Safe Speed Forums

I think someone did this before but I've been thinking

I drive about 40k miles a year and estimate that in a given week I estimate that I pass 20 cameras or vans etc etc

That is 1040 opportunities to get flashed in one year

or 3120 chances in the three year totting up period.

This means that

I have to not stray over the limit 99.615% of the time not to lose my licence in a year

99.872% of the time not to lose my licence full stop (three year period)

and

99.904% of the time not to get a conviction in a year (or three in three years)

Think about those figures long and hard. Unless I am spot on 99.6% of the time I will lose my driving licence in one year! That means that if I exceed the limit more that once in 200 times I will lose my licence IN A YEAR

If I exceed the limit more than ONCE in a THOUSAND opportunities I will lose my licence over the totting up period.

I will now do some research on tolerances and accuracy but can anyone else find out what analogies can be drawn?

basically you're if you drive

sorry, not an analogy

Your figures are frightening but not as bad as you might think. There are other ways of looking at it.

20 cameras a week is about 1 every 38 miles. Each camera accounts for say 100yds of road space including slowing down room. So you are in the danger zone for 2,000yds out of every 66,880 or a percentage of 0.03% of distance travelled.

If it takes 15 seconds to pass a camera then you are in the danger zone for a very small percentage of your driving time. 1333 hours (average 30mph) driving and only 15 seconds each camera means you are at risk for an infitesimally small amount of time.

A camera detector reduces the risk considerable as does familiarity with the road.

Does that make sense or am I just proving anything with stastitics.

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Shooting is good for you and too good for some people.

You could be a scammer.

I'm not sure which one is correct.

I think my stats relate to incidents, there will be that number of incidents where I will be tested for my adherence to the speed limit.

The pass rate - assuming you want a clean licence is 99.9%

Who said exams were dumbing down??

Go and wash your mouth out with soap and water.

I was trying to cheer you up.

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Shooting is good for you and too good for some people.

Was leg pulling!

Its truely awful

I've got 6 points - pretty lightly contested

Basically I'm buggered!

So those stats are actually even worse for me now 2 incidents out of 2 years worth of driving is 99.9% error free to keep my licence 1 in 1000 error will see me lose it!

Now seriously that cannot be any way to govern a country

I hadn't realised I was showing a dubious image.

I am a member here because I enjoy the comaraderie against a common enemy. I find the posts very entertaining, thought provoking and enlightening.

Even with emoticons, which I try to use sparingly, you can still be misunderstood.

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Shooting is good for you and too good for some people.

Whatever you do, don't move to South Wales, then.

I don't drive nearly as much as you, but I'd say that on every day I go out and drive any appreciable distance (ie, >30 miles or an hour), I see at least one van. If I make the trip from here to London, I expect to see (or be seen by ) 3 or 4 vans between Pembroke and the Severn Crossing, PLUS the fixed cameras at the Port Talbot 50mph bit.

I'll see a couple on the motorway on the English side, sometimes. Naturally, it's only VERY rarely that I'll actually see a police car.

It's also telling that, for most of the last year, I've been doing a lot of driving from Pembroke to London and back. I now have 3 speeding tickets from the last 6 months, ALL of them from the Welsh police, and none from the English side, even though I don't drive any differently either side of the border.

I'd be quite intrigued to know what the difference in the statistical likelihood of people losing their licences in S Wales is, as opposed to elsewhere...

Not wanting to stick for the South Wales SCP in anyway shape or form, they are all parasites after all, but I can name a number of places in the UK that are far worse than South Wales. A recent trip to Norfolk and Suffolk left me paranoid about every move and Coventry is complete hell, to name two.

Perhaps it is familiarity of the roads and\or hiding places, but I also see a lot more traffic cars here than in many other places, although this may be down to my proximity to the Police Headquarters.

cheers

Paul

I wouldn't mind the traffic cars: two out of the three tickets I've had were where I KNOW I was speeding transiently - ie. for a few seconds at most, in one case just to overtake a couple of vans playing ducks-and-drakes at 60-80mph on the motorway. I seriously doubt that, if I'd been followed by a traffic car, they'd have even bothered. And I was far too busy assessing hazards on the road to be glancing all over the shop (as I've become accustomed to doing round here ) for vans.

I'm glad South Wales isn't the only place it's bad, though That saves me from being TOTALLY paranoid...

