Safe Speed Forums

I'm surprised more hasn't been said about this.

On another thread, a report was posted about a man who was (rightly IMO) convicted of careless driving after he ran over a child in a car park, who sadly died.

However, the judge purported that he reached that verdict largely on the grounds that the driver was doing 8mph in a '5mph zone', rather than because his driving was actually poor.

This seems to me one of the oddest, most ignorant comments I have heard from a judge, and that is against some pretty serious competition.

To start with, it wasn't a 5mph zone. It was a 30mph zone. Speed limits under 20mph can not be used without special permission from the secretary of state, and it is doubtful that the signage was prescribed anyway. SO what we have is a driver driving WELL WITHIN the legal speed limit, but still causing a fatal collision. Yet STILL someone manages to find a way to blame exceeding the speed limit, like a broken record.

Secondly, no one in real life drives a car round a car park at 5mph if the way ahead is clear. 5mph is just barely above walking pace and is VERY slow. I tried it the other day, in a car park with a 5mph sign. I wish I could have recorded the reactions I got.

*Women I passed looked at me increduously, probably thinking I was perving at them. I didn't try it near people with children as I would have been worried about the possible implications.

* My passenger asked me 'What the hell are you doing?' and 'Come on , stop messing about now. Drive properly'

*People waiting to pull out in front of me started to seethe with impatience because I was obstructing them.

I very quickly had to give it up and speed up to avoid a road rage incident. Conclusion: it's just not possible to drive a car at 5mph unless an immediate obstruction provides a reason to. A sign saying 5 is not a good enough reason.

Going back to the original point, I think the verdict in the court case was probably correct, but I can't understand how the judge could try to blame speeding.

If it is on private land, then a speed limit is unenforceable. SoS would have no say whatsoever.

Incidentally, who recorded the speed of the driver at 8mph?

As was pointed out on another thread, most cars do not even have 5mph marked on the speedo - mine doesn't: the first indication is at 10mph with only 2 mm movement between stationary and this point, 10 to 20 and all other 10mph gaps are around 15mm of movement of the tip of the needle.

If a driver has no reference available then it is impossible to maintain that speed. In the case of my car (and many others) 8mph and 5 mph are identical needle positions.

It's not going to do your clutch any favours either..!

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

Plus regulations only stipulate the speedo accuracy for speeds above 25mph

can a manual car even do 5mph without riding the clutch?

We don't know!

I would guess that tickover in first will be close, but not very responsive.

Downhill, in neutral, with a foot on the brake it can...

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-mike[F]
Caught in the rush of the crowd, lost in a wall of sound..

No idea, but my bike does 12mph (digital speedo) at idle in first gear. It will stall at around 9mph. It's not really designed to do 5mph, I guess.

I think that the judge's distinction between 5mph and 8mph would be hilarious if it weren't for the outcome. How the hell do they know he was doing 8mph anyway?

Out of curiousity I just rolled down our street at 8mph and grabbed a handful of front brake. The result was a black smear about 12 inches long and I didn't even come close to bottoming out the front suspension - I doubt a car would be any different. I also noted that when I rode back up the driveway and into the garage I was doing 10mph - truly reckless.

Thouight that was in excess of 10mph?????
Construction and use 1986 does mention 25, but as a max speed for the vehicle

our auto vectra at work does pretty much 5mph creeping in drive with no throttle.
(i know cos i had to do some test runs at 5mph... nearly died of boredom)

My auto Subaru Legacy creeps much faster that, probably more like 10.

Diesels pull even more IIRC

5mph signs in carparks are stupid signs put up by stupid people who have no conception about traffic management. They are also never enforced except in company carparks so that if you manage to piss off the jobsworth car park attendent without actually infringing on one of the petty little rules he is paid to enforce, he can do you for speeding and (threaten to) ban you from the company car park.

When that came about, it put an end to our sport of out-pedanting the horrible little hitler* who patrolled our works car park.

* he even had the moustache.

I was once signalled at by a moustache-wearing car park attendant who, I believe, wanted me to slow down. I was on my motorbike at the time and was certainly doing less than 10mph - my speedo doesn't register speeds below that. I was riding as far away as I could from the parked vehicles around me and was doing, IMO, all I could to maximise my safety zone.

Stereotyping of bikers? Certainly. The shopping centre in question has 6500 parking spaces but none of them are for motorcycles. When the centre first opened I asked where the bike parking spaces were and was directed to the bicycle park

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Less Kodak, more Kojak.
In times of deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.

Parking spaces for bikes? What that then? Mine usually gets *pushed* ( honest ) to the cycle parking rack at the start of the pedestrian area in town and parked there. Either that or somewhere its not in the way in the pavement. At least that way some muppet in a 4x4 can't miss it and run it over...

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Science won over religion when they started installing lightning rods on churches.

What if a trafpol had been watching you drive at 5mph? You would've probably been pulled over and breathalysed. The motorist just can't win.

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Anyone who tells you that nothing is impossible has never bathed in a saucer of water.