Safe Speed Forums

Is it some one on this site that says..." Driving isn't about black and white, it's mainly grey and best when it's between the ears"?

A good saying that some of these "Black/white or wrong" enthusiasts need to consider.

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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.

On that premis why not go back to the speed limits prior to 1965 where there were no speed limits on roads outside built up areas, that would remove 2 distractions as you put it.

your premis that one fool decides what speed limits should be applied to a particular road is wrong, it is decided by the local traffic authority in consultation with the local police force, are you saying that our fine boys in blue are all fools?
on the A1033 from Hull to Withernsea, last year had most of the speed limits reduced along the route, a route I travel regularly. in the 10 years prior to the reduction in speed limits I could be guaranteed to see at least 3 - 4 cars in the ditches along the route throughout the the year. Last year & up to now this year I have seen none.
Is this just pure co-insidence? or maybe they've run out of money & can't buy anymore cars.

Not quite - last set of speed reductions were determined in this county by a few County council officers ,against the wishes of many county councillors and against the advice of the County police force . So no real consultation there then . I've heard of similar incidents in other areas. It 's not set by one fool, but by a committee of fools ,as in the EU,not elected by the electorate .Else where it's the Mrs Jones's of the WRI, in some coffee morning, or some councillor seeking extra votes at the next election.

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lets bring sanity back to speed limits.
Drivers are like donkeys -they respond best to a carrot, not a stick .Road safety experts are like Asses - best kept covered up ,or sat on

Yes I will echo what Botach says. The police opinion is totally ignored by many LAs now when speed limits are reduced. As are the Department for Transport(2006) Guidelines for local speed limits...so the "fools" in local highways departments, are not only ignoring the true road safety experts...local traffic officers.... but also their own governments' guidelines, set up by people with more road safety expertise than some fool in the local highways dept, who may have only been in the job six months....who do you think knows best?

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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.

Could just be that you aren't seeing all the accidents, could be RTTM,could be less people on the roads due to recession, could be a milder winters, could be lots of reasons. The only true way to know if accidents have reduced is get the accident rate for that road before and after the changes.

I can cite roads round where I live where the speed limits have been reduced and the accident rate has gone up, so it's swings and roundabouts.

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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.

Or more likely bridges and folks living under them . As in the troll population of the UK. lockinvar - perhaps it's time to ride out of the west ,and depart ,as a TROLL .

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lets bring sanity back to speed limits.
Drivers are like donkeys -they respond best to a carrot, not a stick .Road safety experts are like Asses - best kept covered up ,or sat on

I was expecting a comment like that from you, is that the only responce you have, "if you don't agree with me then let the insults fly". It seems you do not wish to hear differing opinions to your own, your opinion is the only one you wish to hear & yours is the only one that is right. All you want on this forum is for people to follow you like sheep. I just hope you do not drive with the same arrogance you have shown on this forum.

The correct response


ok the true reason why I posted this on the forum, it was to see what responses it would envoke. Do I truly believe that the reduced speed limits are the reasons why there have been no cars in the ditches since they were introduced not for a second, nor did I say that in the original post. Some on this forum seem to think because my opinions differ from their's I am against speed I am not, what I am against is drivers who travel at inapproriate speeds for the type of road they are travelling on with no regard for other road users,road conditions & weather conditions. I agree with most of the aims of this forum & the ones I disagree with should be addressed with reasoned debate, not as some believe by being arrogant & insulting, this is counter productive & only alienates people to what the forum is hoping to achieve.

So you're not so different to me then.

I hope that I don't come across as arrogant and insulting, although I know I have thrown my toys out of the pram once or twice My frustration comes simply on a point of pure logic where my question/s are ignored or I get an illogical and evasive answer, like my last comment on this thread to weepej. i.e

If he, or anyone else, wants to talk about the wrongs of breaking a law then let's talk about it! But don't come on here trying to make a false claim or illogical arguments and expect not to get a firm rebuke.

I hope you are amongst the folk who can see the difference, and the folly, of doing the same speed here... (Sorry to dig it up again )

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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.

Glad to here it & yes I can see the folly of travelling at a set speed wether there is a speed limit in place or not, as road conditions can vary from hour to hour & a driver has to match their speed to the varying road conditions.

I do not need a new law to tell me that something is going to impair my driving i.e. using a mobile phone, I decided many years before the law came into force that using a mobile phone whilst driving would be dangerous. I stopped driving for two months last year, as I suffer from arthritis my right hip started causing me serious pain, even though I could have possibly carried on driving it would have seriously have affected my braking reaction time so stopped driving until I had fully recovered.

