Safe Speed Forums

Pardon me if I'm getting repetitive, but if the main roads are 'built for' the journeys they take, what is the perceived advantage of driving through your village?

it could be the novelty value of seeing a village that fits the description of this strange persons warped imagination....lets face it, a village of "idiots" driving tractors up and down it's high street, while spreading shovel fulls of salt in between parked cars and the local riding school horse droppings, has got to be worth a visit....;-0

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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 just hope that the OP, Concerned Parent doesn't believe the rubbish talked about by GSD/greenshed and start doing strange things like that up in Aberdeen, otherwise he might get some strange looks and a visit from the men in white coats...

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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.

Gsd/greenshed/steve,

It's obvious by now, that you cannot prove that this "village" exists other than in your own mind but one statement that is really contraversial is the, .... "Official figures show that middle aged drivers are the worst… ", one, so if you want to gain any credibility from this post at all, I and I'm sure many others, would be very interested to discover your source for this...or is this also part of your imagination?

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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



Confusing, huh. So do these main roads exist or not?

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Malcolm W.
The views expressed in this post are personal opinions and do not represent the views of Safespeed.

I'm still not even slightly convinced the place exist, but anyway .. can't help but fear that the result of all the vision impairment activities designed to slow traffic down could eventually result in a horrible tragic accident. An incident that happened to me many years ago not long after I started driving might illustrate this.

Was driving along when noticed a bicycle heading down a driveway at some speed, it didn't appear to be slowing down at all so I stopped before getting to the driveway. Bicycle shot out of end of driveway without slowing, straight across road into the hedge opposite. Turns out the bicycle was being ridden by a 10 (ish) year old, he'd just replaced the brake blocks and was trying them out, unfortunately he'd put them in the wrong way round, and as soon as he applied the brakes the new blocks shot out of their holders totally disabling all the brakes

Now ... if the driveway had been obscured by a vast amount of foliage, I might not have even noticed there was a driveway and probably wouldn't have seen him coming down the drive at all. That could have ended up in a very tragic accident, with potential to change several peoples lives forever and not for the better.

If this place does exist ... please please please please .... trim back your foliage so it's not obsuring vision.

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You only need two tools - WD40 and duct tape. If it doesn't move and it should, use WD40. If it moves and it shouldn't, use duct tape. :0)

No! You may force most drivers to go slower but not necessarily safer. There is a difference. The point I made, or thought so, was that a responsible driver wouldn't care if someone overnight changed the signs to a dangerous NSL in your road. They would/should only ever pass through at what is a safe speed for the conditions. If the road was clear of parked cars, obstructions and children etc. and the view was perfectly clear with good weather conditions etc., I wouldn't brandish the Cat o' Nine Tails at them if they were slightly over the 30 limit. You are not making things safer, you are making bad drivers treat you and your attempts to slow things down with contempt! If they are negotiating vehicles, their foot would need to be on the accelerator and concentrating on missing the parked vehicles as they weave through, not gently passing through with due care on what really matters!

These are the bad and unsafe drivers which need to be caught, but you are simply exacerbating the situation and making the road more dangerous.

Yes! They detect speed – not safety! PM me and I’ll arrange to meet you at my work base where I will pre-arrange to introduce you to: Doctors, Clinicians, SLT’s, OT’s who have had an impeccable driving history for years but have in recent times got endorsements on their licences for speeding without ever hurting a fly! I’m sure we would all be interested to hear your expert and informed argument. It’s a serious offer Sam! (I'm in a small group with a clean licence). It's something I could add to my PDR.

You may even meet a few people who have suffered at the hands of these same bad drivers and get their side...

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The views expressed in this post are personal opinions and do not necessarily represent the views of Safe Speed.
You will be branded a threat to society by going over a speed limit where it is safe to do so, and suffer the consequences of your actions in a way criminals do not, more so than someone who is a real threat to our society.

I think that very neatly encapsulates the whole problem with speed limits! They can never work! If they did, there wouldn't be the other sort of "speeding" that you claim amounts to the same thing! Anyway, for what it's worth, I think the DFT would be forced to back down on that (if it's even true that they regard both actions as the same thing)! Exceeding the speed limit is an absolute offence. It's illegal. Driving within the speed limit but too fast for the conditions, may or may not be. It rather suits their purpose to try and lump the two together because they're still rather red-faced from their "30% lie". If you're not familiar with that, up until fairly recently, they used to claim that 30% of accidents were caused by speeding. Gradually, as more accurate statistics became available, it became apparent that actually, it was more like 5-7% - the rest being "too fast for the conditions".

