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TonyD
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 Posted: Tue Jan 27, 2009 9:57 am Post subject: |
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| DennisN wrote: | | This business of driving at 55 in a 50 zone is the basis for all those people who claim that speed cameras cause "accidents" because they force them to concentrate on their speedo instead of the road in case they "accidentally" drift over. |
I did not say I drive at 55. I drive at 50 (GPS indicated).
However, on a related topic a safety issue that really does irritate me is the fact that speed cameras themselves do not indicate visually the speed limit. It would be so easy to paint a nice big legible 30 or 40 etc. on the back of a Gatso to stop people (myself included) fiercely braking when seeing one just in case I haven't noticed the speed limit has changed. It's almost as if the speed limit is a secret. What's this about, if I was being cynical I would say it's deliberate policy, it can't be expensive (in comparison with the cost of erecting the camera) to paint a number on.
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M8TJT
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| Posted: Tue Jan 27, 2009 10:31 am Post subject: |
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| TonyD wrote: | | ........to stop people (myself included) fiercely braking when seeing one just in case I haven't noticed the speed limit has changed. |
I suspect that this may be considered to be 'driving without due care and attention'  Fancy admitting that  |
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TonyD
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| Posted: Tue Jan 27, 2009 10:39 am Post subject: |
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| M8TJT wrote: | | TonyD wrote: | | ........to stop people (myself included) fiercely braking when seeing one just in case I haven't noticed the speed limit has changed. |
I suspect that this may be considered to be 'driving without due care and attention' Fancy admitting that |
I can't stand these holier than thou attitudes. In Leeds there is a dual carriageway which has a 30mph limit which you can get to from the airport without passing a speed limit sign. It is not "driving without due care and attention" to not see a sign that doesn't exist. And have you never ever made a mistake or failed to see something you should have done. It is a natural reaction to slow down when you see a speed camera and are not 100% sure what the speed limit is. Regardless of the rights and wrongs and moral stances, people *do* it, and there is no excuse for the authorities being secretive about speed limits.
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Darren
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| Posted: Tue Jan 27, 2009 10:58 am Post subject: |
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| TonyD wrote: | | I can't stand these holier than thou attitudes. In Leeds there is a dual carriageway which has a 30mph limit which you can get to from the airport without passing a speed limit sign. |
Roads with a 30mph limit do not require signs. It's part of archaic pre-war legislation still in forces that states where there are three or more street lights placed no more than 200 feet apart then no 30mph speed signs are necessary.
Repeater signs are only necessary if the road is unlit or the street lights are more widely spaced. It's a ridiculous state of affairs particularly where some rods would lead a driver to reasonable suspect the limit was other than 30.
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TonyD
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| Posted: Tue Jan 27, 2009 12:18 pm Post subject: |
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| Darren wrote: | | TonyD wrote: | | I can't stand these holier than thou attitudes. In Leeds there is a dual carriageway which has a 30mph limit which you can get to from the airport without passing a speed limit sign. |
Roads with a 30mph limit do not require signs. It's part of archaic pre-war legislation still in forces that states where there are three or more street lights placed no more than 200 feet apart then no 30mph speed signs are necessary.
Repeater signs are only necessary if the road is unlit or the street lights are more widely spaced. It's a ridiculous state of affairs particularly where some rods would lead a driver to reasonable suspect the limit was other than 30. |
I agree. In fact this dual carriageway I'm talking about is a tunnel that you go straight into from a roundabout out of the airport, with no streetlights. Furthermore, the police often sit in a car at the end of the tunnel with a radar gun, such easy pickings. I used to run a flying school at one end of the tunnel with our planes at the other end of the tunnel. I had to constantly warn students that the speed limit was 30 and they were always flabbergasted when I pointed it out.
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DennisN
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| Posted: Tue Jan 27, 2009 12:58 pm Post subject: |
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| TonyD wrote: | | I did not say I drive at 55. I drive at 50 (GPS indicated). |
| TonyD wrote: | | I tend to drive at an indicated 55mph on the basis that my speedo over reads 10% |
 I remain (almost) speechless. 
A flying instructor? Instrument dials and stuff? Isn't flying something that trains people to do what they're supposed to do, rather than their own thing? Should I be even more scared of flying if there's a chance the driver is accidentally drifting below the stall speed? Or not quite made the take off speed?
Tally Ho, Biggles!!
