Safe Speed Forums

Folks,

We are just back from a driving holiday in Cornwall. It was a nice break but somewhat ruined by the roads being festooned with speed 'signage' and infested with speedcams. To pick up all the signage concerning vehicle speed I think a person would need a PhD in reading while driving. It is not just signage by the road but a whole array of tarmac graphics which demands our attention.

The road angel was rarely silent in and around Plymouth, but the good news is that it picked up every one of the yellow tax boxes. During the holiday we passed fixed cams, red light cams, mobile checks, average speed cams and even a full scale vehicle checking operation just outside Truro. What a nightmare. Sometimes there were two cams close together to catch the unwary driver speeding up after the first one and I also noticed cams placed after a tight bend or over the brow of a hill. The road angel is extremely useful in these cases as it gives warning when no cam is visible. Now I have a couple of weeks to wait to be sure that I wasn't caught by a sneaky mobile that we might have missed.

We were able to find a small part of Cornwall, about 15 miles square which had escaped the attentions of the speed control industry and we were able to drive normally for a while. It was so refreshing to enjoy that nostalgic experience after all the robotic driving that is imposed upon us along the main routes. For a short while I thought I was back in the real world!

I won't say where the good driving was in case there is a snitch reading this post.

Happy holidays.

C.

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More rules and regulations please! (Not)

Thanks for the warrning. I was thinking of spending a week in the St Ives /Penzance area during June.

As in Wales, the camera mafia seem determined to nail the coffin of the tourism business, so as my intention was a relaxing holiday I'll get a cheap fight out of the UK instead - and better weather to boot!

Johnny,

A couple of years back we flew to Malaga, hired an open top car and drove over the mountains to Cadiz. It was, without exception, the very best long drive I have enjoyed. Do it out of season and there is still good weather, great roads and hardly any traffic.

Bloody Brilliant.

C.

PS - Another good one is down through Northern France on the payage, especially at night. A great drive, and plenty to see around Rouen and Honfleur, or go further to St Nazaire. A drive we haven't done yet is the Atlantic coast above Biarritz. From the literature it looks like a good low season drive, but not high season as it is a popular camping coast with the French.

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More rules and regulations please! (Not)

May I suggest going by train to take a holiday from all the grief of driving? Having gone by both train car and plane I can tell you that getting the train is by far the most pleasant way down. There are even sleeper trains to Penzance that should be cheaper than travel + a hotel for an night?

The St Ives branch is a beautiful line and the connection at St Erth between all the trains is about 3 minutes. Plus you have no parking worries!

What's happened to MY country?

St Austell, my birthplace

Cornwall, my love

UK,

The only time I feel free is when I'm abroad!

These are sad times indeed...

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The views expressed in this post are personal opinions and do not necessarily represent the views of Safe Speed.
You will be branded a threat to society by going over a speed limit where it is safe to do so, and suffer the consequences of your actions in a way criminals do not, more so than someone who is a real threat to our society.

Now Big Tone - you're getting a tad emotional here are you ?

When I nipped into Devon recently I was very pleased to NOT see too many cameras. It is so sad to hear of so much non-sense - when will the government learn.

Thinking of the South generaly -there should be a quote from me in the Brighton Argos tomorrow ...

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Safe Speed for Intelligent Road Safety through proper research, experience & guidance.

This one ?

ARGUS



Or the comments:

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The world runs on oil, period. No other substance can compete when it comes to energy density, flexibility, ease of handling, ease of transportation. If oil didn’t exist we would have to invent it.”

56 years after it was decided it was needed, the Bedford Bypass is nearing completion. The last single carriageway length of it.We have the most photogenic mayor though, always being photographed doing nothing

Thanks for the suggestions, Cooler. I'm planning on driving down the west coast of France in September, probably towards MImizan, north of Barritz. Did the Cap Ferret area west of Bordeaux and the Dordogne last year and it was excellent, especially as the crowds had disappeared by then. I love driving through France as the roads are clearer and while there are now speed cameras and police checks, the 130kph (80mph) limit on the péage in dry weather is far more respectable than the UK 70mph limit set by Barbara Castle when we all drove Morris Minors, Hillman Imps and Triumph Heralds.

While people in the UK berate the standard of French driving, I feel that we have now sunk below their driving standards due to the robotic adherance we are expected to follow towards a whole myriad of nanny state diktats as well as the loss of road space and contentious layouts. Discretion, personal judgement and more importantly common courtesy have gone out of the window, so the law of the jungle now persist here. Having spent 2 weeks driving around the highways and byways of France, the M20/M25 and the middle lane hoggers certainly come as rather a shock to the system!

