Safe Speed Forums

Is this the typical attitude of an inconsiderate and selfish road user?
You certainly wouldn't be worried about fuel mileage or the time of your journey if you maintained 25 in a 40, so what's the problem?


There is no legal minimum speed in Britain (but I believe there are in Northern Ireland, their HC has the blue sign). However, dcbwhaley has already clarified my point.


No I didn't. Are you now resorting to misrepresenting my statements?
- I didn't say it was wrong, I said you risk getting pulled if the speed is needless.
- I also said 'it doesn't matter anywhere near as much', that doesn't mean it doesn't matter (and my statement was regarding motorway speeds of 50-55, not less than 40).
I note you conveniently ignored my comment about those who are forced to do 55.


I also noticed you ignored my comment about the 10mph driver who was banned. Sort that one out for yourself!

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Views expressed are personal opinions and are not necessarily shared by the Safe Speed campaign

She got banned for a week.
And had to re-take her test.
She was prosecuted for driving without reasonable consideration.
A good job more drivers are not prosecuted for that, the courts would be full. And not of drivers going slow.

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The world runs on oil, period. No other substance can compete when it comes to energy density, flexibility, ease of handling, ease of transportation. If oil didn’t exist we would have to invent it.”

56 years after it was decided it was needed, the Bedford Bypass is nearing completion. The last single carriageway length of it.We have the most photogenic mayor though, always being photographed doing nothing

In the greater world beyond motoring there is a concept called "courtesy". It is not as prevalent as it was when I were a lad but it is still very widely practice. A basic premise of "courtesy" is to attempt to interact with other people so that sum total of unhappiness is minimised. This means that each individual usually has to act in a way that isn't exactly how he would like but isn't too much worse. You step back, for example, to let someone through a door ahead of you loosing a few seconds of your time but making her life much more comfortable.

This simple and well established system appears to be abandoned by most people when they get in to a car. Driving slowly without regard for following traffic is just one example. Not letting traffic in from a side road is another. It goes on.

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When I see an adult on a bicycle, I do not despair for the future of the human race. H.G. Wells
When I see a youth in a motor car I do d.c.brown

And that is the crux of the matter. We'd like to deny slowpokes the "courtesy" of allowing them to drive slowly. Yet we expect people in front to do us the "courtesy" of driving fast! What double standards fast drivers have.

If only they could see their hypocrisy. Instead, drivers exert their will over those "slowpokes" by name calling and tailgating etc.

As I thought. But there's no minimum, so as long as I show
"reasonable consideration for other road users",
I can do any speed I like within the limit.



I'd describe that as a pathological case. Someone decided that such slowness showed a
lack of "reasonable consideration". So what is the criteria
that decides "reasonable consideration"?

Obviously, driving faster than 10mph on a motorway !
Does "driving without reasonable consideration" include two trucks taking 20 miles to not overtake each other ?
Or the [inevitable] driver who realises that he has 100 metres to get from lane 3 to the slip road, so he/she indicates and then ploughs across the inside lanes at 45 degrees ?
Or maybe we should all accept that we all do things that could be described as inconsiderate ?

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The world runs on oil, period. No other substance can compete when it comes to energy density, flexibility, ease of handling, ease of transportation. If oil didn’t exist we would have to invent it.”

56 years after it was decided it was needed, the Bedford Bypass is nearing completion. The last single carriageway length of it.We have the most photogenic mayor though, always being photographed doing nothing

Correct. However, needlessly maintaining 25 in a 40, without pulling over to let a following queue past, would be considered by the majority (certainly the majority within that queue, which is the correct group to reference) to be inconsiderate.

Less than 40 on a motorway, while not necessarily being as inconsiderate as the other example, substantially increases the risk of collision (deviation from free-flow). This is because the behaviour is reasonably assumed to be unreasonable when on a motorway, hence it is unpredictable; obviously this applies to drivers of PLGs, not trucks and crawlers for whom slow progress can be reasonably assumed.

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Views expressed are personal opinions and are not necessarily shared by the Safe Speed campaign

In what way does someone who wants to drive quickly show discourtesy to someone who wants to drive slowly? Are you suggesting overtaking is discourteous (as some drivers seem to think)?

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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

I'm sure we had a thread that developed along these exact lines a couple of years ago, back before basingwerk was banned the first time...

One way is to call them a "doddering old fool", despite going at nearly two thirds of the absolute max. What more does he want? Other ways range from tailgating to "cutting you up", flashing and even road rage.

I also object to this sentence:



It may imply that the only reason for going slower than the absolute top speed is safety concerns, which is a load of tripe.
These "speedy cats" really need to turn their ego down a few notches - everyone would be a lot happier and calmer.

Why do you feel the need to justify one extreme with another? Just because some drivers tail gate this does not make obstructing everyone OK.

