On Mon, 18 Aug 2003 20:12:04 +0100, Martin Angove
wrote:

Not normally one to rise to personal abuse, but...

In message ,
derek wrote:

On Sun, 17 Aug 2003 22:53:49 +0100, Martin Angove
wrote:



Speed may not be a major cause of accidents, but it sure as heck makes
what might be a close shave or a minor bump into something much much
worse. Poor junctions, poor signage, poor lighting and so on all
contribute, but breaking the speed limit is a pretty reliable sign of a
selfish attitude to sharing the road which can cause a lot of problems.

And your evidence is...

16 years of driving.

A mere bagatelle.

The drivers I have most problems with are not those
who obey traffic rules, it is those who don't, and in my personal
experience, someone who passes me at 20mph over the speed limit is quite
likely to get in the wrong lane at the next roundabout

Firstly I don't break speed limits (within the limits of measurement),
the mileage I do I couldn't afford to pick up the points, Licence
still blemish free, and I don't make any excuses for those who do. I
currently drive 22,000 miles per year (440 miles today) and have been
driving since 1967, odd years it has been up to 40K.

IME people intentionally driving 20 mph over the limit are simply
likely to continue doing just that. It's what they do and they have a
whole range of reason . People in the wrong lane / not indicating
/hesitating/puzzling over their task come into a different category
called "Incompetants", they are incapable of doing any better, I've
seen about 40 instances today. Most of them seem to adopt abnormal
postures sitting at the wheel sitting bolt upright gripping the wheel,
white knuckled, hanging on for dear life, and have facial features
that would be taken as indicating "Low grade intelligence" (Think Mr
Bean) elsewhere. A great many simply don't know where they are, or
where they are going (seriously).

For the PC brigade these terms were taken directly from my Uni. course
in Psychology.

and exit the
darned thing without signalling (just an example, but you get the idea).


"Speeding is a victimless crime so why are the police hounding people
for it?" Grow up.

Do you also laugh at your own jokes?


An example. There is a road near here which is absolutely straight for
nearly a mile. On a good day you can see from one end to the other.
People who don't know the road like to race down it.

Why? How? Who does the starters flag bit? Who does the timekeeping?


Now you're being facetious :-)

No, they aren't racing. There is a definition of racing. They might
well chose to drive fast, you might not like it, it might be over the
limit, but it's not racing, which is a different offence.



People who do know the road know that not only is there a hidden dip,
quite big enough to conceal a small car, but that there is a golf course
on both sides of the road and three or four places where golfers
regularly cross, there are also houses. To be honest, even 60mph can be
dangerous on this road. As it happens, there is no camera on the road,
though there are signs.

So there should be. That's it then.


As this road nears our house the speed limit reduces to 40mph.

Are we still in the hidden dip territory or not?

No. The 40 signs are at the beginning of a straight 1/2 mile or so of
wide single carriageway, a little way from the hidden dip part. Half way
down it there is a light-controlled cross-roads. Houses down one side,
couple of petrol stations on the other.

Very few
people take note of this limit and most of the time they will not have
any problems - but you try crossing it with a toddler or a pram as we
have to (no underpass, no bridge, no crossing, and the lights just up
the road are designed to maximise traffic flow and make crossing the
road at the lights *more* dangerous than crossing nearer our house) and
you will see what I mean by speeding being selfish.


Well then picket your local council for speed cameras, or your local
police, we did and we've got them. Meanwhile don't keep crossing the
road at the most dangerous point, have some sense, use the lights, do
as they told us at primary school 55 years ago cross the road where
it's safe to do so.

Cretin.

Perhaps I wasn't clear enough. There is *no* safe place to cross this
road. Eastwards is the 60mph section and so very few people walk along
that stretch that it'd be silly to try there. Westwards lie the lights.
The lights, as I said, are timed to ensure an almost continuous flow of
traffic along the main road

That is very unusual, but by no means impossible. On the Leeds ring
road near Elland Road, on "Football" days ring road traffic gets a
single green phase lasting *4 seconds* every 2nd iteration and there
4 car phases and an all stop pedestrian phase every iteration.
Football traffic seems to get a couple of minutes of green phase.

Have it changed.

- this is a *very* busy road during the day.
There are no pedestrian crossings *at all*, and certainly not a
red/green man sequence to the lights. There is one island, on the
Western side of the lights, but it doesn't really make things much
easier, being almost directly outside one of the petrol stations.
Getting to it also means we would have to cross a second (though less
busy) road.

As it happens, we believe the safest place to cross is almost directly
outside our house - about equidistant between the 40mph signs and the
lights.




Given the fact that most speeders blithely ignore the limit,

It's not a given fact. How do you know this?


If they were not ignoring the limit they would not be speeding.

Indeed, they would not.

But you said "Blithely" now justify it.


I inserted "most" to cover the few occasions where a genuine mistake is
made.

if the
possibility of cameras makes them think, then they can only be a good
thing. As I said before, it is emphatically *not* the cameras which
cause the accidents, it is those stupid drivers who see them and,
suddenly realising that they could get another three points on the
licence, slam out the anchors without thinking.

That's solely an issue for the driver of the car driving too close
behind. He is responsible for the consequences of any accidents. It is
not a concern for pedestrians with/without infants crossing the road
where it dips/doesn't dip, especially where there is a light
controlled crossing nearby.


There isn't a bloomin' crossing, and the crossing isn't relevant anyway
to the paragraph to which you are replying.


All in all, rather too much detail for a usenet post methinks.


Ok, I understand what you are saying about people who drive too close.
I really meant something slightly different but...

[snip. can't be bothered]


I see you do too. :-)

And, in all honestly I think you should campaign to have the speed
limit over the whole lot reduced to 30 mph, on account of the hidden
dips USW ... And a pedestrian crossing of some sort created somewhere
where it would be safe(st). We have campaigned for, & got a Pelicon
crossing, a school crossing warden, and 2 speed cameras (for this
financial year).

Bear in mind tho that the local police said that when they put a
mobile camera on the A643 outside the school entrance all the speeders
they caught were locals. :-)) What was it Preacher mend thyself?


DG