Could this be a vote winner for one of the political parties?

buy a 2cv

Tue, 2006-08-29 23:06

#3

yan

There are two almost similar roads where I live. One of the roads is clearly marked 40mph. The other road isn't marked with any signs atall. I've always travelled at 40 down the unmarked road, that is until I was pulled and 'done' for speeding. Turns out that this road is a 30mph. When I pointed out to the police officer that the road is identical in its width and as built-up in the same way that the 40 road is he said: "If there are no markings in built-up areas you do 30." I didn't know this but it's annoying all the same I break the speed limit everything I drive my car. never by alot mind...but I do break it regularly. Anyone who says they don't are pains in the ass There's nothing worse than a neighbour with crap wind chimes

There's nothing more mind-teasing than the incomprehensible eagerly avowed -
Dennett

Tue, 2006-08-29 23:43

#4

* ...How many of the drivers amongst us can honestly say they break the speed limit less than twice a year? ... * ME! I usually break it around 00.05 on the 1st of January. I usually stop around 23.55 on 31st December. Drivers are constantly harrassed and penalised for no other reason than to generate money. It isn't speed that kills, it's bad driving/badly maintained motors, though accidents that result from bad driving very often are worse the faster the driver is going.

Wed, 2006-08-30 15:40

#5

"It isn't speed that kills, it's bad driving/badly maintained motors, though accidents that result from bad driving very often are worse the faster the driver is going." Oh, come on! It's harder to control a car the faster it's going. Simple as. You can't stop it, steer it or even react as efficiently. Thus, you're more likely to have an accident. That's not to say that bad driving doesn't cause accidents (maybe more accidents than speeding - there's no way of telling) but to say that speed is only a factor in the results of the accident, rather than the likelihood of an accident occurring in the first place, is spurious nonsense. I haven't driven in a while now, but I never had trouble sticking to the speed limit when I wanted to. My parents, and most of the people I know, have somehow successfully avoided getting any speeding tickets to this date. It's not *that* hard to avoid this terrible 'persecution'. ~ I'll Show You Tyrants * Fuselit * The Prowl Log * Woe's Woe

Wed, 2006-08-30 15:49

#6

* ..You can't stop it, steer it or even react as efficiently. Thus, you're more likely to have an accident... * Sorry Jon, but that's just not true. Most accidents happen at below 30mph within 200yds of drivers homes, (or so I'm led to believe). I know that is not the same as 'likelihood', but I said 'bad driving', and going at unreasonable speeds in conditions conducive to accidents is just that. Your assertion that it's harder to control a car with increased speed is also erroneous. Ok, it may be that it takes longer to stop and there's less time to make decisions but in the right circumstances speed is perfectly safe, as long as the motor is roadworthy. In Germany they have NO SPEED LIMITS on their autobahns at all. The law is, that you can drive as fast as you want as long as you don't drive badly, dangerously or jeopardise the lives of others. The plain fact is, that german autobahns have a better safety/lower accident record than our motorways. The difference? There's more crap drivers here I suggest.

Wed, 2006-08-30 16:14

#7

Germany has a much lower population density than us. Their autobahns are, I'm told, simple less packed. France is the same. If it's true that most accidents occur in those conditions, it still doesn't change the fact that likelihood is increased with speed. I can see where you're coming from - that, depending on conditions, it should theoretically be just as safe to go at 70mph on a motorway as it is to go at 30mph in a buillt up area. The problem is that *if* something unexpected occurs, it's easier to minimise the damage or maybe avoid the accident altogether if you're going more slowly. More accidents might happen in the built up areas because there's a greater likelihood of the unexpected occurring, but how many more are *avoided* because the driver can make an emergency stop? How many are very minor? If something happens on a motorway, you're fucked. Particularly, or so I'm told, on French motorways. Even if we do say that motorways are just as safe, if not safer, than built up areas, the point of speed limits is that going faster than them supposedly constitutes 'crap driving' - as in, you're wrongly judging how safe it is to drive fast in that area. Those people having accidents at under 30mph may well be crap drivers in another sense, but that's not to say that those that have them at 10mph over the speed limit are good drivers making a mistake - they're just crap in another way. ~ I'll Show You Tyrants * Fuselit * The Prowl Log * Woe's Woe

