Safe Speed Forums

I think the court ordered her to retake the driving test because they KNOW that if she drives as she was doing, she will fail it.

Rules 144 und 147 of LATEST Highway Code come to mind.


Rule 253 seem to cover the slowness of this driver At 10 mph .. she would be practically stationary. Even on a 30 mph she would not be considering other road users. You could even argue too slow on 20 mph road if clear of humps und parked cars.

French Highway Code spell out more so.. by saying that if low speeds are forbidden because they disturb the flow of traffic )page 144 of their manual)


DSA -Essential Skills also tells drivers to drive at the appropriate legal speed for the conditions und 10 mph on a motorway ist not approriate und as diy und others say far more dangerous than any speed above 70 mph given the hazard potential und the lack of consideration to the road condition.

As said .. if she so afraid . . to such panic .. then she should not be able to get into a car in reality.



I know because after the accident .. I did feel nervous at first.. und I still not like being last car in a queue either... I always glad when he or she stop nicely behind me ..

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Nicht ganz im Lot!
Ich setze mich immer wieder in die Nesseln! Der Mad Doc ist mein Mann! Und ich benutzte seinen PC!

UND OUR SMILEYS? Smile ... und the the world smiles with you.
Smiley guy seen when you read
Fine me for Safe Speed
(& other good causes..)

Greatest love & Greatest Achievements Require Greatest Risk
But if you lose the driving plan - don't lose the COAST lesson.
Me?
Je ne regrette rien!

Und they also know she has to be supervised at all times if driving on provisional licence too.


Perhaps the right decision given her problems as reported.

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Nicht ganz im Lot!
Ich setze mich immer wieder in die Nesseln! Der Mad Doc ist mein Mann! Und ich benutzte seinen PC!

UND OUR SMILEYS? Smile ... und the the world smiles with you.
Smiley guy seen when you read
Fine me for Safe Speed
(& other good causes..)

Greatest love & Greatest Achievements Require Greatest Risk
But if you lose the driving plan - don't lose the COAST lesson.
Me?
Je ne regrette rien!

Or to take this argument and apply it to Med Hughes driving style....

What I am saying though, just because this person was driving at 100mph on a motorway does not mean they would've been 100% responsible for any collisions.

If you see somebody driving like that on a motorway, slow down, give them as much room as you can, put your hazards on if necessary and dont try to overtake anyone in front at a lesser speed.

Only sh*t or idiotic drivers would actually collide with the car.

And if they'd had to brake rather than pass and somebody drove into the back of somebody else, it would be their fault entirely.

Isn't that the same attitude applied to a different hazard situation?

In this case, she was STRADDLING the hard shoulder and the 1st lane - and anyone approaching at 60 mph would catch up fast - and if vehicles in front masked the view ahead, would be taken by surprise by a vehicle that was not directly in the lane ahead.
The chances are that the width of lane one and two would allow most vehicles to pass without hitting her, but it is still right to pull her over and prosecute. She was more likely to cause an accident than Med Hughes!

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

Yup, and I agree this was particulary silly driving and people that drive like that should be prosecuted for it if caught.

Still no excuse to ram her up the arse though.

That doesnt mean vehicles travelling slowly, it means thing like milk floats.

Her vehicle was not one of these "certain slow-moving vehicles", it was a certain slow moving vehicle but not one of the ones mentioned int he highway code.

There is no minimum speed limit on UK motorways. Are there any at all on UK roads?, I know there's a minimum speed sign, but I don't think I've ever seen one.

Regardless, I don't think its a good idea to drive at 10mph on a motorway, but not because driving at 10mph is a particulary bad idea in iteself, but because there are people out there that drive at high speeds without care or concern and WILL end up hitting such vehicles.

Is there really any discernable difference in this instance between a vehicle which cannot travel at motorway speeds and a driver who cannot?

The critical issue is not a legal definition - the Highway Code does not give a definitive list, it implies that the slow moving vehicle IS THE DANGER... any slow moving vehicle.
Where the means exist to travel at an acceptable speed, AND the standard of driving is well below what is expected on a motorway, then she SHOULD be more than 50% accountable for any accident which results.

I dont think my post said or implied it was OK "to ram her up the a**e", in fact I described the means by which this would most likely be avoided.... along with a notion in which your present argument is at odds with previous ones!
Since she said this was the only way she knew to STAPLES, it implies she had made this journey before, or was incapable of simple navigation avoiding a motorway. Would she have ventured onto the motorway if she had been driving a vehicle of a class which was specifically excluded?

Somebody posed the question "How did she pass her test in the first place?"
Simple - Motorway driving is NOT part of the UK test!
Clearly at some point this needs to be addressed!

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

I'm just trying to think! ...

Is there anyone out there in the same age group as me who remembers the "OLD" motorway access signs? You know the ones that said: NOT below 50cc or LESS THAN 30 MPH!....