You may as well face up to it. You're not too different to the motorists you despise! They think the speed limit is too low, you think it's too high. You're both inherently selfish groups who want it all their own way. Unfortunately, that's what living in a democracy is all about!

In other words: you were travelling at such a speed that you good not stop within the distance you good see. Perfect description of "speeding" within or outwith the posted speed limit.

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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

Not neccessarily true,

I was once travelling along a dead straight 40MPH road with excellent forward visibility . From a drive on my left, about 50 yards away, in front of me appeared a car, rolling backwards, with the "driver" running after it, as it shot completely across the road and came to rest on the opposite verge. Now I was lucky because if I had been a few seconds in front of my self, the car would have crashed into the side of me, but there would have been no way that I could have seen it coming down the owners well concealed drive and the speed that I would have been travelling would have been irrelevent if it had appeared out of the drive at the moment that I passed it.

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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.

Therein lies the difficulty. The deluded speed kills brigade want to solve the problem by slowing everything down so that even an act of God, such as you describe, is minimised. Yes, I'm sure we would all be safer for doing 20mph everywhere but in the real world society just wouldn’t function.

I've had a similar experience to you Graball, when I was on my motorbike a long time ago... A driver in a sports car, the type with a long nose, (a Datsun 300ZX I think), pulled out from a concealed driveway onto the main road which had no pavement. He has to pull quite far out so that he could see the main road and did so quite quickly. So now I found myself heading towards about two feet of his bonnet because I was travelling very near to the curb to go around some horse poop.

I've also had a similar thing happen when I've gone around a road kill in my path by passing to the right of it, on a right hand bend, only to find someone coming at me from the other direction who has gone wide and is partly on my side of the road.

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The views expressed in this post are personal opinions and do not necessarily represent the views of Safe Speed.
You will be branded a threat to society by going over a speed limit where it is safe to do so, and suffer the consequences of your actions in a way criminals do not, more so than someone who is a real threat to our society.

Yeah, this "stop within the distance you can see to be clear" thing is a good maxim but it can't be taken TOO literally. I was following a car along the road past Thirlmere a couple of years ago. It's an NSL single carriageway road and the guy in front was doing a (in my view) perfectly sensible 50. All of a sudden, a stag leapt out from the trees on one side of the road, virtually on his bonnet. I saw his brake lights go on and the nose of the car dive and assumed he'd hit the creature. He hadn't, in fact. Stags being what they are, it just took off pretty much vertically and leapt over the car before disappearing into the forest on the other side of the road. I guess the whole incident took little more than a second! I sometimes wonder whether the saying should be modified to "...in the distance you can reasonably expect to be clear..." - but obviously, that introduces a whole new level of subjectivity to the game!

my take on this is "stop within the distance of road you can see to be clear".....and sits alongside the speed limit as the absolute upper bound of 'safe' speed.
most of the above incidents i think are hazard perception issues.. the presence of a drive or turning is a potential hazard... the rural/woodland nature of the road (deer etc) is a potential hazard..... and you should select a speed based on this hazard density.

these things being hazards or potential hazards there is only so much mitigation you can reasonably do.

i drive regularly down a straight residential road with pavements on both sides & cars parked along both sides.. in a 30limit.
- speed to be able to stop in the distance i can see to be clear ~50mph
- legal speed limit 30mph
- actual speed chosen ??
- speed to be able to stop dead if child runs out between cars <5mph

nobody does 5mph..... most people in fact do 30-35mph... depending on the time of day & specific hazard density my actual chosen speed typically varies between 15mph and 25mph.

Just a point. These are public roads and as such the public can drive on them. We all go the quickest route from A to B on our journeys. Constant labelling as rat runners probably labels us all. A point Paul made on a few occasions.

My Grandad was injures about 25 years while riding along a road which had 3m high stone walls either side with fields behind them, a sheep got up on one of them somehow and jumped on him knocking him off the bike. Thankfully he fully recovered.

Having driven the A303 today (which comes with silly fences at roundabouts to stop you seeing what's coming to "slow you down" and thus make you "safer") I am happy to say that I don't think it is ever wise to reduce road users' visibility in the interests of safety.

