Safe Speed Forums

I agree with that, to an extent.

IMVHO, it's the twattish element of drivers who either care not for their driving skills, or just consider driving as something akin to washing the dishes, that cause the accidents that then - by proxy - cause the implementation of more draconian road re-engineering and more vociferous calls for speed cams. This to the detriment of those of us who DO take pride in their driving, who DO enjoy addressing the challenges it presents, who CAN drive at speeds where stopping in the distance that can be seen to be clear is a consideration in every act in the course of driving a vehicle.

The trouble is, again IMVHO, is that these un-thinking drivers who possess the shite driving standards and who - un-knowingly - cause more driving restrictions will not blame themselves for more double-white lines or more speed traps or more pinch points or more ghost islands or more traffic controlled junctions, because they will just comply with anything that is put in front of them. I suspect they'll still crash, though, as no amount of double-white lines / speed traps / ghost islands will mitigate their lack of understanding of how the art of driving actually works. As an anecdotal example, I followed a Megane Scenic between Weston and Telford earlier, and the driver never once exceeded the posted speed limit (60). He / she occasionally touched it, then braked for no reason back to 45. Then accelerated back to 60, then braked back to 40. Over the course of three changes of direction, not once was the indicator used (and at the last roundabout, the driver approached it, waited in the right hand entry lane of the roundabout, then turned left at the first exit ).

And we wonder why there are so many more restrictions on driving these days.....

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Wenlock Edge was umbered. And bright was Abdon Burf. And warm, beneath them, slumbered the smooth, green miles of turf

Yep, you're right and this person that you describe is probably an ardent "speed kills" preacher.

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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.

Kiteless, Moggie, the Buildwas to Atcham road then on to Sundorne is a great driving road. Unfortunately they are trying to get 30MPH in Leighton, we should object to this. It doesn't class as a village, per dept for Transport guidelines.

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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.

What this "survey" does prove, which most people seem to be missing is.......

The less experienced and most likely to have accidents group, i.e the younger drivers, seem to be in favour of speed cameras BUT the more experienced, older and high mileage drivers, can see through the total folly of this and know that speed ISN'T the big problem and speed cameras won't solve it.
So Mr Government official...take note of us older and MORE EXPERIENCED AND SAFER drivers. NOT the kids having all the accidents.

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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.

Not sure I get these continuous references to "heavy" in a lot of your posts Weepeie! Are you saying that it's OK to drive at "what speed you like" in motorised transport if it's NOT heavy? Say, perhaps, anything lighter than, oh I dunno...

..a horse and cart?

You've utterly missed my point by a million miles.

I'm talking about, say the sort of people that perform powerslides on the public highway, or that travel too fast, or overtake in risky spots. It ain't going to be long before they crash and it only takes a couple and you're bound to get people that want to change the road so the sort of fool that would do stupid things on it has less of a chance to do so.

It's not the restrictions causing the issues, it's the parts where people are left to their own devices.

In that case then would you like to see double white lines down the entire road network?

No overtaking at all would reduce a certain amount of serious crashes.

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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.

Exactly!

I have never liked the double white line system, and these days I'm seeing more and more examples of it being incorrectly applied: not only places where it prevents overtaking when it would be safe - which is bad enough - but other places where an overtake would be 'allowed' but there is insufficient range of vision to actually do it safely. It looks to me as if more and more of it is being used to reduce overtaking generally.

Best wishes all,
Dave.

I travelled a road yesterday that I used to travel 7 days a week in the seventies. It's about 8 miles long and back then you had about 6-7 miles of overtaking opportunity. Now you probably have no more than 3 miles where there are no double whites BUT the really stupid part of it is where one of the double whites finishes after about 3/4 a mile of clear view, you get about 200 yards before a blind bend to overtake, you would be suicidal to attempt overtaking anything that was going above 20 MPH there.

It will get to the stage where there are so many double whites ,that are un neccessary, that people will have no respect for them , just like the ridiculous 40MPH limits sprouting up everywhere,

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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.

Will people who drive so idiotically such that they crash pay any attention to the double whites?

Just like speed limits, people will generally give less credence, and hence be less likely to abide by the double whites, if they become overused and needlessly restrictive, and more people will lose it where heeding to them really is needed - and for that the council will be culpable (for devaluing that method of safety).


No amount of furniture will deter an idiotic driver.
Let's instead engineer out that idiotic tendency from those people, or at least engineer them off our roads.

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

I prefer hatched areas with broken lines. These make people stop and think and although there is nothing wrong with overtaking on them, it does put some people off and these are probably the people who need to be more wary anyway. The only thing that I do have against them is that some people when they see you overtake on these don't realise that you aren't breaking any laws and get upset.

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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.

That's debatable. You're not supposed to enter these "unless it is necessary". Just like you're only supposed to reverse for "no longer than necessary".

What's more they're the worst place to be if you need to apply brakes, in the wet as they are slippy in the dry as they're normally covered in grit and other residue.

So following some pratt doing 40 MPh in a NSL for mile after mile, doesn't make it "neccessary" to overtake? What do you class as a neccessary reason to cross them 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.

The ones that I am talking about are no more than a couple of feet wide.

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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.

Life or death emergencies, blocked roads etc...

I don't think having to overtake somebody would be considered necessary and I imagine if you wiped out (or wiped somebody else out) whilst in a ghost island it wouldn't help your defence.

A prime example of a lovely road ruined by endless white lines now. Notice that when this was taken, that the majority of the road had broken whites. Any idea why it should suddenly need endless doubles after decades of accidents free, except for one place where there is a deceptive dip and this has had a few accidents in the past which I can agree needs double whites.

http://www.multimap.com/maps/#map=52.61 ... 20TF11%209

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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.

...and are very slippy when wet and full of grit and other detritus.

So are country roads, don't tell me , you avoid driving on those too?

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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 always find that if you look before overtaking then it does prevent wipe outs.

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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.

http://www.multimap.com/maps/#map=52.70 ... |TF4%202AS

Perhaps, Weepej, you could tell us what the arrows visible in between the hatched areas of the road in the map, actually mean 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.