Should be at least 50mph though IMO..

I was with you up to the sh*t or idiotic drivers bit... One could argue that the same would apply to people who pull out of junctions on cycles and motorcycles without looking. (SMIDSY) yet there are sufficiently high numbers to suggest that its more complex than just being crap. As sixty and I have suggested: There is much that we don't understand about camouflage and the way the eye and brain works. Humans are very poor at predicting or dealing with things they don't expect. That is why driving in a planned and predictable way is so vital to road safety.

Of course its likely that someone who collided with her would have significant contributory blame. However, I can imagine many scenarios where the competent driver would get caught up in a crash. Its likely for example that a wave effect would trigger. Resulting in panic and erratic driving as people avoid her. This would ripple back a moderately busy motorway and cause a big pile up quite easily. If someone 'steels' your safety gap at the time you need it, you pretty much stuffed.

At the end of the day if you were travelling at 70mph, you'd consume your safe stopping distance (315ft) according to the highway code in less than 5 seconds. thats not a lot of time.

What's the better style of message?

1. Its OK to drive at 70 mph on a motorway, because that's the speed everybody should be going, anybody that goes slower is a dangerous idiot and its not your fault if you hit them or crash due to a situation caused by them.

2. Be prepared to have to slow down when driving on a motorway, because although most people will travel at around 70 mph you might find vehicles travelling at much slower speeds, or even stopped. In rare circumstances you might even find people on the motorway, so be careful.

Number one is from the same mindset as "roads are for cars only, any thing else in them (pedestrains/cyclists) is fair game".

A better message in an ideal world would be to have a minimum speed limit on the motorway (as I believe there is in the USA and other countries).

The trouble with that in the real world is it would then become an excuse for dangerously excessive speed in poor conditions.

The sad thing is, the likelyhood of HER being involved in an incident are actually quite small. Its more likely that the collision would occur between a vehicle approaching her from behind in L1 and a vehicle in L2 as the vehicle in L1 has to swerve to avoid her. Yes, in an ideal world the vehicle in L2 should be watching the overtake target in L1 to make sure that something like this isn't going to happen, but in reality how many people actually pay that level of attention when driving?

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

All well and good, but a minimum speed limit does not mean everybody will always be above it, certainly crashed/broken down cars, or cars waiting in queues won't be. In my view a minimum speed limit will cause much agression as people will be more inclined to buzz people who they consider are not going fast enough.

Agression is not a good state of mind to be in when on a motorway (or in a car full stop actually).



You see, you're just strengthening my view that all of this is about excusing crap/lazy drivers just because they are fellow car users, or even worse, saying "I don't want to have to pay attention when I drive, everybody else around me should just get out of my way".

Has to?

I only think they would have to if they thought, "that person in front of me is going very slowy, I'm going to get right close up behind them to teach them a lesson, use my presence to make them go faster, ah, they're actually going VERY slowly, oops, VERY VERY slowly, now I'm going too fast and I'm gong to hit them, I'm going to have to pull sharply out into L2 ...."

I think you need to do some reading on motion camouflage and looming - the human eye is not designed to detect relative speed of an object directly ahead. Whilst the driver approaching from behind would be able to tell that she was driving SLOWLY, he wouldn't be able to tell HOW slowly until he'd got that close.

The point you make about mininum speed is true, which is why I said in an IDEAL world...

You're taking quotes out of context - I'm not excusing poor driving at all, I'm saying that's how it is and that's why people like her are a danger.

I was prepared to give to a chance, since most people here have already branded you a troll - but you seem hell bent on missing the point...

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

Ah yes, in the words of Les Dawson: "The mother-in-law's been driving for fifty years. Never had an accident. Seen hundreds."

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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

Oh come on!! The whole point of the list is that none of them can achieve a speed deemed suitable for the motorway by the authorities. And did neither she. To suggest there's a difference is just playing with semantics.



So I was right......



Good look trying to find anyone to agree with you - it was a Trafpol who stopped her after all. Or do you think the officer was mistaken, and that you know better?

Barkstar

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The difference between intelligence and stupidity is that intelligence has limits.

No, I think it was a good diea to get her off the motorway, but only because its a place where you will find some people that drive in such a careless and care free way that if faced with an "out of the ordinary" situation a crash is pretty much inevitable.

Yup and good driving for me is about NOT relying on your senses, or making assumptions about the feedback they give you.

Its why we have a speedo in our cars for a start, its often very hard to judge how fast you are going, particulary if you've just slowed down from a 70 to a 30.

Its why aeroplane pilots have instruments too, because senses can be very confusing, to the point that in cloud you need to check your instruments to ensure you're not flying upside down.

Well, not really, at 10mph its not her that's the danger, but other people.

Just like me walking through a room full of people practicing blind folded knife throwing, I'm not the danger, but it would still be a silly idea anyway.