Wed, 2006-08-30 16:14

#8

Germany has a much lower population density than us. Their autobahns are, I'm told, simple less packed. France is the same. If it's true that most accidents occur in those conditions, it still doesn't change the fact that likelihood is increased with speed. I can see where you're coming from - that, depending on conditions, it should theoretically be just as safe to go at 70mph on a motorway as it is to go at 30mph in a buillt up area. The problem is that *if* something unexpected occurs, it's easier to minimise the damage or maybe avoid the accident altogether if you're going more slowly. More accidents might happen in the built up areas because there's a greater likelihood of the unexpected occurring, but how many more are *avoided* because the driver can make an emergency stop? How many are very minor? If something happens on a motorway, you're fucked. Particularly, or so I'm told, on French motorways. Even if we do say that motorways are just as safe, if not safer, than built up areas, the point of speed limits is that going faster than them supposedly constitutes 'crap driving' - as in, you're wrongly judging how safe it is to drive fast in that area. Those people having accidents at under 30mph may well be crap drivers in another sense, but that's not to say that those that have them at 10mph over the speed limit are good drivers making a mistake - they're just crap in another way. ~ I'll Show You Tyrants * Fuselit * The Prowl Log * Woe's Woe

Wed, 2006-08-30 16:27

#9

Jon, 'accidents' are, in my opinion, vastly different to the results of bad driving. OK, the end may be the same but the difference lies in the cause. A driver exceeding the speed limit by your arbitrary 10mph may not be a crap driver, he may be the victim of another driver, who may or may not be crap. He could alternatively be in the wrong place and have a plane blown out of the sky by a terrorist above him amd get hit by falling debris. Bad driving however, is tantamount to looking for a situation where one can wreck their car and maybe injure a stranger.

Wed, 2006-08-30 16:33

#10

Do you not thing you are more likely to avoid an accident when your driving slower, even if it would have been the other guys fault.

Fri, 2006-09-01 10:29

#11

brooosh

Good suggestion maddan. Years ago I had a 2CV. It used to take me about 20 minutes to get up to 70mph.

Fri, 2006-09-01 12:30

#12

The hypothesis that accidents are more likely to be avoided when driving slow(er) doesn't hold a lot of water. I've seen safety reports in the past that claim most accidents are CAUSED by slow drivers, mainly by infuriating those they hold up. Also in the scenario where an accident is actually hapening sometimes a burst of speed can help avoid being a part of it. I maintain that to improve road safety there needs to be more education, (of pedestrians as well as motorists), greater penalties for careless and dangerous driving and lifetime bans for the worst offenders, a group that the authorities appear to make no or very little money from, by the way. In the USA they have variable speed limits in many areas, which reflects the need to curtail speed not necessarily on a given stretch of road 24/7, but the common sense that risks vary with traffic and time of day. Motorists in this country are seen as a cash cow, and they milk it for all their worth. On the A127 out of Southend they had a speed camera sited 300yds from the end of the speed restriction. It was there for several years trapping drivers who, seeing the de-restricted sign ahead, started to increase their speed above 40mph. It was an object of hatred among drivers for no other reason than that it was so obviously a 'cash machine'. Six months ago they removed it. Last week they re-instated it after lulling drivers into a false sense of security. They are now catching dozens of drivers again, whilst a police driver convicted of driving at 137mph (?) gets convicted with no punishment. What a joke!

Fri, 2006-09-01 13:30

#13

I'm not going to defend gatsos (hateful bloody things), and a lot of the speed limits set are plainly needlessly low, especially on motorways. But the assertation that driving faster does not increase the likeliness or severity of accidents is moronic. The driver has less time to react and the car carries a greater momentum. As for slow drivers causing accidents, wouldn't that be the infuriated drivers behind them that actually caused the accidents? My brother got a speeding ticket in his 2CV once, it took some doing but he was very proud.

