Safe Speed Forums

What? Are you suggesting that it doesn't matter whether or not the public considers that laws are worthy of respect? Only that they comply?

Good grief man! Of course it matters. If the public doesn't respect the law the whole system is under threat.

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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

You’ve got hold of the wrong end of the stick. No individual ‘likes’ laws that work against them, but they put up with it because they can see that laws work ‘in the round’.

All I want to do is to encourage people to drive gently, and within the speed limit and respect each other. So, now, what is all this ‘Good grief man … the whole system is under threat’ stuff really about? Most good people can see the purpose speed limits serve in moderating traffic, even if they break them from time to time.

Even I can’t help it sometimes … my Toyota is far too powerful and it kinda sneaks up on me!

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Although we have rightly been concerned about the motivation behind this, it does need to be put into perspective a bit.

The numbers who will sign up will be fairly small, they will in general be lower mileage drivers anyway, and they will not in practice drive any differently to how they did before.

It won't make any difference in rush hours, or in dense urban areas, where most drivers are below the speed limit anyway, nor on dual carriageways and motorways where others can overtake.

The only situations where it will make a difference is on major single-carriageway urban roads of the "should be/used to be a 40" variety - and even there the pace car drivers will have been holding people up before.

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"Show me someone who says that they have never exceeded a speed limit, and I'll show you a liar, or a menace." (Austin Williams - Director, Transport Research Group)

Any views expressed in this post are personal opinions and may not represent the views of Safe Speed

Didn't there used to be some legislation (mainly aimed at tractors/slow wagons) where it was an offence not to pull over and let the gathering pass.
And it seems that some trafpols are not immune to pulling some of these elderly roadblocks over and suggesting that they drive a bit faster, though will it be politically correct to pull over a pace car?

Mind you a quick call with speed/reg /etc might get some action, especially if you get an incident number - no action after a few - grounds for a complaint.

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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

There are examples of that, but it would never happen if someone was driving at or near the speed limit.

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"Show me someone who says that they have never exceeded a speed limit, and I'll show you a liar, or a menace." (Austin Williams - Director, Transport Research Group)

Any views expressed in this post are personal opinions and may not represent the views of Safe Speed

Was thinking more of the 40's (used to be NSL, till camera put in) where if this lot are true to form 25-28 will be the speed, and not enough space to pass without getting a ticket.Certainly not if you're in a van.Round the residential areas they're probably going to be thinking that "not breaking limit - i'm safe" and going too fast anyway.Hopefully - these doing this will make a mockery of the scheme

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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

Basingwerk, you tell me why the best laws are specific and straightforward because you said

But laws are abused when they are not specific and straight forward

Therefore laws that are specific and straight forward are the best.

So I ask you again, given that the speed laws are specific and straightforward please tell me what primary metrics should we use to measure their success.

or have I misunderstood your post?

How have you drawn a line from “laws are abused when they are not specific” to “the best laws are specific”? Do you believe that only the good laws are never abused?!? I just don’t see the link, I’m sorry.



The latter, I think. Laws can certainly be highly specific, and less open to abuse. The metrics to measure the success of certain laws is far more difficult, and depends on what you mean by success. Everybody has a different opinion on that. One could argue that a law is successful (at one level at least) if it is easy to tell if a person has broken it (!) – the speed laws are like that.

But I suspect that is not what you mean. I expect you mean ‘are the laws good for us all’. Now that is more subjective. As far as I am concerned, the speed laws are successful if they slow down traffic in my neighbourhood. You may have a different view. Such disagreement is what politics is for, I should have thought. I always recommended people to work politically on the issue, and obey the law meanwhile. Otherwise, we may as well use the law of the jungle!

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Basingwerk,

you seem to think I am interested in the semantics of this, I'm not.

But. if laws are abused when they are not specific or straightforward then the implication is that they are not abused when they are. Assuming that the best laws are not abused then the best laws are specific and straightforward. This is the logic of you previous statement.

so vehicle speed is your metric to measure the success of the speeding laws? is this correct?

Why is that your critical success factor?

Yes, a law that is not straightforward is more open to a certain type of abuse. People cannot understand their responsibilities when laws are opaque. Law enforcers cannot easily determine the meaning of the law or when it has been broken. Straightforwardness is a good goal for law makers.



I don’t know what you are on about, there, mister. That is a poor assumption. Some good laws are broken the most.



Well, sort of. It is actually the reduction in speed, and the corresponding increase in safety, of course. I’m just doing my bit to wean everybody off the ‘Thumb in bum, mind in neutral’ style of driving by reminding them that the law serves this vital purpose that most good drivers fully understand, even if they do “stretch” the limits a bit from time to time.

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I'm afraid life is far to short for me to obbey laws that I can't see the point of.

BTW - whats this 'drive gently' bollox?

I'm seeing circles here.

Our current speed limits were intended to encourage traffic to drive at safe and sensible speeds for the road condition etc. They're far from perfect and fairly arbitrary, but so much of life is anyway.
Up until about 10 years ago the enforcement of these was done by the Bib, mainly in a reasonably commonsense manner.
Then cameras were introduced, and with them came a shift in policy and PR towards making 'speeding' appear to be the root of all evil. they're spending huge amounts of money on cutting the 'cause' of no more than 10% of accidents and , relatively speaking, ignoring the rest. Eve if the 'onethirdlie' was true, it would still be a disproportionate amount of money and effort.
Given that the laws are intended to make our roads safer, the gauge for their success is 'Are our roads safer as a result of the cameras?'

and the answer is NO.

the speed limit laws are fine; the current enforcement policies are the problem.
as Basingwerk said, he drives slowly and carefully and tries to keep within the limit as much as possible but strays over occasionally. so does my mum, and she now has 3 points on her licence. A Bib would not have pulled her over in the same circumstances. Many other people who drive similarly (carefully, safely, generally within the limit) and picking up points and fines that are completely unrelated to safety.

Until we return to more appropriate enforcement, getting a ticket will continue to be a matter more of luck than anything else.

It’s basically the opposite of the driving shown by Jeremy Clownson on Top Gear. It's about showing respect for other road users by taking a little more care and cutting them plenty of margin and keeping calm, cool and collected and driving like a gentleman would drive, rather than like a rough bastard.

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I’m sorry about that, but last time I checked, there were no clauses in the highway code that made exceptions just because they happen to be your Mum, stackmonkey - all Mums are created equal!

PS: what was she doing, by the way? 40 in the 30 zone?

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She was doing 34 in a 30, hardly the stuff of a 'speed maniac' and hence the comment that the Bib probably wouldn't have stopped her. I'm not claiming that she is exempt at all.

I agree with all that, but that doesn't mean the same as 'driving really slowly'. Driving really slowly often means you delay people, stop them from pulling out of junctions, and generally cause a nuisance.

Indeed. Basingwerk's 'gentleman' may on occasion drive with verve and panache.

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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

Don’t worry about that – I don’t think there is much chance of SafeSpeeders driving so slowly that they cause a nuisance, is there? But if we do get slowed up, there is most likely a reason, so we remember not to act like rough bastards.

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Ahh, so you DO recognise that good driving has to be described in qualitative rather than quantitative terms. Good.

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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

Each to his own. As a Neo-puritan, I’m not averse to doing things properly, but those words are too egotistic for me. Somehow “verve or panache” implies a public performance of a skill, rather than the skill itself, and we’ve quite enough show-offs already!

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