, then surely it was safe?

As I mentioned earlier, I really can't believe that a senior policeman would drive in an unsafe manner...

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Pecunia Prius Equitas et Salus

First off we have a straight forward difference of opinion.
Weepj believes we should not travel at 90. Others disagree.

Secondly, he uses DANGER or RISK as his argument.

I beg to ask Weepj, where is your proof?

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

In which case, surely Med would have been charged with Dangerous Driving? As it was, he only committed a 'technical' offence.

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Pecunia Prius Equitas et Salus

It depends what the 85th percentile of speed is for the road. If its 85mph then 90 is not going to make a huge difference. It would certainly be safer to do 90 on a road with an 85th percentile of of say 80mph than doing 40mph on the same road.

At the end of the day the road Med was cought on would probably have an 85th of arond 75-85, so 90 is not out by much at all. It just happens to be technically illegal

Even the 85th percentile - the best indicator we have - is frequently a serious underestimate in exceptional good conditions.

Suppose you run a speed survey for 24 hours on a road that's busy during the day. You get your answer, but it does not reflect the perfect conditions that may be present at (say) just after dawn, when the place is well lit and deserted.

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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

I do it daily, safely, and legally, and in a much higher risk-density environment than most roads.

If 90mph on the roads can never be safe, how do we excuse police drivers who use speeds up to, and in excess, of that figure?

The perception of what is "safe" and what is "unsafe" is open to personal interpretation. For example a driver passing a cyclist at 60mph may very well think it was safe, however the cyclist may have a very different view! You can't automatically judge a situation as safe just because no incident occured.

Hi Martin!

I'm not "automatically judging a situation as safe just because no incident occured" - I'm judging it also on the fact that this was done by a senior policeman, on holiday with his family, and thus, I really do not believe that he would have driven dangerously.

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Pecunia Prius Equitas et Salus

Sorry, I'll rephrase. You must have very poor driving skills but I'm sure you're a nice person.

Nah - you're going all PC, touchy-feely...

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Pecunia Prius Equitas et Salus

But safety only exists when individuals manage risk, so irrespective of the possibility of different perceptions of risk we have to allow - no encourage - no demand - that every individual take it on.

Fortunately it isn't possible to pose a risk without suffering a risk, so even a selfish approach to risk management is effective.

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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

No. He doesn't deserve punishment for driving at 90mph per se. He deserves it for choosing to speed after lying to us about how dangerous he thinks it is. When someone gets a taste of their own medicine, I tend to think the dose should be increased markedly especially for them. In fact Smeggy expressed it very eloquently.

If you disagree, what exactly do you think Hughes' thought process was when he did that speed? 90mph is hardly accidentally drifting over the limit. I think his thought process was "I know this is a safe speed for the conditions, even though, for my own selfish political reasons, I have lied to the public time and time again and told them that such speeds can never be safe". It is likely to be at least the thousandth time that he's gone round the same loop. How can he sleep at night?

As a driver it makes me utterly disgusted, and, assuming that you are a driver, you should be disgusted too. Don't you feel at all picked on? Do you honestly think that Hughes, Brunstrom, DfT, the SCPs and all the rest believe everything they tell us, as opposed to lying to us for their own benefit? I can't understand why every single right-thinking motorist (i.e. those who don't get a kick out of controlling and/or killing others) isn't hopping mad.

Speed cameras started off as a deadly mistake. Now they're a deadly lie. It's conspiracy to kill, and that makes me sick. Every death is an absolutely tragedy; even one is too many. Cameras have killed far more than one, and DfT know that. They use fraud, trickery and chicanery to attempt to persuade people otherwise. It's all there in black and white. How are the perpetrators still even out of prison, let alone still running the blasted devices? Oh yes, of course, they're above the law, because "the law" is now only used for them to get what they want from us.

It's sick. We like to think we live in an enlightened age and a progressive, free democracy, and yet the authorities are abusing their power like never before. I don't think I'm being melodramatic. I wish I was. What DfT are doing is absolutely unbelievable and absolutely unforgiveable. They're monsters. And people just sit back and take it, at the very least thinking that DfT mean well. They're quite entitled to expect that, and the truth sounds so far-fetched and awful that they'd rather not believe it.

I'm angrier than I've ever been about this callous deception, and the Hughes business has brought it to a head for me.


Even on unrestricted Autobahns? Or is it OK there because the magic signs say so?

The government has repeated "speed kills" so much that it's understandable that you may have started to believe it, but please remember that repeating something ad infinitum does not make it the slightest bit more true. I suggest reading a few of the pages on this site with an open mind and good faith. If you are intelligent, genuine and without some kind of ulterior motive (e.g. anti-car or pro-government) then I'm sure you'll see just how much we've been lied to, and just how unimportant numerical speed is in the general scheme of things.

What brought you onto this site in the first place, by the way? Do you participate in any other forums? How long have you been interested in advanced driving and the politics of motoring? Have you always held the same opinions on speeding and speed cameras?

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Paul Smith: a legend.

"The freedom provided by the motor vehicle is not universally applauded, however: there are those who resent the loss of state control over individual choice that the car represents. Such people rarely admit their prejudices openly; instead, they make false or exaggerated claims about the adverse effects of road transport in order to justify calls for higher taxation or restrictions on mobility." (Conservative Way Forward: Stop The War Against Drivers)

I've been doing it on motorways for fifteen years without incident.

Define "high risk".

But if the cyclist is riding on a 60 mph road - then he or she should know that the traffic will be at or around these speeds.

He's reported as saying the road was dry, clear of all traffic at the time he got pinged.

But this guy's been well paid the spout the usual party piece - and one would expect that this officer would have driven at a speed more compliable to the lolly if he really and truly believed in what he was preaching.

Still .as my wife observed on the PH forum.. no one died and no metal was bent. The only things which received an SI were his licence and his bank account for the next 5 years

By the way.. we drive fairly regularly at well over 90 mph.. but on tracks and as and when on derestricted German Autobahn (for which we have paid a surcharge on insurance anyway)

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