Fri, 2006-09-01 13:34

#14

camus

The roads here in Lincolnshire are pretty shit to say the least (damn tractors and caravans everywhere) and have a high casualty rate, some police advisor chap has recently posited the theory that a very high percentage of the crashes that happen are triggered by people driving below the speed limit, frustrated folks who are in a rush (like me usually) are then more likely to take more risks than they normally would to get past them. As for speeding, I have been driving for nearly 19 years and have never had a ticket, got one point or (touch wood) had an accident even though I nearly always drive over the speed limit.

Fri, 2006-09-01 14:38

#15

archergirl

The roads are similar in Cambridgeshire; narrow fen roads clogged with tractors that you can't get around. The thought of overtaking them terrifies me so I tend to just 'relax' and wait until they pull over to the side to let the thirty cars behind them pass. We also have the famous A14, one of the worst roads in the country for fatal accidents, apparently. These are almost inevitably caused not by people driving too fast, but by people driving too fast, too CLOSE. I can't believe how many Brits tailgate on high-speed roads. The sheer volume of traffic on British roads is also astounding to me, but then again I come from a low-population area with huge expanses of four-lane highways where you may see twenty cars in twenty miles! I try not to drive over the speed limits; usually they seem reasonable, and being a runner I am conscious that non-vehicular people also have to share the road with cars roaring by on a country lane at eighty miles per hour. All my bad traffic experiences were when I was a teenager: I got into an accident (my fault) and got a speeding ticket later on, between the ages of 16-17. Nothing since then. The husband has been less lucky and now has points; it was one of those 'police hiding just behind the speed camera' situations. Speeding *is* a form of bad driving, as you are taking risks with other people's cars (and lives; is being late to work a reasonable excuse for killing someone?); and this whole thing about slow drivers causing the most accidents definitely has its merits, too, especially people 'of a certain age' who really shouldn't be allowed to drive anymore as they can barely see above the steering wheel. In my part of the States (and perhaps nationally), people over the age of 70 have to take an eye-test/driving test EVERY YEAR, and although my Gran drove until she was in her late 80s, it was a scary prospect being in the car with her, even if she did pass her annual tests... But I think the biggest perpetrators of accidents must be young men, 18-25 age group. They just really have too much testosterone and too few brains at that age. Men's brains seem to start forming around the age of 28.

Fri, 2006-09-01 16:08

#16

Moimo

AG "Men's brains seem to start forming around the age of 28." I've been told this is well under estimate and that it never actually happens. They stay roughly seven but develope different interests. Though I prsonally strongly disagree. nobody

Fri, 2006-09-01 16:59

#17

* ..a lot of the speed limits set are plainly needlessly low... * They're not 'needless' to the authority that collects the fines. Call me cynical (or even a moron if you like), but the fact that Cambridgeshire, Northamptonshire and Nottinghamshire have a concentration of Gatsos on the A1, (a road I've used quite often to get to York, most recently 2 weeks ago), but curiously South Yorkshire is a Gatso-free zone on the same road, tells me much about the reasons they are there at all. * ...the assertation that driving faster does not increase the likeliness or severity of accidents is moronic... * Sorry to disagree but, increased speed does NOT necessarily increase 'likelihood' of an accident. It CAN do, but depending on several other criteria it MAY make no difference. Accidents occuring at higher speeds would no doubt result in more serious repercussions, but I haven't asserted otherwise, in fact I never mentioned 'severity' at all. Now that may make me a moron in your estimation, but you have already claimed that some limits are 'needlessly low'. In such circumstances is a 'speeding' driver being reckless or dangerous? I don't think so, and your statement infers you agree. Your assumption that frustrated drivers being held back by old ladies who haven't worked out that there cars have more than 2 gears, (yes, men may be late developers, but they understand machinery, along with most other things women have problems with), are wholely responsible for accidents where there's a hold-up takes no account of human nature and limitations of patience, (even Jesus lost the plot and kicked the short change all over the temple!). Your application of physics, though not inapplicable isn't the WHOLE story.

