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

Once my aunt made a very long and cumbersome manoeuver to get into a parking space while a traffic warden was watching. At the end, when she came out of the car at last, the officer asked her 'Are you going to stay here? You aren't allow to park on that spot, you know.'

I agree Toy Box.

Though as I always say to people who try to justify speeding (i.e. 'I shouldn't have been caught because the road's safe at faster speeds)... Putting money in the treasury's coffers is not the way to convince them to put the speed limit up!

Dual Carriageways are in theory more dangerous than motorways because of all the different speeds that vehicles are restricted to on them (cars - 70mph, light commercials - 60mph, heavy goods - 50mph) plus learners are allowed on them...

I suspect that being able to argue a bad speed limit decision would be very specific to circumstances (perhaps the limit was dropped on a section of a road for a reason such as a turning to a factory or something that has since become irrelevant but the speed limit has remained) and not something one could rely on whenever one feels aggrieved at being spotted breaking the law!

In my mind, speeding isn't an issue, it's inappropriate speed linked to lack of knowledge, over-confidence and lack of awareness that causes accidents. That and impulsive, unplanned manouvers and actions.

Could be worse

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1119284/Sorry-I-just-trying-point-turn-Woman-crushes-neighbours-car.html


(yeah I'm so bored I'm search the DM for idiotic stories and comments. It never fails to deliver.)

On a related note.

I was coming out of a car wash in Birmingham once whilst the guy behind me in the queue trashed the carwash (and his car) with his car. Presumably with an indelicate clutch manoeuver.

I'd previously no idea that a car could attain such speed, so quickly

Does seem to be a nifty trick - there's that one on youtube or somewhere of someone driving out of their driveway and managing to flip their upside down!

sorry, we're derailing this aren't we?

There are no speed cameras in the UK. There are "Safety Cameras", erected at sites where there has been at least one fatal accident in the preceeding two years.

Or so said the Roads Minister at the time a few years ago.

If the objective is to get drivers to slow down and cut accidents, why would you hide them? If your child had been knocked down outside a school, would you be happy in the knowledge that the camera the driver never saw took a picture and he'll get a fine in the post in a few weeks? Hiding Safety Cameras defeats the stated purpose - to improve road safety.

>>And also, it would help if the speed limits were a bit more sensible sometimes<<

Isn't that the case already? I'm just learning to drive at the moment, and my instructor likes to test me when we turn onto a new road to see if I know the limit. I get it right most of the time just by looking at the type of road I'm on.

Isn't it roughly the case that:

Residential streets are 20;
Urban single carriageways are 30;
Suburban and rural single carriageways, and urban dual carriageways are 40;
Twisty suburban/rural dual carriageways are 50;
Straight suburban/rural dual carriageways are 60 or 70.

I have no experience of roads outside of Bradford, where this definitely holds the vast majority of the time, is it the same for the rest of the country?

Most of the time, the speed limits are sensible enough, I guess. (Of course when you get used to a specific road you can drive faster ) But sometimes, as in the French example I gave, you cannot help but wonder if this is really just a cheap trick to fill in the region's chests.

roughly is the operative word. Yes many are, but not all.
Sometimes you get a suburban dual carriageways that are 50 zones, or even 40 even though there is no danger from pavements or crossings (I'm thinking one particular bit of such road through nottingham where it is actually raised up and still a 50 zone for no discernable reason). Then again, I'm fairly certain that Nottingham has its own rules for roads and traffic and in an adamsesque twist as soon as you work out what they are they change them. Local drivers seem to just ignore them altogether.

It's a fairly good guide.

In Bristol more and more urban/residential roads are officially 20mph zones, but it's recommended that one shouldn't exceed 20 even in a '30' zon where you have parked cars and narrow streets because of the likelihood of unexpected occurrences.

I'm in the middle of helping the lads I work with go through a driver risk assessment programme which is promoting defensive driving and encouraging forward thinking, awareness and pre-empting while maintaining safe, decisive and well mannered driving... It's very interesting how many people are surprised by some things that I've always taken as common sense such as scanning ahead and behaving appropriately. Like letting people back in when you've joined a motorway/dual carriageway and people have moved across a lane to let you on!

>If the objective is to get drivers to slow down and cut accidents, why would you hide them? <

I think Gnomon's reasoning - if I may be so bold - is that if you know there are speed cameras out there *somewhere* but you've no idea where, then in order to avoid a fine you must drive within the limit *everywhere*.

I guess if they could be easily concealed, moved about and there were lots of them and you could persuade people to admit they were driving and not their wife (*cough* my boss *cough*) then this would be effective.

Sadly it doesn't really work that well I think.

I have found that most urban areas have a 30 limit. As Robyn says, it's not safe to drive above 20 on many of these, and it's definitely a good thing if the limits are being changed there.

Most rural roads still seem to be 'national speed limit' though, which is usually completely inappropriate.

There are about 21 million drivers in the UK. 3/4 of them admit to regularly speeding. 19% speed at least once a day - 4 million. If you adopt the attritional approach and hide speed cameras, that's 4 million speeding offences you're not attempting to pre-empt, but are punishing retrospectively. (http://pr-usa.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=151571&Itemid=31)

What's a better approach - attempting to deter burglars or catching them after they've committed an offence?

Surely the best approach to speeding is to deter it. As has already been stated, the road signs that warn a driver of his speed have been shown to be more effective in cutting accidents. Of course, this assumes that the objective is to actually cut accidents and not to just punish speeding drivers.

I drive for a living. 50,000 miles a year for the last five years and no penalty points. Safety Cameras are often a topic of conversation amongst my colleagues. I have rarely heard anyone object to a camera in urban areas, outside schools etc. What really gets driver's goats are cameras on dead straight sections of 6 lane motorways in the middle of nowhere. It is very hard to make a case for such cameras from a road safety point of view.

"Residential streets are 20;
Urban single carriageways are 30;
Suburban and rural single carriageways, and urban dual carriageways are 40;
Twisty suburban/rural dual carriageways are 50;
Straight suburban/rural dual carriageways are 60 or 70.

I have no experience of roads outside of Bradford"

From Bradford head towards either Leeds or Halifax (especially via Denholme)

There are quite a few 30 zones on big wide roads that are not built up then you get in a 40 zone just as it starts to become built up. More often than not the speed limit is suitable but it is very noticable when it isn't.

In Ireland the motorway speed is 120km/h, which is 75mph. In Italy, it is 130 km/h, which is about 82mph.

>>Hiding Safety Cameras defeats the stated purpose - to improve road safety.

I think that if you can see the speed camera, you will slow down just at the camera. If you get caught by a hidden camera, you'll slow down everywhere. I've seen people jamming on their brakes, trundle past the speed camera, then speed up again to twice the speed limit.

unfortunately that doesn't work - people just buy the satnavs with camera maps or camera detectors and use them.

It should be noted that whilst most static cameras are signposted
a) the rules state the sign must be within 2 miles of the camera so they bung the signs up all over theplace and causes people to slow down even though they may not actually go past the camera
b) we also have modile speed cameras - either little tripod devices, hand held ones or the camera vans - and these are very successful.

Worth noting that a village in yorkshire which had a speeding problem on its main road came up with an innovative solution. They put up life size signs with a picture of a scantily clad young lady with a message saying 'slow down'. Apparently it worked very well even though most motorists didn't notice the writting on it...