I don’t drive above the speed limit, so you’re basically asking me if I’d like to save a pile of cash. Yes, I would. I’d be quite happy for everyone else to have this car, too.

molgrips – Member
A lot of drivers don’t deserve responsibility though.
You have no justification to speed.

If they don’t deserve the responsibility – they should not have a license.

I’m not sure that: –

1). I was justifying speeding
2). I was seeking a repeat of your position on speeding
3). I was asking you to accept whether I choose to speed or not
4). That considering your immovable position on motoring practice that it is worth discussing with you..? You have some great opinions on other stuff but when it comes to driving you don’t seem willing to accept others may have a valid perspective
5). Considering your car woes – could you speed if you wanted too? 😉

I wasn’t addressing you specifically, jam.

If they don’t deserve the responsibility – they should not have a
license.

Quite.

when it comes to driving you don’t seem willing to accept others may have a valid perspective

I’m always willing to accept valid perspectives, I just don’t think the speeders have one.

Let’s just clear a few things up, see if we can neutralise some straw men.

1) I don’t think you are guaranteed to be safe if you stick to the limits
2) I don’t think that speed itself is going to kill anyone.
3) Just because I advocate sticking to the speed limits does NOT mean that I think people who drive badly under the speed limit are good drivers.

Reasons to stick to limits:

1) Simple physics – accidents are less severe
2) Your actions are more predictable to other people
3) Other people have more time to react to what you do
4) If you or someone else makes a mistake you have more time to correct it
5) It saves fuel. Let’s face it, this is always a good thing.
6) Traffic flows more smoothly on motorways

Reasons to speed:

1) It’s fun
2) You’re in a hurry

Given that lives are at stake here, I don’t think that the pros outweigh the cons.

PeterPoddy – Member
simple desire
Yup. Great innit?

Given how many people die – no, it’s not great.

7) Never have to even think about where speed cameras might be.

I drive a speed limited company car and I have an unlimited bandit 1250.

I know which I feel safer riding.

the limited car is not the problem, its the **** on the motorways that:
1: overtake you and then slow down in front to about 69.95 mph. you can’t get past them without blocking the middle lane for miles.

2: the bastards who sit on your shoulder in the middle lane, you cant speed up and get away from them, they’ve spotted your ‘limited to 70’ sticker and think if they will get caught for speeding if they overtake.

3:trucks overtaking trucks is just a nightmare if you are in a car limited to 70. you go in the outside lane at 72 or whatever and **** crawl past the bloody lorry in the middle lane. dangerous.

4: in order to actually overtake something going 68 or whatever, you have to tailgate them right up their ass before you can pull out to overtake, as it takes too long to get by and tuck back in if you don’t, causing a hold up.

I would sooner walk than buy a limited car by choice.

I’ve owned several cars that were limited to 155mph, and I only felt the need to delimit one of them.
😀

1. I hate people overtaking and then slowing down to slower than my speed, but if you say a car limited to 70mph is not a problem then what’s the problem with sitting behind someone doing 69.95mph?

2. So? Don’t forget the alternative is to ease off the gas a bit and then slip out behind them.

3. Dangerous how? (Especially if everyone else were to have a limited car.)

4. Again, if this is the sort of thing that’s getting in the way of accepting driving at 70, what’s the problem with doing 68? Why’s the extra 2mph such a big deal?

molgrips – Member
I wasn’t addressing you specifically, jam.

Apologies chap – your post seemed to reflect a direct response to mine. Some of it was also tongue in cheek – you have been shall we say dogmatic on driving threads before. I think I recall one regarding overtaking…?

I would agree to most of your post actually – but would suggest their are a couple of reasonable exceptions. One for me would be the three occasions where I was speeding to reach a hospital where a close relative had either been in a serious accident or whose health had taken a significant turn for the worse and they were not expected to survive.

I’m not sure you would agree with my justification – but I would do exactly the same again. I would also say I believe I was still very much adjusting my driving to the conditions and actively managing risk.

Double post.

Triple post.

Quadruple post.

Arghhhhhhh! I only clicked the button once! Mods please delete the duplicate posts.

B

OP’s idea is flawed.

There are too many Muppets driving on the road as it is, give them a car that limits the speed to the given speed limit then they will drive around every at that limit, which could often be too fast and dangerous.

The safest cars ive have driven have always been those with the most power, as they let you over take safely and brake, steer, handle better than slower cars.

Speed isn’t the problem, its the person driving too quick for the conditions at that time, and that often happens not even breaking a speed limit.

I do not agree with funkydunc’s assertion. An argument based entirely on conjecture isn’t worth much.

As for cheez0’s point 4) why do you need to overtake someone doing 68?

And it’s quite true that speeding isn’t THE problem, but it is A problem. And it’s the problem that’s easiest to measure and should be easiest to control too.

I do not agree with Molgrips assertion.