Fri, 2006-09-01 18:33

#18

OK, yeah, I admit you never said anything about severity. But come on, if on a motorway, someone much slower than me changes into my lane without checking his mirror, or if, on an A road, I come round a corner to find someone overtaking in the opposite direction (or, as happened yesterday, a mother and pram walking towards me on the road), or if, in a residential street, a child runs out from between parked car, in all these cases my likelihood of avoiding an accident are directly related to the speed that I can react and the distance it takes my car to slow down or stop. I'm, not saying that slow drivers don't cause accidents, my half blind drunkard octaganarians step grandmother caused a couple before they banned her. And I'm sure as hell not pretending I never break the speed limit. But I refuse to kid myself. The faster I drive, the greater the risk from my mistakes and the mistakes of other drivers. If I drive faster it is because I accept that risk along with the risk of being caught My daily commute takes me on a stretch of the M40 (where 90 is about the average speed), and a stretch of empty single carriageway countryside A-Road that for some reason I cannot fathom is all a 50 limit. There isn't a camera to be seen on either. If I race home like a lunatic because my boss has kept me late with idiotic questions, as sometimes happens, does that make him partly responsible for any accidents I may end up in?

Fri, 2006-09-01 18:35

#19

(I should mention, my boss is very nice and not at all an idiot, but it seems in the nature of bosses everywhere to ask idiotic questions at the end of the day)

Fri, 2006-09-01 19:32

#20

"Sorry to disagree but, increased speed does NOT necessarily increase 'likelihood' of an accident." Come on, Missi. It's really simple logic - since stopping distance increases the faster you're going, it simply means that the faster you're going, the further away an obstacle has to be in order for you to avoid it. And the vast majority of accidents are going to involve an obstacle in front of one party or another. ~ I'll Show You Tyrants * Fuselit * The Prowl Log * Woe's Woe

Fri, 2006-09-01 21:25

#21

http://www.abd.org.uk/speed_truth.htm

Christ, I'm getting a little weary of explaining my meaning to those who are adamant they are right, and that I'm either a moron, or don't understand the results of high speed in accidents. I'll give it one more try. It ISN'T black and white. In some circumstances 30mph is a dangerous speed and likely to cause an accident. In others, 70mph is perfectly safe, may not even be a slight risk. My point IS, it isn't necessarily speed that kills or is dangerous. It depends on the circumstances and road conditions. Speed does not kill, per se. Bad driving kills. Bad driving includes excess speed, lack of speed, talking on a fucking phone, having oral sex whilst in motion, blah blah blah. Badly maintained vehicles cause accidents. Lack of experience can also be a contributing factor. In accidents higher speeds usually mean more carnage, but speed does not cause accidents if applied in sensible circumstances. If speed is the critical factor perhaps we should put limits on jet airliners.

Fri, 2006-09-01 21:31

#22

cath_carr

Fri, 2006-09-01 22:59

#23

Thank you Cath, perhaps the others will read the site page and get off my case. I've never seen that site before but common sense allows anyone to arrive at the conclusions presented. I would add that I've been a driver now for 42 years, covered over 600,000 miles as a driver and never hurt anyone as a result of my driving. I think I'm reasonably well qualified to give an opinion without being called a moron.

Fri, 2006-09-01 23:12

#24

Radio Denver

I've had oral sex whilst in motion and never injured anyone. Does that qualify me to enter this discussion? I've had two auto accidents in my life. Neither had anything to do with speed. Both were a result of weather conditions and darkness, and both were caused by old women (who would be hazardous to anything encountered even if all they did was sit in their basement wrapped in bubble wrap.) Visit me http://www.radiodenver.org/

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Fri, 2006-09-01 23:15

#25

That depends on whether you were driving and receiving or driving and giving. Qualifications aren't required to give an opinion though.

Fri, 2006-09-01 23:16

#26

Radio Denver

Does driving and nibbling count? Visit me http://www.radiodenver.org/

Share your state secrets at...
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Fri, 2006-09-01 23:54

#27