h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Was your last post on the speeding thread to me or someone else or general? Not sure so thought I'd ask

Well, I must admit that it was aimed mostly at you mate, since you appear to have been the most vociferous about being able to drive safely above the speed limit. Sorry if my tone came across as combative, but after having been a working driver for as long as I was, a cyclist since the age of 10, and a pedestrian since, well since I could walk, my respect for most drivers is almost non-existent, and especially for drivers who think know they better than the people who impose and enforce the laws of the road. Bad driving is a very sensitive subject for me, and I consider speeding to be bad driving.

I may well expose myself as a hypocrite here, but I'll take the chance of having my credibility in this discussion shot to pieces. For 12 years I delivered magazines through the night on one, two, or three nights each week. I started doing it in Jan 87 and quit in September 99. When I began it, and when I was being shown around my route by the bloke I took over from he presented me with notion that you can largely ignore most speed limits in the middle of the night, and indeed I did. It's great being able to get from Kingston to Wimbledon in under 10 minutes, Or Richmond to Twickers in the same time.

And here's a thing - the cops, as long as you weren't doing something stupidly outrageous, would by and large let it go. If you were in a van they'd normally be more lenient at night because they would take the opinion that you were on legitimate business, and I'm sure they knew full well that if delivery drivers followed the speed limits to the letter of the law they'd never get all their deliveries made - their employers give them too many drops. Some of my longer routes would have taken me at least an hour longer if I'd driven at 30mph all around the route.

I think they took a different view if you were in a car - I often saw car drivers pulled over at night, rarely van drivers. I did get stopped on a handful of occasions, but never got a ticket, just a little word of admonishment... even on that occasion I overtook a Merc, on a junction, at about 50mph. In a 30 limit

I was lucky. I never had an accident that was caused by my speeding. I did however run over someone's cat, which I wouldn't have if I'd been going slower And then there were a couple of occasions when I suddenly lost all notion of where I was

First time it happened was in Walthamstow and I remember it as clear as I remember doing the laundry yesterday. There was a relatively narrow side street (not wide enough to let two cars pass easily) which I drove down every week, and I knew it well enough - where the junctions were, where the corners were, where any hazards might be - to be able to do something like 50 along it. Suddenly my mind went a complete blank and I couldn't remember where my last drop was, where my next drop was, even what part of London I was in, and it scared the out of me because I realised that I had no reference points to safely be doing 50 on this kind of road - I didn't know where the hazards were.

On another occasion I came around a corner on a similar road in Forest Gate at around 2.30am and found a car double parked and with the door open. If I had been travelling as little as 5mph an hour faster I'd have taken his door clean off. Whose fault would that have been - his or mine? Mine for going too fast. One's judgement, no matter how good one may think it is, can be fallible. In the case of driving a car, that can be the difference between knocking someone down or avoiding them. It can be the difference between killing them and injuring them. It can be the difference between having or avoiding a collision. Just because it hasn't happened yet doesn't mean it never will.

During the day, I observed all the speed limits, even that bloody stupid one as you approach the southern entrance of the Blackwall Tunnel on a four (or is it six?) lane dual carriageway and the speed limt drops from 50 or 60 to 30.

So let me ask again, why you're unwilling to arrive those few extra minutes later on a journey by driving at the speed limit?

Ah, well thankyou for your honesty.

Y'see, this is why I rarely get involved in the heated conversations. Going by the responses I get I obviouosly have a major problem getting my thoughts and ideas across.

So to answer your question "So let me ask again, why you're unwilling to arrive those few extra minutes later on a journey by driving at the speed limit?"

I'm not. I spend most of my time on the road at or below the speed limit. I'm quite often the annoying g*t at the front of a queue of cars in town that's doing 30 dead on or slower. I'm often the one slowing down for the corners on the back roads cos I can;t see round them, or I know there is a tractor there. I am actually a very cautious driver, probably overly so since I know I am not a particularly good driver. I try but there you go.

What I object to is announcements saying that speed cameras have saved 900 lives over the last x years when the fatalities on the roads have risen, according to the governments own numbers. But what they quote is not those killed but those killed 'and seriously injured'. I don;t understand the discrepancy but either there is an attempt to hoodwink me into supporting something that doesn;t do what it says, or there is something happening out on the roads which is an even bigger problem and now needs sorting. 3 yrs of static fatalities on the road (or as near as damn it) would indicate to me that current methods have gone as far as they can and we need something new or at least different.

This is why I have been banging on about bad driving. Speeding is bad driving so if you counter bad driving you get speeding into the bargain.

And yes, I do think motorway speed limits should be raised and a return to the unlimited speed limit (such as it was). But people as they are now are not ready for this.
And yes I do think it is possible to travel safely above the speed limit. And no I don;t necessarily think that those who set these limits know any more about it than I do, and even if they do I don;t necessarily accept that that is what influences them.

There, that's probably confused the issue even further hasn't it?

And of course through all this discussing I am taking on board salient points so my pov may well be moving as i reevaluate my opinions in light of the arguments presented by others.



p.s., your comments about why I speed (I have never said that I did) and that I should go get an MSc in traffic management were the points I objected to. Particularly objected to.