Nor me, sorry that was meant as a positive

There is a simple answer: don't speed. Don't drive aggressively. Start caring about all the other people on the road, and realise that you aren't the only person on the planet that matters.
I've never been caught by a speed camera, because I've never gone over the limit. I never will be caught by a speed camera, because I never speed. I've never been stopped by the police, and I doubt I ever will be. (Maybe for a broken tail light).

It must be just awful for you that we actually have speed limits in this country - imagine what a wonderful place it would be without them, and those wretched speed cameras!

Are you sure you've never gone over the speed limit?

Not even by a tiny, little, minute, momentary-lapse of concentration bit?

Are you really sure?

Could it be suggested someone is telling porkie-pies?

I'll leave the "don't speed" bullsh*t for others more experienced in that debate than I to address, but I want to take issue with your idea that speeding == driving aggressively, or for that matter not caring about all the other people on the road.

I speed (there, I've admitted it now!). I also *occasionally* drive aggressively, and it's something I'm addressing. But aggressive driving can happen in the absence of speed, just as speeding can be done without it being aggressive.

And if - like me - you've been driving, and, probably, speeding, for twenty years without ever having had an accident, then I would submit that in order to achieve that, you need to care A GREAT DEAL about all the other people on the road. It's a matter of great personal pride to me that, when I'm driving on the motorway, for example, my forward observation is sufficiently good that I know with some measure of certainty when someone is likely to need to pull out ahead of me and can move out myself or adjust my speed (generally downwards, in that case) to ensure that they have space to complete their manoeuvre safely.

I suspect that now I am going to have to start scrutinising my speedo considerably more slavishly than I have done up until now (9 points in 6 months does that to you), my opportunities for such courtesy and "caring for all the others on the road" are going to be considerably less. I shall become a little more like that irritating driver who cares only for observing the limit strictly, and gives not a damn where he is on the road, or what effect he might be having on the traffic flow around him.

I don’t know if I am being paranoid, but I do see more Scamera vans this side of the bridge than in England, And mainly on the Motorways.

A new site has appeared on a duel carriageway outside of Newport, I find it quite interesting to see all the traffic slowing down before this site, and back to a reasonable 85 after.

Everyone is aware this is a crooked scheme, ill thought out, and doomed to fail.

If it doesn’t fail, well, I’m off abroad to live.

Martin

I came to Wales for the love of a good woman! As it happens, I am in training to become a psychotherapist, and have discovered since I've arrived here that there is a desperate shortage of psychotherapists in this part of the world.

However, my partner has commented on more than one occasion that, having driven safely, and with one conviction, for 20 years, to suddenly rack up 3 in 6 months seems odd. Particularly since, while my studies continue, I'm driving to London most weeks, and have been doing nearly as much driving in England as in Wales, yet all my tickets have been IN Wales. Her view is that, if this is typical of the sort of welcome Wales can give, we might be better off leaving the area: that potentially leaves this part of the world minus TWO professionals in a field for which there is a desperate local shortage. For that matter, if I do get a 4th conviction - which, on current progress, seems likely - and I get banned, I am going to be in a very difficult position in a county where public transport provision is sufficiently poor as to be very likely to prevent me from practising or pursuing my studies any further.

I wonder to what extent the differential policing of speed limits is going to become responsible for other losses of key skills in particular parts of the country, and whether the vicious clampdown on drivers as a whole isn't likely to cause all kinds of economic difficulties. Someone told me yesterday that there are 1 million drivers in this country with 9 points on their licence. That's 1 million people, of whom a substantial proportion will need their licence to get to their work or perform their job. How many doctors have to lose their licences; how many fire officers, nurses, teachers (yes, and psychotherapists!) have to be unable to get to work before this begins to have a serious affect on the country's ability to operate? How many delivery drivers, couriers, gas engineers, motor mechanics or computer technicians can we afford to have stuck at home before it begins to bite? OK, it's probably not a problem to the same degree in the cities, but in rural areas, where what public transport there ever was has all but disappeared, there's no alternative to driving. I can see a situation arising where the government has to accept that it can't have its cake and eat it - they can screw motorists as hard as they want, but ultimately, they could end up overdoing it and costing themselves or the economy.

As I pointed out to you in another thread mosis - you do not know for certain.

I do know - based on a long time as a - that we tend to find those who claim they never speed are in fact 10 % +3 above...

You are new here - but I more or less followed a family tradition - and followed my Dad and older brother - joining after graduating with a decent degree in Maths and Physics. My yuounger borther and sister followed suit as well on their graduations with similar and we diod all the available cousres open to us .. and yeah - it was tough at times.