Most research actually supports the fact that speed isn’t the major cause of accidents, its just the easiest label to apply.

Crap driving is the cause of most accidents, speed just makes the accident worse

Why do i need to overtake someone doing 68?

Because in a few mins they will be doing 65, then 63.. when my car is capable of doing 70 legally why SHOULDN’T i overtake?

And generally speaking, people travelling at 68/65/63 are not safe to be sharing the same bit of tarmac with (motorway)IMO.

Why?

1. Old dodderers. Unsure of the capabilities of the car or their own skill.
2. Not paying attention. Cos 68 is ALWAYS safe, right?
3. Slowing down because they are on the phone or some other distraction.
4. Car full of women shoppers yapping. Not paying attention.
5. MLS. Lazy, not thinking about whats going on.

At least when i’m on my bike i can quickly get past people who i think are more of a hazard.

Interesting seeing all the people saying you need the extra speed to overtake. If you can’t overtake keeping within the speed limit then you should not be overtaking!

I know this as the only 2 speeding tickets I have were got when overtaking. Both times I was overtaking a vehicle doing 50-55 in a 60 on a long straight. Didn’t see the camera van till I was overtaking as they were both big vehicles so they blocked the view of the camera van. Result was speeding tickets, one for doing 74 in a 60 and one for doing 67. Overtake was safe both times as had about ½ mile if clear straight road.

I now turn the speed limiter on in my car for this section of road and leave it on even when I overtake.

Out of curiosity, what’s doing the limiting? The car’s own notoriously accurate sense of speed? If so I look forward to being stuck behind a Suzuki that thinks it’s doing 70 when it’s actually doing about 58.

Danbarker, ah but the fact you didn’t see the van meant it wasn’t safe to overtake!

I would, it’s his problem.

It would become yours if he rear ended you wholly you’re both mid overtake on the wrong side of the road

Fair few German cars are limited to 155mph i believe.

Everybody’s favourite, the Smart is limited to 140kmh, even the Brabus. That should be enough to safely overtake on most roads or motorways anywhere, apart from the Nurburgring.

Didn’t see the camera van till I was overtaking as they were both big vehicles so they blocked the view of the camera van. Result was speeding tickets

I would be slightly concerned about your observation skills.

If you can’t what’s going on in front, maybe it wasn’t safe to overtake ??

If the car was invented today that sort of technology would be a basic part of the design, you’d also be unable to jump traffic lights or drive too close to the car in front. The technology exists to do all those things rather cheaply. The barrier to their introduction is people who believe they are better than average drivers. The whole concept of 1.5 ton metal boxes flying around only controlled by a person is inherently unsafe! We are really not that far off from automated vehicles (pedestrians and cyclists etc) seem to be the major challenge.

Interestingly I remember seeing some preliminary data from someone doing a PhD on traffic modelling. His data showed (IIRC) that if everyone drove at 10% below the speed limit average journey times were actually shorter than real life conditions where the average person was doing 10% over the limit (his model included braking waves, lanes merging, congestion, traffic light sequences etc). His poster was titled “More haste, less speed” which I think our grand mothers all told us without the need for massive computing power!

Crap driving is the cause of most accidents, speed just makes the accident worse

That’s what I said above. But surely making accidents worse is a bad thing?

But anyway it’s more complex than you think. The only incident I have been involved in, a girl pulled out in front of me. 100% her fault, nothing to do with speed. However, had I been going faster, it would have been a big smash. Had I been going slower, there would have not been an accident at all.

So speed did not cause the accident, but less speed would have saved it. I would be a little concerned that you as a qualified driver don’t seem to understand how this works, but I know realy that you are just finding ways to justify doing what you want to do. I don’t know if you really know this deep down or are fully in denial.

cheez0, you seem to be very good at generalising. All these people who don’t break the speed limit seem to be very poor drivers and, I’m convinced, that 2mph to prove you can drive well is very important. Have you thought of sharing this view more widely by perhaps seeing if one of the Sunday papers needs an opinion writer? People need to hear these progressive theories on road safety.

molgrips – Member

However, had I been going faster, it would have been a big smash.

Or, she might not have pulled out because it would have been more obvious that there wasn’t space. Or, you might have passed her before she even got to the junction 😉 You can’t really change just one factor.

All other things being equal, yes you want your crashes to happen at lower speed. But crashes are actually very rare, and high speed crashes even more so. Inattention’s a greater killer than excess speed, so is it really so simple that taking away a driver’s control of speed will reduce risk?

Bez,

generalising on the roads keeps me alive.

how about this for a generalisation?

All other road users are idiots and should be treated as such.

If the speed limits were raised by 20mph would drive/ride at 80 on a wide and empty winding country road if conditions and visibility were good? What about motorways, would you sit at 90 on the inside lane? Is it the speed that scares you or the fear of breaking the ‘law’?