I will come back to you and answer your points, but right now I really ought to do some w*rk

Fair enough, we all have to earn a crust

One question so that I may be able to answer more fully - why did you particularly take umbrage at the MSc remark?

Well, to be honest, it was the implication I saw that by not having an MSc in a particular subject not only would I not know what I was talking about but also I wouldn;t understand if someone who did have one started talking shop to me. Thats a general take on how it came across to me anyway.

Ah, I see. The reason I made that remark was that people who think they're good drivers simply because they drive a lot often aren't, and I thought that was what you were putting forward as your justification for being allowed to drive faster than the set limit when you feel the conditions allow it. I strongly got the impression from what you were saying in the conversation, that you are an expert driver and should be allowed to drive as fast as you feel is safe for the conditions - that you can judge better than most drivers what is a safe speed and what is not.

I used to drive about 25,000 miles a year, which doesn't sound like an awful lot. But when you take into consideration that something like 95% of that was within London, and when you also consider the massive congestion in London, that's a great deal of driving. But even so, I didn't consider myself a good enough driver to risk going over the speed limit during the day, even when it felt safe. And let's face it - in a 3½ ton van you don't have much choice when it comes to speed, especially with a full load on

Perhaps instead of the MSc, I should have said something like 'expert driving test' - something along the lines of the tuition police drivers have to take before they get sent out on their first hot pursuit.

My driving instructor was someone I consider to be a damn good driver - he had his Institute of Advanced Motorists badge, he took a pride in his driving skills, and he'd been invited several times by the DOT to become a tester, but had always refused... I can't remember his reasons. He was also an acquaintance, someone I knew outside of the hour and a half I spent in his car learning to drive each week, and on one occasion we had to get somewhere in a hurry. We drove through the suburbs of northeast London/southwest Essex at speeds which scared the out of me and which would surely have cost him his licence and his job if he'd been caught. He was an expert driver, no question, and I've never seen anyone handle a car at speed as well as he did, but I was still glad when it was over.

As far as the speed camera statistics are concerned, I prefer to stay away from that argument. I don't know how effective the cameras are given that most drivers get to know where they are, slow down for them, then speed up again afterwards, and I haven't read or studied any of the statistics often quoted. Now, if every single car could be fitted with a completely tamper-proof tachometer...

Red light cameras are another matter entirely. Those I thoroughly approve of.

I can't agree with the notion of no speed limits on motorways because no matter how many drivers there are who would safely enter a motorway, slowly build up speed, and get themselves into the outside lane where they could happily do a ton, there are many more who will floor it as soon as they hit the slip road and be doing 90 before they even get onto the motorway, then swing across all lanes without indicating and drive three feet behind someone who is only doing a mere 80mph, flashing their headlights impatiently. Speed limits have to play to the lowest common denominator in that respect. That, I believe, is often the biggest reason why a speed limit is set at the speed it is.

Ah, I see, I wasn't being clear (or someone wasn't reading what I wrote ). Nah, I believe myself to be a reasonably good rider (I have had a bike licence since 17 and spent 4 yrs on L plates riding a 100cc bike around the country. I did a *lot* of miles in those days and you sure learn a bit about defensive driving and riding and road awareness on a piddly little motorbike). Car driving is different though. I don;t like it cos I don;t have as good visibility (or feel I don't). I drive a diesel 306. So 90 is about all it can do without shaking itself apart.
My arguments were generic, ie a good driver should be allowed to rather than 'I' shouldd be allowed to. What constitutes a good driver is another argument entirely

In the car, I do about 5,000 miles a year. I also used to do 25,000 miles a year going to work. Mainly M6 / Birmingham and, to be honest, I transferred to using the train cos it was so bloody dangerous on the roads at rush hour!
I guess the overtones you got are from my opinion that those who are trained, like the IAM as you say, can safely drive faster than the average driver. Interestingly most of them don;t unless they really have to which is one of the things I was thinking of when saying that if you remove bad driving, you'll get speeding as well.

Unlimited I meant as in the old national speed limit not motorways. Although now I come to think of it again, that wouldn;t be too bad. In theory. In practice you'll have all the idiots out abusing it.

Still, as with any argument which features human beans as a factor, you have to legislate for the idiots out there. Even if everyone did have to take compulsory advanced driving, there are many that would just use it to drive 150 mph instead of 100. I try not to think about this side too much as I already have a pretty dismal few of the majority of my fellow humans

The only limit which is not so set is the 70mph on the motorways which was brought in for 2 reasons as I understand it, the 70's Fuel crises and the E-Type Jaguar! But at the time of the Ford Anglia and so forth, 70mph was damn fast for a car. Nowadays they are better made, more capable and I think 80 or 90 is perhaps a better all round speed. Seems to be the level at which things change. Under 80 and over 90 and very different driving experiences. Or they are on a bike anyway.

But for me, the biggest deterent is a) I don;t want to kill someone b) I don't want to kill myself c) I don;t want to go to jail!

Thankyou for your honest answer, I can see I need to be more clear when presenting my arguments and opinions than I have hithertoo been.
Amazing what you can learn by asking instead of flying off the handle into a flame war ain;t it? (and yes that was pointed at certain AskH2G2 threads, but not you! ).