Safe Speed Forums

A friend of mine is going for a holiday for a while to North Wales.

I do know that, despite his generally good all-round observational skills, on unfamiliar roads he tends to look out more for real hazards rather than yellow boxes and occasionally goes up to 35 in a 30 and 46 in a 40. How bad are these poxy things in North Wales these days, and what about real patrols - do they exist or have they all (almost) all been superseded by cameras?

Is it actually a lower risk overall to consider de-plating/defacing one plate on the car for a week's holiday provided one can park it up with reasonable certainty with the bare plate carrier/defaced plate against an opaque wall each time?

If so, are they Gatsos or Truvelos (ie does one remove/clog up back or front)?

I hasten to add I would not contemplate such action personally as my eyes only ever look at the speedo; real hazards in North Wales will not exist as they are in Darwinian decline unless they are immune to taps from all positions at speeds up to 29.99999999

Actually there are relatively few fixed cameras in North Wales, and most of those are at the eastern end around Wrexham and Flint. This page is a bit out of date, but I don't think many have been added since then:

http://www.abd.org.uk/local/north_wales_cameras.htm

The big problem is Talivans, which are very often placed to catch people in the least built up sections of 30 limits on the borders of villages. I know of one forum member ("nedsram") who was rightly very aggrieved at being done for 35 in a 30 on a non built up road on Anglesey.

In general, however, I would say North Wales has not suffered from the blight of reduced rural speed limits to anything like the same extent as many parts of England.

_________________
"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

Roger,

On a trip from the West Country to Pembrokeshire last year we counted 12 speed traps: gatsos, white vans on motorway bridges and in laybys and two guys with handheld devices on bits of straight A road.

It was most depressing.

C.

I picked up a new (to me) bike from north Wales a couple of weeks ago. I then rode back along the coastal road which is 2 or 3 lanes for its entire length, mostly NSL, occasional 50 limit where is passed close to a large town.

Almost everyone was driving about 5 mph under the speed limit, but the main problem was this this seemed almost zombie-like in that it was all they were concentrating on. If they wanted to change lanes, they did so without signalling, which I know is endemic anyway, but also without looking. I must have had to make avoiding manoevres 4 or 5 times in the course of that journey, and I swear I could tell when the border was crossed because the average speed rose significantly.

Having said all of that, I saw a coupe of fixed cameras, but no talivans, but I was really glad to get out of north Wales.

Unfortunately, the gatso's are catching on in talivan country, I think rhyl has a few along the coast road but I feel the talivan were specially trained in Afghanistan so that you do not see them and are lulled into a sense of safety and then find that they target the imaginary line between NSL and the 30mph and get you as you slow down or as you gather speed to what you think is still NSL after having read a jumble of heritage signs in front of the 30mph sign you miss as you were reading the others.

They also operate, as others have said in the rural area before any houses or industry with fields on either side, tucked onto the grass verge hidden by trees without any signage and with as few markings on them to quickly identify who they are. They do this in all weathers and at times when there are few cars on the road. Presumably in between bouts of rain! The one that got me when I went back looked like it had been abandoned by the owner.

Welcome to the joys of motoring in Wales.

Hell would have to freeze over before I go there again.

Done at 36mph on a wet sunday morning by a talivan hidden behind a tree with no markings in a non pedestrianised area with fields on either side as I passed from NSL into 30 limit. The houses were about a quarter of a mile away.

As you can see I am not biased in any way at all.

He is very welcome in my homeland (except if he has a caravan), but I would expect him to be a good chap, and obey the law.

Tip: While he is in Wales, he should visit Conway Castle - it's good.

I'm sorry to hear that, eyeopener. It may help if you know that I have a been done myself a couple of times in Merseyside. Once for a bald tyre, near Ellesmere port, and once for taking a shortcut down a one way street in the city centre (it was 2am), although I got off with that on a technical point. That was before I "went clean", though. No longer do I put a "Guinness Label" in the tax disc holder!

The fastest way to allow the police to force us to use digitally signed, secure, remotely readable and non-duplicatable id technology is to abuse the current system. If we all do that, RFID and computer tracking is almost guaranteed to happen.