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Dennis
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DennisN
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| Posted: Tue Jan 27, 2009 1:16 pm Post subject: |
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| TonyD wrote: | | if I was being cynical I would say it's deliberate policy, it can't be expensive (in comparison with the cost of erecting the camera) to paint a number on. |
If I were being cynical, I would say it's a deliberate policy not to observe traffic laws and only to slow down for a speed camera, then speed up over the limit once it is out of range.
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Dennis
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Darren
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| Posted: Tue Jan 27, 2009 1:27 pm Post subject: |
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| DennisN wrote: | | If I were being cynical, I would say it's a deliberate policy not to observe traffic laws |
Difficult to observe an unsigned 30 limit particularly where the road design leads you to think it may be higher!
| DennisN wrote: | | I withdraw, speechless! |
Please. This is not the IAM or RoSPA and we are not the Police. We're not here to preach to people.
Anyone who claims they observe the limits without fail or has never been distracted and thus exceeded a limit is talking poppycock.
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Last edited by Darren on Tue Jan 27, 2009 1:34 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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DennisN
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| Posted: Tue Jan 27, 2009 1:31 pm Post subject: |
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So when you were a traffic cop, you let everybody off who pleaded they hadn't noticed?
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Dennis
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Darren
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| Posted: Tue Jan 27, 2009 1:36 pm Post subject: |
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| DennisN wrote: | | So when you were a traffic cop, you let everybody off who pleaded they hadn't noticed? |
No but as a human being I used judgement. Cameras and speed traps that just churn out tickets without even talking to drivers do not.
I have on many occasions taken the opportunity to educate rather than issue a ticket and there are many mitigating circumstances which I could take into consideration.
A fixed camera is a robot that takes account of nothing but the limit set, I'm not alone in detesting this technology, many serving officers feel the same.
I would add however that inconvenient as SPECS are, and overlooking the distractions they can cause by forcing drivers to look at their speedos constantly instead of out of the window, they are at least fairer in that it takes a rather foolish driver to speed through a SPECS section, ignoring the multitude of cameras, the mandatory speed limit signs in the section etc etc
Having said that, plenty do, blissful in their ignorance of what an average sped camera is!
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TonyD
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| Posted: Tue Jan 27, 2009 3:03 pm Post subject: |
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| DennisN wrote: | | TonyD wrote: | | I did not say I drive at 55. I drive at 50 (GPS indicated). |
| TonyD wrote: | | I tend to drive at an indicated 55mph on the basis that my speedo over reads 10% |
I remain (almost) speechless.
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Perhaps I am being thick but I just don't understand what you are getting at by highlighting those 2 quotes above. They both say that I drive at 50 and do not exceed the speed limit. Why does that make you speechless ?
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classy56
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| Posted: Tue Jan 27, 2009 4:39 pm Post subject: |
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If a tunnel is part of a 30mph road, why would anybody think it has a higher speed limit when going through it unless indicated?
I would imagine you could only class it as a dual carriageway in the very loose sense of the word!
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GPS_fan
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| Posted: Tue Jan 27, 2009 4:56 pm Post subject: |
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| classy56 wrote: | | I would imagine you could only class it as a dual carriageway in the very loose sense of the word! |
...but a dual carriageway isn't automatically a national speed limit road and, surely, it's only when governed by NSL that a dual carriageway is any different to a single carriageway - ie 70mph rather than 60mph is it not
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TonyD
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| Posted: Tue Jan 27, 2009 5:08 pm Post subject: |
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| classy56 wrote: | If a tunnel is part of a 30mph road, why would anybody think it has a higher speed limit when going through it unless indicated?
I would imagine you could only class it as a dual carriageway in the very loose sense of the word! |
You missed my point about the fact that if you exit the airport (presumably having come from some other place in the world with no local knowledge) you go straight into this tunnel with no chance to see any signs or assess lamp posts.
Also, I dispute that it's a loose sense of the word dual carriageway when the 2 carriageways (2 lanes each side, 4 lanes in total) are separated by a concrete wall so that you cannot even see the other side. That seems to me to be very much a dual carriageway. 90% of people driving through that tunnel, unless they know otherwise, would believe it to have a higher limit than 30.
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GPS_fan
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| Posted: Tue Jan 27, 2009 5:13 pm Post subject: |
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| TonyD wrote: | | You missed my point about the fact that if you exit the airport (presumably having come from some other place in the world with no local knowledge) you go straight into this tunnel with no chance to see any signs or assess lamp posts. |
....so, you automatically assume that all roads have a higher speed limit unless indicated otherwise?
Anyway, this has now drifted way off topic and if there's nothing further to add about average speed cameras, then I think it should be brought to an end.
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