Thank you for clearing up my misconception, if they are impossing speed limits without proper consultation, then they are no more than mini dictators & we all know what happens when they obtain too much power.



Yes I would agree with you if there were proper driver education in place. When you & I first started driving in the 70's, most of our driving was done on single lane highways, as there were only a few dual carriageways & motorways so it was maybe 2 or 3 years before a journey took me onto a motorway. These days a new driver can be a motorway within 30 minutes of passing their test without gaining any experience in driving on single lane carriageways let alone on motorways. On motorways there is no slow moving such as cyclists, tractors or horse riders, so traffic may be travelling at 60mph &/or above, it is even safe to travel at 70mph on the motorway in the wet, provided you allow for the greater braking distances, so they bring this mindset onto single lane highways & expect all traffic to be moving at the same speed as themselves, not thinking that they should be using their grey matter to read the road conditions & adjust their speed to meet the conditions of the road they are travelling on or that there maybe slow moving traffic ahead that they cannot see.

Have to agree with you here. Maybe that is the problem that too many novice drivers are used to driving on "modern" roads like dual carriageways and very straight urban link ways. Rural roads still have the lowest accident rates next to motorways though.

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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 agree with you there, which is why I suggested the driver training system they use in Finland (not as I originally put in my earlier post of Norway & sweden, though they may use a similar system).



Again I agree, though using the finnish training system would help to reduce those figures even further, as well as on other road systems.

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Maybe that is the problem that too many novice drivers are used to driving on "modern" roads like dual carriageways and very straight urban link ways.

One reason.Add to that the lack of understanding by the "speed kills " brigade about one of the other dangers on the road -skill levels and the dangers of making everybody driving at the speed /ability of the poorest. Over the past few years ,I've noticed the art of overtaking declining rapidly ,possibly in direct ratio to the obstructive tactics of some drivers in preventing an overtake .Few years ago I had to go to Peterborough from the Midlands. On the A14 DC I was tailgaited constantly at 70 by what I perceived to be company car drivers. ( All late models of the repmobile type) . Then on the A605( not a windy road, typical main road), I caught up with some who'd shot past me well in advance of the limit. Problem -there was a car in front in a NSL limit doing and although there was plenty of opportunity to pass , rep man wouldn't /couldn't .
Last Saturday ,I returned from up north .On the A82 in Glencoe, I came upon groups of cars all travelling at 40 on a NSL road .( Pre limit days ,I've driven it a lot faster than the limit) . No one wanted to pass anything. I got bored driving at 30 -40 , so overtook anything I could .Some did notice my overtake and slow down, others waited till I'd pulled in ,then closed the gap to my rear and flashed . Perhaps Northern Constabulary need signs warning about the high risk of city drivers .

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lets bring sanity back to speed limits.
Drivers are like donkeys -they respond best to a carrot, not a stick .Road safety experts are like Asses - best kept covered up ,or sat on

Rural roads, more crashes, more risk of injury and death...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-16631597

Didn't have time to read through all that waffle but as far as I remember the OFFICIAL figure for Accidents/million vehicle kms was half as much for rural NSL as Urban roads unless they have changed drastically in the last couple of years and you can prove otherwise, then I'm sticking to that, not some BBC propaganda, Weepej.

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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 think I need to stop you there, Weepej, before you get carried away. The above quote is yours, if you remember....stating....that rural NSL have MOST crashes.

Well they don't actually but they do have higher deaths and serious injuries than urban roads...two differnet things altogether....want to start again old chum?

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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.

These are amongst the most dangerous drivers on the road & show a distinct lack &/or disregard for the basic road craft skills, it seems some drivers today are incapable of learning from their mistakes. Just because they manage to avoid an accident, they believe mistakenly they are a good driver, when in fact if they analized the events properly they would see that their driving style was a contributing factor to the incident. I see it on motorways quite often where a driver is travelling faster than the car in front of them in the outside lane, but instead of slowing down slightly to match & maintain a safe distance to the car in front until it pulls into the centre lane, they carry on & only brake at the last second.



Maybe they were unfamilar with the area & due to their lack of observational skills they mistakenly believed that the car in front was travelling at the correct speed. If they had been more aware they would have known that they were in an NSL zone & could overtake when safe to do so.

No that'll do, you're right, saying they have most crashes is open to interpretation.

In general they are massively more dangerous places to be than roads in towns.

I was originally responding to whynot who was appearing to assert country roads are safer than urban roads because there are less deaths on them, but this is not the case, by a looong chalk.