Look through the archives - I make no secret of being related to MM and Wildy The Swiss family has been though trauma of the kind you cannot begin to imagine - but emerged fighting injustice and campaigning for true safety across the board. Only some disliked their message of common sense as they hit raw nerves - and rode and drove it rough over " perceived sensitivities"





Again complacency - and yio claim to glance at the speedo every 10 secs.

I find this odd -

the only ones I know to be this concerned are those sitting on 9 points and I base this on my knowldege of behaviour and several career courses on human psychology Ian H also recounts an incident where the person was reported fdor observerving the 20 mph to the absolute letter - turned out he was on 9 points too,....


[b] besides - as I mentioned elsewhere - a truly comprtent driver can feel the speed - they know if they can stop int the distance they can see to be clear and they know to 2 mph variance the approximate speed at which they travel - and you claim to look at your speedo every 10 seconds... That sounds like "obsession with a limit" to me and not looking at the wider issue of the C O A ST /L O O K O U T requirements - the principles which keep us all safe



Paul does not say "abolish speed limits" He accepts they are necessary - but we are talkin about focssuing on one issue, auitomating it and not even considering all the elements which MEAN SAFETY!

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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.

Your inability to believe that anybody could actually drive within the speed limit speaks volumes. Do you find it so hard to stay aware of the speed you're driving at, and to look at road signs as you drive? They're there for a reason.
I've never had a 'momentary lapse of concentration' and gone over the speed limit. Unlike a lot of people, apparently, I'm fully aware whenever my car speeds up or slows down, even by a mile an hour, so if I've just checked my speedo, I know whether I'm going faster or slower before I check the speedo again (which is every ten seconds or less).

I seem to recall Ian H being detailed to pursue a driver who had been reported for driving while drunk or impaired.... Turned out to be an overly cautious driver, who was sticking to the limits!!
There is also the case of the camera which spotted somebody speeding - 40 in a 30 when in fact the PHOTOGRAPH proved he was only doing 18 mph!!

Presumably know you have never gone over the limit, because you looked at your speedo to assure yourself?
Then it's possibly only a matter of time before you hit something while you are looking.

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Time to take responsibility for our actions.. and don't be afraid of speaking out!

Well isn't that a surprise!
How do you think I somehow already knew that?

'Can', but not normally. People who speed are doing so because they are aggressive and uncaring. If I start firing a shotgun randomly in a busy shopping centre, I'm obviously not caring about the people around me. If I drive my car over the speed limit, the simple laws of physics mean that I have LESS time to react, will cause MORE damage to somebody if I hit them, and are MORE likely to have an accident that causes MORE damage to somebody than if I drive at the speed limit. Which part of that do you not understand?
And can you tell me why you should get to decide that the speed limits are too slow? Are the rest of us just supposed to trust your good judgement?

What sort of people do you think it is, that go around burning down speed cameras, vandalising them, spraypainting them, etc.? Nice people? Non-aggressive people? What sort of fool would drive too fast, get a ticket because of a speed camera, and then try to help themselves to continue to break the law and risk other people's lives by destroying speed cameras?


Another one who presumes that just because YOU speed, everybody else does. I don't speed, never have done, never will. Try leaving earlier...

So what? That's to be expected of any driver. Except that you, of course, SPEED on the motorway, whereas I do not. And people like you are the sort who plough into the back of a fifty car pile up. You don't think so? Never seen that footage of that massive pile up during the rain, with car after car hitting the cars in front, despite the fact that anybody who was actually awake and NOT speeding should have been able to stop easily...

Thanks for proving my point!
You can't even watch your speedo once every ten seconds, nor feel when you're accelerating...

Because you can't take in the information that the speedo shows you in the blink of an eye? Perhaps you need to go back to school. How long does it take for your mind to register whether the speedo is just over 30 or just under?
But it's nice of all you speeders to admit that you have so little ability to concentrate that you can't even check your speedo every ten seconds.
Seriously, is that the best argument you've got? "Let me continue speeding, or I'll run somebody over because I'm 'too busy' seeing if I'm speeding or not."
You're the second person here to mention it to me, but I don't buy it.


Nice strawman argument. It doesn't wash. I check my speedo constantly. It takes me about a tenth of a second. I know how fast I'm going before and after checking it, because I am aware of my car accellerating or decellerating. Are you?