Inattention’s a greater killer than excess speed, so is it really so simple that taking away a driver’s control of speed will reduce risk?

Such a device would not take away a drivers control of speed significantly though, only limit it in appropriate areas. As such, all other things being equal, your accidents caused by inattention and carried out at speeds above the limit would have a reduced risk 🙂 Also, people could spend less time worrying about the speed limit and more considering whether their speed is appropriate for the conditions/

So you come to overtake mr morrisons lorry on a nsl single carriageway. He’s being a good boy and doing 40 as he should. You find a nice straight section, pull out and begin to pass. Mr chav in his scooby follows you, indicator and headlights on: he clearly is in a hurry and will probably come past you once you’ve completed your manouver.

Only you get 1/2 way past mr morrisons and you find out he’s not such a good boy after all and being a typical uneducated arse he’s decided to accelerate up to his limited 56 to block your overtake. He’s empty, he’s got 3000nm of torque, this happens pretty instantly. Your speed differential is now just 4mph. In the distance you see a headlight. Captain power-ranger on his gsxr thou. He’s doing god knows what speed as they do. You can’t brake cos you’ve got inadequate chav man 3″ from your bumper, but you can’t accelerate because you’re at your limited speed. So you continue to bimble past completely in the right. You make it, just. Chav man doesn’t, you’ve just arrogantly, self-rightously killed two people. Well done

Only I haven’t just killed two people. I’ve seen that the Subaru driver has been too close behind me and aborted the overtake before it becomes an issue – knowing that if I was to continue it and somebody else did something stupid I wouldn’t have an escape route.

The other option there would be to hold back from the lorry and take a run up so that I don’t have any acceleration time to take into account as I would if I had been closer to the lorry before starting my overtake. This would probably ensure that the Subaru driver had overtaken me first before we got to overtaking the truck.

Surely the question is; If GPS limiter and dash cam technology exists, why are devices that require the driver to comply with legal limits and to have their skillful driving filmed not compulsory? Something to hide? 😉

Must say glupton1976’s solution to the overtake scenario was the one that occured to me . I have rarely used speed to get out of trouble when I have it has been speed and lack of forethought that got me there in the first place also even then reducing speed or braking may well have been a better solution.

If the Subaru is 3 foot off your back why not progressively brake let the now rapidly moving lorry shoot ahead and tuck back in .?

If the speed limits were raised by 20mph would drive/ride at 80 on a wide and empty winding country road if conditions and visibility were good? What about motorways, would you sit at 90 on the inside lane? Is it the speed that scares you or the fear of breaking the ‘law’?

And the fuel bill would rocket! I’ll stick to 70 and not burn quite so much fuel.

Speed isn’t really an issue, differentials are. NSL roads, tractors doing 15-20mph and cars doing 80 is only going to end badly. We all know many drivers drive to the limit not to the conditions.

Inattention’s a greater killer than excess speed, so is it really so simple that taking away a driver’s control of speed will reduce risk?

Taking away the potential for massive speed differentials is good.

What is really needed though is for drivers to see a car as a way of getting around nothing more. If you want to race do a track day. For all drivers to be regularly retested, the highway changes for a start. Then you have the development of Trams, roundabouts! What is it about roundabouts that so many drivers can’t cope with them!!!!!

RichPenny – Member

Also, people could spend less time worrying about the speed limit and more considering whether their speed is appropriate for the conditions

You’d hope so. Do you believe it though? I am skeptic. IMO people use driving aids as ways to think less about driving, not to think about different things while driving.

“Inattention’s a greater killer than excess speed[/i]“

Inattention might be the greater contributing factor to the occurrence of an incident, but speed is (as well as being a strong contributor to the occurrence – braking distances being a facile example) the key to the severity of an incident.

Pull out of a supermarket aisle with a basket and bump into someone else with a basket and you’ll probably both get out alive. Make the same mistake walking in front of someone doing 60mph and you probably won’t. Exact same causal factor, but it’s speed that makes the difference.

It’s like the “guns don’t kill people, people do” argument: The gun helps. Arm fanatical idiots with boxing gloves instead and the problem kind of goes away.

FWIW – Euro NCAP is giving credits for automatic speed limiters in a few years time. The first wave is a speed limiter that asks the driver whether he wants to comply – the second wave forces the car to comply. It’ll take a few years for it to become a standard feature, but then in 15 years time 90% of cars on the road will have them fitted.

Look on the bright side, if you don’t have to watch for speed limits, you can spend more time on the phone or internet. Plus you can chat to the others in your car without having to look at the road very often.

Soon we’ll all be passengers!

Bez – Member

Inattention might be the greater contributing factor to the occurrence of an incident, but speed is (as well as being a strong contributor to the occurrence – braking distances being a facile example) the key to the severity of an incident.

Of course. But not crashing is better than crashing slower.