Safe Speed Forums

Childish suggestions like put your car back in the box aren't going to help him are they? If you read my post fully you would noticew that I said use the sat nav as an audible warning whilst keeping his eyes peeled for cameras, speed limits and what else is going on around him. Can you add anything sensible to this?

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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.

I would suggest getting fake numberplates but then you'd have another thing to be paranoid about, and someone might think I was being serious.


That's what has saved me so far. That and braking hard when seeing the speed camera mob.
Any GPS based speed camera warning device is only as good at its database, and only if it has a good signal. Most of the time this should be perfectly fine though. If I bought one I'd want it without VAT otherwise the government are profiting yet again. If my maffs are right £129.00 including VAT means the government got about £16.83, not counting earnings taxes etc. already paid on that amount.

I'm surprised you're so worried about red lights, are there really so many red light cameras where you are? There aren't all that many down here. I believe they all activate at least one second after the red light comes on as a minimum time.

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Andrew.

Why whould you have to do that?

That was a joke, I wasn't being serious.

I've topped it off with a smily now, which I should've done originally.

Don't have time to check if I'm speedin' or not. Don't trust their laser speed meters.

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Andrew.

I get confused for example driving yesterday there were a set of red traffic lights and to the right of them 2 'filter ' lights pointing left and they were green.

I wished to turn left and swent through them and then afterwards I started panicking as to whether I had made a mistake and I shouldnt have gone. Im not stupid by any means but I start questioning as to whether I was 100% sure that was correct, even though I was at the time.

This thread actually should raise some important questions. I don't know much about this young drivers scheme, whereby they are only allowed 6 points in their first two years. How long has it been running for? Has it been running long enough to have developed any stats to as whether it is actually working? Has the accident rate for "new" drivers actually fallen, stayed the same or gone up?

If Rob is a typical example of a new driver, it's certainly causing them to stop and think more (almost to the point of paranoia in this case) BUT is it making them safer drivers or is it just making them scared to drive anywhere without concentrating on not getting "pinged", while at the same time making them concentrate less on the important aspects of driving which is good observation of the road conditions and surrounding activity.

Anyone got any stats out there?

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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.

1st June 1997.

6 points in the first 2 years after the FIRST test pass means revocation by the DVLA - not the courts - and back to L status. Note first test, so if you pass a car test and then after two years get a bike licence you have 12 points to play with from day 1 of the bike licence.

Any points before a test pass will count - sometimes!! if you get 3 before and 3 after then you get revoked. If you get 6 or more before a pass, revocation only happens if you add to the existing amount after the test.

A disqualification imposed by a court doesn't trigger the new driver rules.

Latest numbers I have are 163,000 revocations and only about half of those have retaken a test.

No idea about young driver standards.

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I am not a lawyer and can't give legal advice. I do have experience of the day to day working of courts and use that knowledge to help where possible. I do not represent any official body and post as an individual.

Can we therefore assume that there are now 81,500 extra unlicenced drivers, who will be uninsured and almost certainly driving unregistered and unroadworthy vehicles. Lucky for them they are invisible to the speed cameras!

Not really an ideal solution to,the" problem?" then?

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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.

No we can't. Their test passes are revoked, they are NOT disqualified. So their insurance is valid which would not be the case if they were disqualified. There is definitely a tie up between disqualified drivers, no insurance, poor vehicle condition and often other sorts of crime but (so far at least) that doesn't seem to apply with revocations.

This is personal opinion but I feel that very few new drivers whose licences have been revoked are deliberately driving otherwise than in accordance with a licence. Most new drivers seem to think that 6 points equals a ban, unaware that the word ban has no legal meaning. They know that what they call a ban will involve a court appearance and a lecture about going to jail if caught driving. That is actually a disqualification.

If they get 6 points they just get letters in the post asking for their licence or possibly a court appearance at which the words ban and disqualification are not mentioned. Revocation happens much later and is done via a letter from the DVLA. The publicity about the New Driver regulations is, again in my personal opinion, very poor which doesn't help.

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I am not a lawyer and can't give legal advice. I do have experience of the day to day working of courts and use that knowledge to help where possible. I do not represent any official body and post as an individual.

As was eluded to in a previous post, having such a low target is probably causing more criminals amongst normally law abiding people, who have to use their cars for their livelyhoods, and havent got the time/money to go through the whole test periods again.

I just think the whole 6 point scheme and the law in general regarding driving needs an overhaul.

Its not solving the problem, if anything its adding new problems.

