It's a fair cop, 'guv

[crr003]

Add to this a high percentage of my total driving in areas I'm not familiar with....and you have an unreasonable amount of my driving effort spent trying to stay legal, looking for every single clue as to what the speed limit "may" be.

Careful Nigel.
You could be the poster boy for the GPS speed control system.
"Not sure of the speed limit? - let the Government help you here! For a one off installation fee of £199 and a monthly charge of £45 (Sky get a away with it), we'll fit a small black box in your car that will mean you never need to worry about speed limits ever again! The Government will do it all for you!"

"And we're going to be bringing in a great new food product. It's called Soylent Green...........get a free box when you sign up for speed control!"

[Big Err]

Once upon a time it was all fairly simple, but not now with the advent of DfT 'advice' with the political pressure to enforce this 'advice' - a little document with something to do with setting rural speed limits.

We are going to see in some places speed limits jumping up and down every other mile on rural roads. Which will require thousands of signs whose maintenance of will not be sustainable in existing roads authority budgets (except for the Trunk Roads withs their annual budget bonanza!).

Funnily enough the advice is to set a speed limit at the speed most drivers will be driving at anyway.... So why bother?

Eric

[nuster100]

Not forgetting, there will always be someone with nothing better to do standing behind a hedge with a laser gun. Or maybe a white van with a camera stuck out the back.

Jay

[Big Err]

Not forgetting, there will always be someone with nothing better to do standing behind a hedge with a laser gun. Or maybe a white van with a camera stuck out the back.

Jay

Yeah! Should be out catching drug dealers and stuff eh.



Sorry, just having a de ja vu moment.

[nuster100]

I know its an old saying always repeated by speeders. But does the A303 really need all of those cameras + People in vans with laser guns?

This issue has really got my back up now after Saturday. Its a waste of money. We need to educate, not impose limits and sanctions every 200 yards.

I am also interested to see what will win out if i get a NIP, (laser gun v GPS)

Jay

[Big Err]

I know its an old saying always repeated by speeders. But does the A303 really need all of those cameras + People in vans with laser guns?

What's the issue with the A303? Crash history or world land speed record attempts?

This issue has really got my back up now after Saturday.

A story?

Its a waste of money. We need to educate, not impose limits and sanctions every 200 yards.

I agree, in the perfect world I guess that would be the way.

I am also interested to see what will win out if i get a NIP, (laser gun v GPS)

This does sound interesting. I've not been aware of GPS being used as evidence in court regarding a speeding offence (I presume this is where it is leading). Where do the calibration certificates and testing log get kept?

Eric.

[nuster100]

It boiled down to the fact I think I may have been done on Saturday... TWICE

Both times by a guy with a laser gun.

I was running on what my GPS told me my speed was (68mph) not me speedo (80mph). I am curious to see if in court which would win out as according to my GPS I wasn't speeding.

It is interesting to see the carnage someone by the side of the road creates when a large quantity of fast moving vehicles all slam on the brakes.

Jay

[Mick Annick]

Back to the signage debate, what about us trade plate drivers who usually arrive at the collection point by public transport to get a vehicle - without signage we can't always tell the limit, as I couldn't when I emerged from the tube in London last week.

Mick

[7db]

Mick, there are always clues.

[Big Err]

It boiled down to the fact I think I may have been done on Saturday... TWICE

Both times by a guy with a laser gun.

The same guy twice?

I was running on what my GPS told me my speed was (68mph) not me speedo (80mph). I am curious to see if in court which would win out as according to my GPS I wasn't speeding.

What was the speed limit of the road you were on?

It is interesting to see the carnage someone by the side of the road creates when a large quantity of fast moving vehicles all slam on the brakes.

Travelling too closely together too then?

[PeteG]

I was running on what my GPS told me my speed was (68mph) not me speedo (80mph). I am curious to see if in court which would win out as according to my GPS I wasn't speeding.

What was the speed limit of the road you were on?

I'd guess 70, since he says he wasn't speeding, rather than he was on the prosecution guideline.

It is interesting to see the carnage someone by the side of the road creates when a large quantity of fast moving vehicles all slam on the brakes.

