Safe Speed Forums

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/bristol/7171154.stm

10mph motorway driver given ban

A woman has been banned from driving for seven days after she drove along a motorway at speeds lower than 10mph. Stephanie Cole, 58, of Fishponds, Bristol, repeatedly braked as she straddled the hard shoulder of the M32.

When police caught her there was a sign on her car which read: "I don't do fast. If I'm too slow for you DON'T hoot just overtake!"

Mrs Cole, who admitted driving without reasonable consideration, was also ordered to take another driving test. Magistrates said they took into consideration the fact that Mrs Cole has multiple sclerosis. When officers stopped Mrs Cole, she told them she had "no confidence" on the motorway.

Sign in the back of Mrs Cole's car

Mrs Cole has been undergoing treatment for "fear of driving". She had been travelling from her home to a Staples stationery store when she was arrested by police on 30 August.

"I really didn't want to go on the motorway, but I desperately had to go to Staples for an ink cartridge," she said. "I don't know any other way to get to it so I went that way," she added. "I think it was one of those things you do by mistake and that's exactly it was, I was on there by mistake. "It just felt awful. I didn't know what to do. I panicked and turned to jelly inside and I didn't know what to do."

North Avon Magistrates' Court had previously heard that Mrs Cole's GP had been treating her for "fear of driving" for the past three-and-a-half years.

Mail Order????

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Pecunia Prius Equitas et Salus

What's so scary about a motorway? It's designed for driving and is really quite easy. Unless of course you're doing 10mph and there's no other obstructions around...

Is an ink cartridge really worth risking your life for?

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Andrew.

Could be that she has taken the "Speed Kills" mantra too seriously and thinks she will spontaneously combust and kill hundreds of people?

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Pecunia Prius Equitas et Salus

She shouldn't be on the road in the first place....I wonder how many accidents she's caused by frustrated drivers overtaking her...

Her Doctor has been treating her for 3 and a half years & he must have informed the DVLA of her condition (as stated here)...

http://www.mssociety.org.uk/about_ms/vehicles_and_mobility/driving_with_ms.html

I suppose they felt that she was fit to drive..

I suppose we'd really need to know why she was scared of driving.
There's got to be lots of people scared of different things for no rational reason. Like the fear of tiny little spiders. Oh no, it might... Run near you... Or make a web...!

Maybe the "driving = child murder" attitude made her scared, or helped to, I doubt we'll find out. But it can't have helped.

I don't know if or how MS would affect things or if she's using it as an excuse like 'blue badge club' do. "I'm disabled so I'm more important than you" Yeah right. But maybe it actually does affect things, I have no idea. As I say, quite a lot of people seem capable of irrational fear.

I am curious how the motorway was the only way she knew unless she'd driven along there before... I suppose someone else could have driven her.

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Andrew.

Not really likely is it though?

I suppose one has to feel a tadge sympathetic towards someone trying to do a simple routine chore in an environment she feels afraid of, but ultimately this escapade could have ended up so much worse.
In this instance the system appears to have acted in a reasonable manner. She is to take another driving test which there is every chance that she will fail with or without the need to go on a motorway, if indeed she really is that scared of driving.

What she needs is a few hours with the Stig and Russ Swift. Once she found speed can be fun and safe she'd probably get over her fear much faster.

If she finds 10mph on the motorway to be sensible, how fast does she travel on normal roads?

I bet she supports speed cameras. Seriously! People who drive too slowly generally seem to IME. And presumably in many cases cameras and the associated "speed kills" rhetoric cause such people to think that their excessive slowness is good rather than bad. This is an example of a camera side effect which will remain long after the frigging things have gone, unless whichever government gets rid of them decides on a "corrective" advertising campaign (thereby putting saving lives above saving face...it won't be DfT then!)

Talking of DfT, when the Conservatives finally get themselves together and back into power, will they still use the stupid "DfT" name, or will we go back to the less pretentious "DoT"?

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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)

Forgive me for thinking this but could this be a psuedonym for our erstwhile 0MPH is the safest speed "Weepej"

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"There But For The Grace of God Go I"

"He Who Ain,t Made Mistakes Ain,t Made Anything"

Spannernut

This is the bit that got me when I read the original article. She's either safe to drive or she's not - why on earth is a medical condition "taken into consideration"?

It's a bit like the "social reports" that all the towrags use in court these days - "I killed him because 97 years ago my teacher shouted at me"...

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Wake me up when the revolution starts
STOP the Toll Tax http://www.traveltax.org.uk

MS is a complicated illness. It may have scarred her brain in just one location just affecting her balance. She was speaking on TV and was fast and bright as a button.