Nobody is condoning idiotic drivers, the scum that end up killing a bunch of people either in their car or another car never deserved to have a liscence.

But how can the law be justified, when I see ( for example on road wars) someone racing away from a police car in a chase, endangering countless pedestrians and road users, going through countless red lights, going the wrong way down streets, speeding at about 70 in a 30. Then when they do get aught they get a 2 year ban a 500 quid fine and 9 points.

Which means in 2 years time they can drive perfectly normally again assuming they had a 12 point limit.

Yet someone on 6 points could go past a speed camera twice at 36mph at 2am endanger no-one and get their liscence revoked. It makes no earthly sense, and its confusing as to what they are trying to achieve by this?

I don't think that those that make the laws really know what they are trying to achieve, otherwise we would not get so many idiotic rules and regulations that seem to be so prevalent these days. But is that any wonder, seeing that most of them know very little about what they are making laws about.
Whynot

I don't know whether you misheard or if the media was wrong, but that sentence is not possible. Its either points OR a disqualification, not both. Your post is a classic example of how people hear something incorrect and extrapolate that to the whole justice system.


People who speed do so for one of two reasons. Either they want to obey the law and lack the ability to do so or they think the law doesn't apply to them. In the case of drivers whose observation and/or car control is not good enough 3 points is a way of pointing that out before they do something really stupid and kill somebody. In the second case, the points are a reminder that they are not above the law.

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I am not a lawyer and can't give legal advice. I do have experience of the day to day working of courts and use that knowledge to help where possible. I do not represent any official body and post as an individual.

You forgot "or the law is wrong".

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Andrew.

You may be right, but in a democracy with an independent judicial system the courts apply the law as laid down by parliament.

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I am not a lawyer and can't give legal advice. I do have experience of the day to day working of courts and use that knowledge to help where possible. I do not represent any official body and post as an individual.

This is a bit of a simplistic attitude to road safety isn't it?

I'm sure that not everyone who has the misfortune to exceed the speed limit twice in two years and get caught for it is likely to be a total danger on the road. I often see drivers who have the "capabilities" to keep an eye on their speedo religiously and never exceed a speed limit BUT they are breaking many other rules of the road in doing so.

Their concentration and car control is excellent if keeping an eye on the speedo is what you call good "observation and car control", but when they wander about the road constantly, fail to use mirrors and indicators at all, I don't rate them as safe as the guy who might do 35MPH in a deserted town after 3AM.

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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.

How does the guy who's doing 35 know he's doing 35?

I appreciate that you are looking at this purely from the perspective of the Courts and not the 'whole' picture.

Lets not get Off Topic and delve into this here - by all means if anyone wants to explore the reasons for the result of a speeding conviction, in another thread.

I agree that it seems difficult to understand for the new driver why they might be penalised more heavily, when they have less experience, and are trying to deal with the effects from these rules.

It can be all to easy to forget when we were new drivers, and how we learned how best to drive once going 'solo', but many were taught by friends, family and instructors (often finishing off the training), to drive for the test and to drive for the road.

I wonder if that 'drive for the road' is adding to the lack of ability to cope with the day to day best practices, as they (those techniques) take longer to learn if they are not being taught. (Can be read up about and practiced, but shown is better.)
Then there are the mirade of camera side effects that have to be handled by all drivers whether equipped or not.
And I can see that you are trying to see how you can improve, and become the confident and in control driver that you would like to be, and the first steps are to seek understanding to the issues and how to identify them properly.
You see missing lights and missing cameras and signs as the problem. I think I may be right in thinking that you possibly have a distraction issue going on and maybe driving too fast for your ability at the moment. The core problem is confidence and observations and the processing and judgement of that data.
IF you slow it down (hence my suggestion of countryside driving so that you have less roadside furnishings and few traffic lights) then you can process more easily as there is less to 'do' and the observations can be more relaxed as the scene is less complicated. This helps you to identify signs easily and clearly building confidence and experience.
Building core issue skills, is key to your knowing how to progress ... (IMHO).

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Safe Speed for Intelligent Road Safety through proper research, experience & guidance.

I agree on the post before you missed out the third reason ' The law is wrong'

The circumstance I wrote was a rough memory of what they said, either way it wasnt a lot different, and considering the HUGE difference between the two offences the actual punishment was not that much worse was the point I was trying to make.

I dont think theres anyway getting away from it the law regarding new drivers points and speeding/ red light offences is awfully messy and incorrect. But hey the government would still rather be prosecuting a safe driver doing 36 than they would be worrying about the knife crime in many places.