Travelling too closely together too then?[/quote]

Not necessarily. I was up tha A1 the other week, moderate amounts of traffic, lane 1 was at about 65, lane 2 was flowing with cars doing about 80-90 indicated.
As we rounded a bend, my initial scan picked up a white van on the bridge ahead. After a mirror check and a throttle lift, then moved into lane 2 of the new 3. As we got closer to the bridge, more and more people were slamming the anchors on, so where the traffic was flowing perfectly well, everyone neded up bunched together. Don't know if it was a speed or ANPR van, it makes no difference when people see it and react with a jab on the anchors.

[hardboiled]

If you think that the great majority are capable of ascertaining a 30mph speed limit by the presence of street lamps then I think that you are massively overestimating their capabilities and/or knowledge.

They read roadsigns, sometimes, then they either choose to obey them or normally ignore them and go at the speed that they feel most comfortable with at the time be it higher or lower than the limit.

The things you are talking about must be considered simple knowledge & tasks which all careful competent drivers should be able to do.

Where they choose to ignore or simply fall short of the standard expected through ignorance of the limit, they leave themselves open to & should not be surprised if the receive sanction.

I agree all careful competent drivers should be able to work it out but the fact that most of them can't tells me that they aren't all that careful or competent. Also agree that lack of knowledge is no defence.

[Nigel]

Lack of knowledge is no defence, but lack of signage seems perfectly ok.

[SammyTheSnake]

Lack of knowledge is no defence, but lack of signage seems perfectly ok.

I'm fairly sure that the actual phrase is "ignorance of the law is no defense" That is you can be exonerated of an offense because you were ignorant that you were doing the thing you knew well to be an offense, and not through negligence / willful ignorance / falling below the standard expected of a careful & competent driver.

E.g. I see a piece of cheese wire on the ground and pick it up, wondering what it's doing in my back garden. It turns out it's tied to an incendiary device and was set as a booby trap by my slightly unhinged neighbour who has some unspecified grudge with his wife. Wife gets incinerated and I precipitated her death by my actions. I am not guilty of murder, despite having killed Mrs Psycho through my actions. It is the ignorance of the consequences of my actions that saves me, not any possible ignorance of the laws regarding homicide.

Also, I'm fairly sure there's no requirement for speed limits to be posted on both sides of the road. If there is such a requirement, I should report half a dozen insufficiently signed speed limits near here...

I have a bit of a dilemma regarding where to put speed limit changes, though. A great example is the A444 through north / east Coventry. It's 50mph most of the way but drops down to a fairly sane 30mph for most of the roundabouts. Some of them have the signs right at the cusp of the junction - easy to miss when you're (reasonably!) watching the road / junction / traffic. Some are set about 30 yards away from the junctions and are almost unanimously ignored both onto and off the roundabouts. I think the latter probably poses more hazards, but I can think of half a dozen junctions I've driven dozens of times before I feel I know the road enough to actually seek out and find the signs posting the new speed limit. Only local knowledge (i.e. knowing that the speed limit goes from 30 to 40 at this junction when going the other way) saves me from breaking the speed limit pretty much every time I cross those junctions. The perfect example of that is "dysfunction junction" on the A45 which is a giratory connecting a supermarket, two residential streets, a dual carriageway and an industrial park, and containing blockbuster, KFC, a pub, McD's etc. a *very* busy junction with lots of traffic, lots of lanes, lots of traffic lights, and two speed limits. Put the 30 zone a little further away and save some hassle, eh?

Cheers & God bless
Sam "SammyTheSnake" Penny

[PeteG]

There's one in Hartlepool, it was until recently most sensible - NSL, then drops to 50, then to 40, then to 30, as the density of hazards, and their distance from the main road, increases. It used to be 40 until you reached the first roundabout of the town centre good and proper. Thus, on the way out, you'd come off the roundabout, up to 40mph.
Now, they've moved the limit change up the road by about 250yds - I'm not sure why - so you now end up slowing to 30, then slowing again for the roundabout. Then, coming out, when you've known it to be 40 coming off the roundabout for years, it's suddenly 30 for a straight stretch, then up to 40.
There's a junction to an industrial estate on one side, which only exits one way... and there's a pedestrian corssing across the road, which IIRC falls just inside the boundary. I'm wondering if there's been either someone running the red light and into a ped, or a ped going across before the green man, that's influenced it. Neither of which are affected by a speed limit, unless you want to be picking people up in a slightly smaller number of pieces.

I now use the road very infrequently, I'm not sure if the talivan has been set up there at all... I dread to think how many regulars have been caught if it does get set up.