Safe Speed Forums

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/shro ... 559173.stm

This might open up a can of worms?

He was cleared of speeding AND dangerous driving.

If driving "safely" is acceptable to overcome an 'absolute' offence then there is going to be some mileage here.

I'm obviously not exceeding the limit by enough, am I?

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Although I used to consider myself to be a "reasonable man", the law just sees me as a criminal... My uncontrolled anti-social activities solely include the undeniable fact I usually drive my car at or just below the 85th percentile.

It might open up said worm tin, if this hadn't been seen so many times before. How many cases where it is one rule for us and another for them do we need to see? If it isn't expert drivers "just testing the car out" (contrast with the attempt to take away the licences of many of the WRC drivers in Wales a few years ago) or senior officers falling asleep in the back of a chauffer driven car (CC Surrey 90+ on A3, ACC Manchester 100+ on M6 Toll). And these are just the cases where the driving was so bad that the vehicle was stopped.

Then there are numerous stories, some of which might be urban legends such as girlfriend of police office is stopped for speeding and opens glove box to get driving licence where boyfriends warrant card is sitting - "oh don't worry madam, just be a bit more careful in future".

I along with many on this site, have never been stopped by a police officer for anything, and our problem is with cameras, speed bumps, chicanes and all of the other stupid measures, so how badly were these people driving if they were stopped?

Just about everybody sees a police car speeding very frequently - I do at least 3 or 4 times a week on the local ring road. It was argued that my speedo is wrong and that the calibrated speedo in the police car was much more accurate, however I have confirmed using GPS that my speedo is accurate at 30mph, so Police officers regularly do 40+ in a 30. How do they get away with it...

My brother-in-law work in social services with disturbed children (i.e. real pain in the butt trouble makers) and had to accompany one such child to court for the Nth time, but the Police transport didn't appear so the two officers that were making sure that the offender actually made it to court suggested using brother in laws car. This is not exactly a state of the art vehicle, in fact "knackered old banger" is a better description, but because of the delay caused by police transport not appearing it was determined that a liberal interpretation of speeding laws should be applied and a phone call was made in advance to get the car put on "The List". The officers then encouraged speeds in excess of 100mph on the M6, but did warn that the car was only on "The List" for the one day.

The double standards and hypocracy that everybody sees all the time (the Manchester ACC was in charge of traffic, and the driver was "just keeping up with traffic") are a major factor in the serious breakdown in respect for the Police and related authorities.

But on the other hand I can appreciate that in order to be able to do his job properly the Police to need to practice driving at high speed on public roads and if the Law says that they are only allowed to do this in response to an incedent (or in persuit) then the Law is the Ass, because I don't want high-speed persuit being done by somebody for the first time because they haven't been allowed to go above 70 before. Perhaps it is the law that needs changing to make speed limits advisory; a change that will allow everybody to drive at a speed that is safe for the conditions, but still leave Dangerous Driving as a prosecutable offence.

Pc Milton, travelled at 159mph "on roads that were deserted at the time, and driving conditions were good" so does that make it OK for other lesser mortals to travel at high speeds in the early hours on deserted motorways safe in the knowledge that they can use the same defence?

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Alleycat

We've got three threads running now on this story.

See also this one:
http://www.safespeed.org.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2338

I'm going to close the one in the M4 Protest forum.

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Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

Hopefully, as long as they were driving safely.

And equally if someone is driving dangerously below the limit they should be prosecuted.

I would hope that if i was caught speeding that it would be by an Traffic officer like PC Milton who takes into account the prevailing conditions, and not by one of unthinking camera partnerships.

As long as he treats drivers he stops in the same way as he has been treated then he is not a hypocrite as some are suggesting, a large number of traffic police are as against the current obsession with catching drivers for only exceeding the speed limit as most of us on this site - but they are not the ones making the policy decisions.

80 Mph in a 30 zone and 159mph on a motorway just how did the guy get off with it?
The fact he is 'a Police Advanced Driver' means nothing.
Those speeds on those roads in that car makes him nothing less than a projectile , a quarter of a mile to stop for heavens sake!
There is no way now that anybody can be convicted for breaking the limit by 10mph if that Judge is deemed correct, how can they?
I understand those fellas have to get a 'wiggle on' at times and I can even get my head around the 159mph on the motorway but to escape prosecution for doing 80mph in a 30 is just taking the piss!

I agree about the 80 in a 30, but was it a 30 that used to be a NSL and has been imposed for reasons other than safety?

159 on a motorway is ok on certain stretches of Autobahn in Germany, and they do not have different laws of physics there, so no reason why in right circumstances it should be any more dangerous here.

I am saying this as someone who aims to stick to all limits in a red circle, and does not exceed 85mph in NSL very often.

Most criticism seems to be of the "i cant exceed speed limit so why can he" sort.

I am more concerned that Police speed check equipment showed a Vectra going 159mph, makes me wonder how much it is over reading.

159 in a Vectra, that must be the mutha of all Vectras... what does Vectra mean anyway?

I don't have a problem with his speed. I know M54 well and it gets very quiet in the dead of night (that speed would have shacken his car to bits before they resurfaced it several years ago). The guy is a police driver and needs to know the limitations of his vehicle, he also needs to keep his skill sharp. What is he supposed to to, practise on his Playstation?