As for catching the train to Cornwall - it's a good idea but I don't fancy spending most of the stay worrying about public transport timetables in order to tour around if the weather isn't so good.

I'm still the drama queen Claire

What bugs me is there's no going back. Even if there is a relaxing of laws or modicum of common sense injected from them, I can't see a day when they will physically start pulling the scameras up. Not without replacing it with something equally ridiculous at least.

Nice tips on France BTW Cooler

I intend to go back this year and on down over the The Millau bridge Looks great but I've read you can't stop on it I hope my fear of heights doesn't make me do a wobbler half way across

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The views expressed in this post are personal opinions and do not necessarily represent the views of Safe Speed.
You will be branded a threat to society by going over a speed limit where it is safe to do so, and suffer the consequences of your actions in a way criminals do not, more so than someone who is a real threat to our society.

Cooler, you're right Plymouth (and Exeter) are well covered by cameras as are the main routes, the trick is to get onto the back roads. There are some excellent drivers roads, the main problem particularly in Cornwall is seeing far enough up the road to safely progress

I assume the average speed camera was the one in the Saltash tunnel (I am not aware of any others in Devon or Cornwall), this is not used for enforcement, fortunatley the pratnership cannot get premission as there have been no serious accidents since it opened. It started with a 50 limit, this was dropped to 40, now to 30 and now a large number of drivers exceed this ludicrously low limit

You would have to be unlucky to get caught by a mobile camera as Devon & Cornwall pratnership only have I think 4 vans, but tend to cover the main tourist routes

Devon and Cornwall have some great driving roads outside large towns and main roads, you just need local knowledge of where to go.

Marc,

Yes, it was Saltash. Agreed about the main tourist routes. Like the rest of the country the cams are on roads which will give the highest ticket revenue from motorists.

We found some excellent driving roads, both B roads and wider unclassified. A B road or unclassified road which is still wide enough to have a white line is IMO the best we have for normal driving. It also helps if the car isn't too wide.

C.

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More rules and regulations please! (Not)

Maybe its just because I am used to scamera infested south yorkshire that I find Cornwall a pleasure to drive in.
Very few cameras compared to where I live ( Sheffield ) and some cracking roads that can be enjoyed without
developing a twitch looking out for scamera vans. I'm discounting Plymouth because its in Devon of course.

Hi Guys, I live in Cornwall and no it is not infested with cams (yet) and as soon as you get off either the A30 or the A38 you're pretty much FREE!
Would it be this part of Cornwall you were enjoying? Here's a video of myself and a colleague out and about.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uCRnoYtpxBM

I think you will find areas where there aren't any scameras in every county and Camwall is no exception. It's a Government intitiative after all. Birmingcam and The West Midcams is hopeless - gorged with them - but you can still find some great driving roads.

I travel a lot and have two Sat Navs, (for car and motorbike), both with Sa£ety camera alerts. Wherever I go I hear about the same amount of 'woop woop' on common roads, which indicates not only what's ahead in my direction but also the side roads I pass.

There are less in very rural areas, (what's left in of them in GB 2008), but then - where there are less people there is less revenue to be made.

So IMHO that sums it all up but I'm all ears if someone has a different take

Oh - and panny

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The views expressed in this post are personal opinions and do not necessarily represent the views of Safe Speed.
You will be branded a threat to society by going over a speed limit where it is safe to do so, and suffer the consequences of your actions in a way criminals do not, more so than someone who is a real threat to our society.

Thanks for the welcome Big Tone!

Cornwall has only got 10 fixed Gatso boxes, mostly empty, five of them in Landrake, (a tiny village) and 1 SPECS system.

Mobile camera sites seem to be either on the A38 between Plymouth (their depot is in Plymouth) and Liskeard or in two other spots where A roads go straight through villages and no one does 30.

I commute every day from Callington (by Plymouth) to Truro and whether I go the A30 way or the A38 way, I don't pass a single camera. That's a daily commute of 108 or 112 miles depending on which way I turn out of my drive in the morning.

Hundreds of miles of camera free roads. Bliss.

When I visited the Eden Project, I had occasion to drive through Par near St Austell. I can't remember the exact road but one street had 4 cameras in close successsion on a hilly road in a 30mph limit. This seems to go against the "10 in the county" claim.

Any comment from local residents in St Austell?

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Malcolm W.
The views expressed in this post are personal opinions and do not represent the views of Safespeed.

That's the last time I tally up all the cameras in an area mentally...completely forgot about St Blazey. It's got a fair few camera boxes. Doh!

Probably 15 gatso boxes in total, the number of cameras however, that's a different matter.