What do you mean by 'absolute max'? The slower and faster driver may well have completely different views on that, for instance the faster driver at 60mph may already consider themselves to be sensibly driving at 75% so the 40mph of the other driver is at 50%. This does not excuse poor behaviour of course. One should always assume another road user has a perfectly good reason for moving at the speed they are. I drive fairly quickly most of the time[*], but still get someone wanting to get past occasionally and even if they are going faster than I think is sensible I still seek to assist an overtake.

[*] NSL A roads, I am probably pretty median on motorways and urban roads.

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Driving fast is for a particular time and place, I can do it I just only do it occasionally because I am a gentleman.
- James May

Who are you asking? Who justified an extreme?



The speed limit.



Exactly. When you come across a slowpoke, chill out. It's OK.

Please explain what you mean by "needlessly". Are you saying that a 40 limit is some kind of target, that you "need"
to drive at?

Yes 40MPH is a speed that you NEED to drive at in order not to inconvenience "law abiding" drivers who wish to travel AT the speed limit in a 40MPH area.

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My views do not represent Safespeed but those of a driver who has driven for 39 yrs, in all conditions, at all times of the day & night on every type of road and covered well over a million miles, so knows a bit about what makes for safety on the road,what is really dangerous and needs to be observed when driving and quite frankly, the speedo is way down on my list of things to observe to negotiate Britain's roads safely, but I don't expect some fool who sits behind a desk all day to appreciate that.

Nope (a classic strawman). I did notice your very convenient selective quoting.

If I may remind you of something I have repeatedly said since my very first post in this very thread: the considerate driver who doesn't want to drive at free-flow speeds would pull over when noticing there is a queue building up behind them; I would never advocate forcing someone to progress faster than they feel save with. If they are not capable of doing that or matching free-flow speeds then they shouldn't have gained the entitlement to drive, or they should consider relinquishing it. When I was learning to drive, my instructor told me one can fail the test for being too hesitant.

Needless to say: I disagree with graball

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Views expressed are personal opinions and are not necessarily shared by the Safe Speed campaign

There's a gulf here, for sure. There is no such things as an "area" where you need to do 40 mph. That's the max you can do; not some kind
of "need". I just don't know how deep these misapprehensions are. Does anyone else have this false notion as well?

As mentioned above - Nobody should be forced into driving at a speed they judge inappropriate but please either pull over once in a while or allow safe overtaking when the conditions allow.

I also believe that if you unable to drive at the 85th percentile speed for a given section of road due to confidence or ability then you should not be driving. To drive in the "slow poke" manner on your driving test would be a fail due to not making proper progress

In my experience the ones doing 35-40 in the NSL sections will either continue at that speed or even increase when passing through 30mph villages especially at night. The only reasoning i can see for that is that they feel nice and safe due to the streetlights.

I always drive at "free-flow speed", although I choose exactly what it is!



The law about "reasonable consideration" stipulates no such condition, AFAIK. In other words, you can be
considerate, and not do that, as far as the law in concerned. In fact, AFAIK, it's not even mentioned in the highway code
at all - let me know if you can find reference to that idea. But it does say "do not treat speed limits as a target". On the
other hand, I might pull over out of the goodness of my heart - it depends.



Why are you repeatedly bringing safety into this? I drive at the speed I like, which is often slower than
the speed I could drive at and feel safe. I might wind down the window so I can hear the birds singing in the
trees - it's basically nobody's business but my own. Are some drivers obsessed with pushing speed to the
safety limits?

Inappropriate is not the word I'd use. People should drive at the speed they like, without
interference or abuse.



Please be more concrete: e.g. how fast should someone drive in the 40mph limit?

Anyway, you're entitled to your beliefs - I can think of a lot of other groups who shouldn't
drive, e.g. the ones at the other end of the scale who are fast and aggressive. They
should go by bus as well. But those in the middle, e.g. who do 25 or more in the 40
limit, are fine, and don't deserve abuse from heavy-footed chumps.

No but it's a matter of consideration for other road users, if you look in your mirror and no one is behind you, then that's fine but if you look in your mirror and you have a long queue and the road/traffic doesn't allow them to pass safely, then you are driving inconsiderately to the majority and I personally wouldn't feel comfortable doing that.

My quote was a definition of what a "need" was.You can take "area" how you want, perhaps I should have said in a 40MPH LIMIT but as 40MPH limits seem to cover vast areas of the uk then an area that is a 40MPH limit shouldn't be difficult to understand.

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My views do not represent Safespeed but those of a driver who has driven for 39 yrs, in all conditions, at all times of the day & night on every type of road and covered well over a million miles, so knows a bit about what makes for safety on the road,what is really dangerous and needs to be observed when driving and quite frankly, the speedo is way down on my list of things to observe to negotiate Britain's roads safely, but I don't expect some fool who sits behind a desk all day to appreciate that.