If the scaring repaired itself she could get her balance back and become a competent driver. this has happened to my wife.

By taking into consideration , the magistrates were probably talking about the penalty side of their sentence. ie small fine , short ban.

Then she needs to retake her test. She will have to overcome her speed problems or she will never get her licence back. However, in two weeks she can start again on L plates.

She could pass her test in a track laying vehicle. They couldn't fail her for being too slow in one of them.

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Speed limit sign radio interview. TV Snap Unhappy
“It has never been the rule in this country – I hope it never will be - that suspected criminal offences must automatically be the subject of prosecution” He added that there should be a prosecution: “wherever it appears that the offence or the circumstances of its commission is or are of such a character that a prosecution in respect thereof is required in the public interest”
This approach has been endorsed by Attorney General ever since 1951. CPS Code

How on earth did she pass in the first place?..

Clearly the guide lines are wrong when you can just drive at 10mph and pass. Surely, some competancy at a higher speed is desirable before giving someone a licence?

Over to Greenp*ss and Trainspot 2000!....."slow is safer! Right!"......or is it?

She probably passed before her MS or during a good period.
MS comes in a number of types
relapsing remitting
progressive
and secondary progressive

MS comes with good days and bad days. one day you will wake up and your skin is "electric & numb" another day it can mess up your water works or balance.

Before beta-interferon was approved by nice in 2002 there was no fix. My wife has had beta interferon for 4 years and has slowly improved in almost all functions. (except telling me of for using the PC) It does not totally stop the relapses, they are just shorter and do less damage.

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Speed limit sign radio interview. TV Snap Unhappy
“It has never been the rule in this country – I hope it never will be - that suspected criminal offences must automatically be the subject of prosecution” He added that there should be a prosecution: “wherever it appears that the offence or the circumstances of its commission is or are of such a character that a prosecution in respect thereof is required in the public interest”
This approach has been endorsed by Attorney General ever since 1951. CPS Code

hmmm, theoretically speaking would she haved caused the accident in this situation?

Surely that's just somebody else looking to blame others.

Some lady drove into me once whilst I was in a car park, I was stationary, she wasn't, who's fault was it?

I don't think the ban is important. The magistrate rightly ordered her to retake her test. She has absolutely no chance of passing an extended test without being able to rectify the problem.

The thing that is almost as important as the dangerously slow driving. Is the attitude that people should "allow" her to drive this way.

Can you imagine if I had a sign on my back window saying "I don't do slow driving if I'm too fast for you just get out of my way".

Doing 10mph on a motorway is more dangerouse than 0mph because other drivers may not assess the speed until much later than they would detect a stopped vehicle. In real terms her speed was about as dangerous as someone doing 130mph.

The charge should have been dangerous driving. The sign is proof that it was considered and the standard fell well below that of any driver let alone a competent one.

The PR opportunity for safe speed is...

"With all the focus on speed kills and slower is safer, people are being tricked in to thinking that as long as I drive slowly I'm safe. The reality as any competent driver knows - driving too slowly for the conditions is just as dangerous as driving too fast. Her speed differential would have been similar to that of someone driving at 120mph. Yet no speed camera in the land can detect this kind of bad driving. The magistrates were right to disqualify her and order a retest"

Time to give this classic article by Paul Ripley another airing:

Slow Driving and Safe Driving

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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

When you're approching a vehicle from directly behind, its actually quite difficult to judge relative speed until you get quite close. Since you don't expect to come across someone doing 10mph on the motorway it is possible that any driver approching from behind might get caught out with nowhere to go once they realise just how slow she's going.

Happened to me on the M18 a while back - I came up behind a classic HGV, and I knew he'd be going slowly so I was looking for an overtake. Little did I realise that 'slowly' actually constituted about 35mph and I did have to dab the middle pedal just a bit, because the gap I'd seen was too far back.

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Science won over religion when they started installing lightning rods on churches.

It depends - did you pull out of a space in to her path and then stop?

But back to the point. TRL did some research some years back to uncover why so many high vis patrol cars were being crashed into when stopped or slow moving on motorways. Even though they had blue lights going the conclusion was that its very hard to detect the speed of a stopped/slow vehicle that is parallel to you. This is why they now stop an an angle to the road. So in the case of Mrs Cole, without displaying any hazard lights or visible signs of being near stationary, people would typically be taking more time to identify her vehicle as a hazard. It is most likely that she would have caused several near misses with trucks having to swerve in to the middle lane to avoid her. Particularly as she was breaking and straddling the hard shoulder. The very fact that she felt she needed a sign telling people not to hoot her, suggests that she regularly caused excessive frustration to other motorists when driving. As said in my other post, this real issue, is that she felt this was acceptable behaviour.