Safe Speed Forums

Please have the good grace to admit that you cannot name another law that requires constant vigilance for mere compliance.

And when you have done that, you can try and name another law where the behaviour of normal responsible member of society might normally expect to work precisely on the margin of non-compliance in good conditions. (e.g. on a motorway in good conditions one might expect to drive at 70mph - clearly on the edge of non-compliance at all times.)

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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

Isn't it odd that you are so particular about the details of the legal distinctions between duty, law blah blah blah! Yet you when I ask you obey the law, you diminish it's importance! Pfhh.

People have legal duties to be constantly vigilant in many areas of life, and many examples exist. Please stop twisting and turning on this. Speed limits are just another responsibility, as you would well know if you have ever operated a large milling machine, a spinning line in a yarn factory, a boiler in a power station or a conveyor belt in a bale handling system. It’s splitting hairs to say anything else. So let’s quit that – you are in a dead end.

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Are you going bonkers? I've given you the links. Explain yourself, or pipe down!

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I’ve stripped away the BS to get the nub of the matter. There are plenty of these as well. Trespass is the first that comes to mind. Whenever you use a pavement, you are working on the margin of non-compliance, so no luck, old chum. The unique property of speeding is getting away again. Now for some more. Payment. Whenever you pay for an article, you give the exact change, which means you are on the threshold of a small degree of theft. Again, that uniqueness that you perceived does not exist. There are more example, but I won’t put you through anymore.

Now, please have the good grace to acknowledge that the speed laws are not the only ones where people normally work on the margin of non-compliance. Pretty please?

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Basingwerk, you are obviously an intelligent man but you do seem to have got bogged down in unnecessary detail.

I notice you fail to address any of the points I made a couple of pages back about the bigger, and rather more disturbing, question of the law losing credibility under the sheer weight of new legislation.

You may like to consider this along with various quotes below (lifted from the ABD site). Do they count for nothing?

“They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.”
Benjamin Franklin.

“Laws do not persuade just because they threaten.”
Lucius Annaeus Seneca, c. 4BC - 65AD.

“The strictest law sometimes becomes the severest injustice.”
Publius Terentius Afer

“You must recognize that some things that are legally right are not morally right.”
Abraham Lincoln

“The best way to get a bad law repealed is to enforce it strictly.”
Abraham Lincoln

“One of the greatest delusions in the world is the hope that the evils in this world are to be cured by legislation.”
Thomas B. Reed 1886 (Speaker of the House of Representatives).

“If you have ten thousand regulations, you destroy all respect for the law.”
Winston Churchill, 1931

“Just as it is the duty of all men to obey just laws, so it is the duty of all men to disobey unjust laws.”
Martin Luther King Jr.

"The human race divides politically into those who want people to be controlled and those who have no such desire.”
Robert A Heinlein

Yes, I was capable once, but I’ve been struck down in my prime by an irrational anger against speeders! I don’t mind the once who ‘fess up and slow down a bit to set a good example, but I’m not impressed by the ones who use convoluted arguments about how ‘unique’ the law on speeding is. I think it’s just a trick they hide behind.



Sorry about that PaulAH.



Yeah, but look at the state America is in now!



Yeah, but ones that don’t threaten anyone do not persuade either!



He sounds like one of Lucius Annaeus Seneca’s gang of softies!



I wonder if he thought it is was morally or legally right when he got plugged?



My thoughts exactly – perhaps he wasn’t so bad after all.



Sounds like a libertarian to me! I expect he could afford to be one.



Was he drunk or sober at the time?




He was talking about segregation, not speeding!



I guess that’s one way to divide them. Another way is to say the human race divides politically into those who are slobs, and those who have no such desire


PS: great quotes - is this your hobby?

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On second thoughts, that was very OTT. Sorry. It's those welsh genes again. I have named another law that require constant vigilance for mere compliance, although it is parameterised, i.e. negligence depends on context. The safety laws are there, in context, but not quite as specific as you want.

Now, that does bring us to the real unique point about the "speed safety" laws. Driving is about the only thing most people do each day where the slightest error could kill loads of others! That is the unique thing you want, so specific laws have been written up because of this unique attribute of driving. Other laws in a similar class exist, as my points show, but the risk (and therefore the legal response) is less.

There, you have my answer. Now tell me - how will drivers know whether they are liable to be done for speeding, in your brave new world?

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When they are driving in an unsafe manner.
They are then liable to be apprehended by a police officer and processed in the correct, appropriate and safest (regarding road safety) manner.

Excellent answer. I’m not saying that coppers aren’t needed – we need as many as we can get, and we need to raise very heavy taxes on all motorists to get the coppers on the roads to prosecute bad drivers. But in the meantime, until the funds arrive, surely we can get with the programme, slow down a bit, drive calmly and without breaking the law? If we did that, we might not need quite so many cops, and we might not need to pay so much tax?

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I agree with your vision but speed cameras do not make people drive within the law except over a period of 100 or so yards, this is proven by the millions of fines that have been issued and the fact that the vast majority of the driving population still admit to speeding.

At least you now acknowledge that your stance is irrational.

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Only when ideology, prejudice and dogma are set aside does the truth emerge - Kepler

Persons are complex systems, with large variations in ability and skill. Yet the road system must support all of them. You are entitled to your views, but it is not the prevailing one. Report after report shows that lives are saved. It is better to light a small candle than to curse the darkness, so I for one am driving within the limit, and I'd appreciate a little support over here!

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I'm not sure pub grumbles present a particularily balanced or useful metric for measuring the benefits (or lack of) of something.



Surely the purpose of the law is to define what constitutes breaking valuable social norms, or causes harm to others?

Basingwerk, I have increasing admiration for your ability to stay calm in the face of all this crossfire. You are a splendid fellow who is a credit to internet forums. But what is the reason for your "irrational anger against speedsters"?

It's worth noting that (unless it's just me), a lot of people would obey speed limits if they were rationally determined, rather than pulled out of a hat, then halved and rounded down to the nearest 10mph.

Certainly, I used to be a lot more law abiding than I am now, but whenever I drive somewhere the limit has been recently slashed to well below the design/natural speed for the road, I become a little less respectful for the posted limit.

In short, if the limits were broadly consistent and justifiable, I would retain the habit of broadly respecting them.

I agree it's superficially a trivial metric. I've really used it as a shorthand argument. But you might agree that social concern, expressed by ordinary people in pubs, is a genuine measure of 'social stress'.



That's the purpose. And since driving at 71mph (or 80mph) on a motorway does not break social norms (let alone valuable social norms) clearly the law has drifted out of line with its purpose.

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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

There's a detailled answer on the link I gave earlier: http://www.safespeed.org.uk/speeding.html but it's very closely aligned with the answer that Supertramp gave.

Responsible motorists should have nothing to fear from the law. And equally:

The competent and careful actions of a majority of responsible people should obviously be considered legal

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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

By speed cameras? Is that what you mean?

But NOT ONE of those reports has considered speed camera side effects. If they were a drug they simply wouldn't be permitted (except perhaps in licenced trials) on available data.

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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

Ummm, I suspect it may be!

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Pecunia Prius Equitas et Salus

So you want to reduce the accident risk of the few who are low down on the scales of ability and skill.
Very noble and worthy.
But what if, as we believe, that comes at the expense of increasing the risk for the majority?

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Only when ideology, prejudice and dogma are set aside does the truth emerge - Kepler