Even 80 in a 30 is hardly the crime of the century, there are some quite crazy 30 limits. In any case when he needs to call on his skills, the person he is chasing is hardly likely to slow up for a 30 limit is he/she?

It just grates a bit that we can't use similar mitigation (is that the right word?) when we are not 90mph over the limit.

get to know the capabilties of your car? go to a skid pan or a track day.
the automotive industry pays millions for the use of test tracks to test their vehicles' capailities, if only we'd known it was so easy!

i have an advanced driving qualification and have been trained to test vehicles to the limit (in a controlled environment with all the risk assesment that goes with it) does that give me the right to break the speed limit (enormously!) so long as i do it safely?

(rhetorical rant)

Hmmm... As a retired professional racing driver, I reckon I should be OK for about 200 on the motorway on that basis..

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"Politicians are the same the world over... We build bridges where there aren't any rivers." - Nikita Kruschev

You can argue until the cows come home about the safety or not of 159mph on a Motorway. You can also debate whether Police officers need to learn about the characteristics of their cars on the public highway.

However what I cannot see is what you can learn in a 30mph that you can't learn in a 60mph zone.

i.e. if he needed to learn about the 60mph behavour of his car do it in a derestrictied area (i.e. 60mph zone).

Simply no execuse is possible for 60 (or 80) in a 30 zone, none, zilch, absolutely zero.

And don't forget 15th July 2003 two bikers where jailed for less, and there was no mention of dangerous driving - they admitted to dangerous driving but the danger was 'driving at 157mph'!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/west ... 068731.stm

problem is even on a deserted road i can only think of a few occasions where it would be 'safe'.

i assume the car in question had uprated brakes & suitably rated tyres, even so i'd want to examine them pretty closely before trying 120+ on them.

its a fair point made about practise, training & procedures tho'.
we have to by law have a procedure & a risk assesment for every activity we undertake, the pole-ice should be no different, if they don't someone should be lightly battered with the soft cushions.

Don't get me going about why bikers go to jail for grossly excessive speed on the public highway when the principal danger is to themselves whereas car drivers just get a ban for a similar offence. Must be the view that Joe Public has of bikers being anti-social? Perhaps locking them up is seen as being for their own good?

In my past I have set up a few emergency roadworks in the middle of the night, and sat in the middle of the road fixing the fault. I usually signed and gaurded that site for 20-30mph above the speed limit.
If I was working on a 30 mph residential street why would I expect someone to approach at 81mph?

The road signs my employer provides are not designed to be seen at 81 mph. If we are to work on a national speed limit road we call out LUX to do the signing and gaurding under contract using larger signs and cones, and more of them. We put in a safety zone between us and the traffic as per the streetworks gaurding manual.

Not to mention this was three weeks before christmas and i might have been stagering home from my christmas meal or getting out of my taxi slightly worse for wear.

Anton..

according to the Vauxhall website the car is fitted with R rated tyres good for 106 mph at that speed you need W Y or ZR rated tyres

I wonder what was fitted?

As is said - one law for one - but hasent someone said elsewhere that police on duty are exempt from speed limits - so his own force thought different ( definately ripping the lid off worm can) and then he was apparently sent back on a refresher course --

On the technical side - some one mentioned tyres / brakes - what about visibility - 2 secs at 159 mph from my calculations is about 466 ft -
Was this day/night and if dark - what sort of lights give that sort of distance?

Highway code 105: Drive at a speed that will allow you to stop well within the distance you can see to be clear

There has been a lot of fuss about this, but little has been published about the Met Police driver who, during 'pursuit' training on the single-carriageway A10 a few years ago, crashed into the back of a line of stationery cars just around a long sweeping L.H. bend and killed a young nurse on her way home from work at 14-00 hours. His estimated speed prior to the crash was c. 110 MPH. Daytime, lots of traffic and a speed 50 mph over the limit.
No action was taken against the driver or the instructor, despite it being a fatal.
The guy we are discussing in this thread killed no-one.

Have said before on the other thread on this - there is a need to get the feel of how our cars handle - and there can be nothing worse than being in the middle of a live call and find the car has a problem which you have to compensate for.

We can mock up as much as we like - but we still end up pursuing scrotes through built up areas - and we have to be prepared for this - hence his "alleged test" here. We are not allowed to break the speed limit to test a car on a public road without authorisation - and this officer must have been able to show some evidence of this.

We have videos, black boxes and so on in most of these car now. We have to explain any deviances and must be able to show a genuine reason for the speed. It's accountablity.

West Mercia have now issued guidelines which say that unauthorised tests are not allowed and that speed limits have to adhered to - unless a live and genuine call . Standard policy here.

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Take with a chuckle or a grain of salt
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Approach love and cooking with reckless abandon - but driving with a smile and a COAST calm mind.

Yes, that's what I figured, i.e. that he went out on his 'test run' vaguely authorised in some manner that couldn't be proven otherwise in court.
Had 27 years of this kind of thing the forces..i.e. someone screws up but the orders aren't sufficently tight to nail him/her. So we tighten down the orders until we've got books full of the bloody things.