Yes, this obscuration is a farce.

The ultimate extension of this logic is that we should all wear blindfolds while driving or ban headlamps at night "to make us safer".

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Malcolm W.
The views expressed in this post are personal opinions and do not represent the views of Safespeed.

As far as I know, my car and bike are taxed, insured, MOT'd and I have a full license to drive them on the queens highway and pay quite a bit in tax to do so. So if I want to drive down a particular road I will

Hmm "stockbroker belt" suggest "Home Counties" .. Dorking etc to south of London


"Chelsea trctor country"/. I think if this "village" exist - then the only folk doing the "speeding" are the locals as we have all already suggested


Then .. he or SHE mention Kent.. which suggest red kites to me Und no.. .. no more red kite than a TPAC/tea pot cum insurance "lawyer" with the police etc .. etc..but really nowt to do with plod really

Anyway .. I look up "speed watch schemes for Kent" since she mention the "cameras" which incidentally are the thingies we already mentioned as trialled FIRST in Manchester .. in Smart Cars. You can spot the big pole a mile off by the way.. I consider it ist a bit of a clue As this same camera was used to snap a person who was dropping off legally on double yellows within drop off time to let out passenger und set off again..(do do some more "detailed research - you can googles RTA 1988 in seconds or check out an IG post in this part of forum as he has put in the link ad naueam over the years anyway :lol;) ) .


Anyway .. this ist what I found on googly goggle...


http://www.thisiskent.co.uk/news/Ineffe ... ticle.html

[quote="thisiskentsite"
'Ineffective' speed watch scheme lacks support
Saturday, May 02, 2009, 07:00Comment on this story

DESPITE speeding being a key concern for residents of rural areas, few villages across Sevenoaks have signed up to a scheme designed to tackle the problem.
An investigation by the Chronicle has revealed just Knockholt, Halstead, Penshurst and Leigh are participating in Kent Police's Speed Watch.
The initiative, which requires residents to give up their time and operate special equipment to record the details of speeding motorists, appears to have enjoyed little support from willing volunteers.
Reasons for the lack of interest include question marks over the effectiveness of the scheme and the £1,800 cost of buying the equipment.
This has to be paid for by parish councils that choose to participate.
Last year police demonstrated the equipment to Shoreham Parish Council.
But members decided against joining Speed Watch until new equipment had been made available.
Describing the equipment they had seen as "flimsy," parish council clerk Barbara Ide said: "We do have serious speeding issues at Badger Mount and so anything that would help we would try.
"I did ask around for volunteers, but nobody came forward and that has been a factor."
Otford Parish Council chairman Cllr John Allen said the village had decided against joining.
"It doesn't seem to me to be a very effective way of controlling people's speed and so we can't really justify asking people to give up their time."
Dunton Green Parish Council clerk Tracy Godden claimed not enough people had volunteered to make the scheme viable there, despite having the busy London Road passing through the village. [/quote]


I wonder if your village? I wonder how many in this village perceive this to be a problem to them given the apaprent apathy.

Good driver with a drifting spin .... err I mean .. sam.. I think you still have to pester to get the police there . assuming you are genuine.. as I am really a nice .. fair "roll over - tickle my tum" type of wildcat



Said before .. you need proper police on patrol.. visibly so... but to deliver that COAST message as that matter und educate better. for longer. You need to inspire.. rekindle pride in the SAFE driving skills



http://www.lintonpc.kentparishes.gov.uk ... fm?pid=358


This second link ist a bit more optimistic .. but occur once per month. They have more volunteers. Personally .. I admit that I would refuse on basis that MM already oberve for IAM und we preach COAST regularly down our local pub etc. und in Church on Sundays. .. well .. in the churchyard after the sermons.. Socialising.. we always end up chatting on fave topic . the CAR

This last link ist about the normal nonsense which would not stand up in any court of law. Und prove that the only real solution ist POLICE to start doing the job properly ... with a fair system in place to retrain when judged appropriate und some other carrot to encourage the idea that as our cars develop in "on board toys und power" - then we have to retrain und be open to learning just as we are with any new computer software or professional developments



http://www.thanington-pc.gov.uk/history/twpc14.pdf

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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.
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Greatest love & Greatest Achievements Require Greatest Risk
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Me?
Je ne regrette rien!

So, if the law didn't specifically prohibit it, you would have no compunction against taking your combined harvester onto the rush hour M25?

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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