So, I got a speeding ticket - what to expect

@hot_fiat - Skip the middle man...I am just confusing petrolheads with nutters! Not really a car guy so I probably get my terms mixed up a fair bit. 

Posted by: elray89

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I am just confusing petrolheads with nutters! Not really a car guy so I probably get my terms mixed up a fair bit. 

Petrolhead: affectionate term for people who are into cars.

Nutter (in this context): pejorative term for people who drive everywhere like they just stole it.

The Venn diagram is neither concentric circles nor discrete ones.  The intersection is folk who think they're auditioning for The Fast And The Furious when hammering through town at 2am in a car with an exhaust you could lose a small child up and a sound system which is worth more than the car.

Posted by: mos

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I've done a few of those courses but still managed to just start my second 6 month ban in 4 years. Quite an achievement considering i only drive 15 miles 2 days/week. Mostly 34 in a 30 stuff, never hit anyone yet & the only times i've been in accident is when other people have hit me. Still, it's quite liberating and really just emphasises how little i need a vehicle.

You only drive 30 miles a week but managed to get yourself banned twice in 4 years despite attending "a few of those courses"!

Have you considered giving up driving? 

Posted by: mos

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I've done a few of those courses but still managed to just start my second 6 month ban in 4 years. Quite an achievement considering i only drive 15 miles 2 days/week. Mostly 34 in a 30 stuff, never hit anyone yet & the only times i've been in accident is when other people have hit me. Still, it's quite liberating and really just emphasises how little i need a vehicle.

Getting 2 bans in the space of 4 years is a weird way of evaluating whether you need a car or not. Can you not work that out without the breaking the law bit being involved?

My wife’s best friend sounds a bit like that. Utterly terrifying to all involved, drives EVERYWHERE at 40mph - urban road, rural roads, dual carriageways, motorways. Completely oblivious to everything around them. Gets tickets all the time.

Perhaps I’m a bit old school, but I think the abstractive nature of modern vehicles  is a lot to blame. Perhaps after a ban it shouldn’t be a retest, but perhaps an enforced period on a 125cc motorbike followed by a couple of years in a 1978 mini.

I did an in person course a while back, mostly made up of people who weren't sure what limits were where. Apparently they group similar offences together and most of my group had been caught on urban roads. I'd been doing 53 on a motorway. It was in a roadworks area driving my Mum back in her car from Ireland. 

I asked what the official advice was when being tailgated by an artic in a 50 zone, the official line (instructor was an ex-police officer) was to go slower, had I done that the truck may have made contact with me, or overtaken, but they could have overtaken before being so close it felt like it was about to touch the back of the car, so I went over the limit to give myself some space. In the same situation I'd probably do the same again. 

Posted by: toby1

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I asked what the official advice was when being tailgated by an artic in a 50 zone, the official line (instructor was an ex-police officer) was to go slower, had I done that the truck may have made contact with me, or overtaken, but they could have overtaken before being so close it felt like it was about to touch the back of the car, so I went over the limit to give myself some space. In the same situation I'd probably do the same again. 

I seem to recall a thread about being overtaken by lorries while sticking to 50mph in roadworks sections. I think the assumption was that some drivers set their limit to 55mph to allow for the "10% plus 2mph".

I do wonder if big wagons tailgate to hide their registration plates from the cameras. 

I asked what the official advice was when being tailgated by an artic in a 50 zone, the official line (instructor was an ex-police officer) was to go slower, had I done that the truck may have made contact with me, or overtaken, but they could have overtaken before being so close it felt like it was about to touch the back of the car, so I went over the limit to give myself some space. In the same situation I'd probably do the same again. 

That was a waste of a course, then. Do you speed in front of any other vehicles on the basis that they could make contact with you if you don't? 🙂 

Posted by: mos

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Still, it's quite liberating and really just emphasises how little i need a vehicle.

Judgy McJudgefaces aside,

That's, what, maybe £40/week in a taxi?  What does running your own car cost?  Ours costs easily twice that just to sit outside doing nothing.

This is the reason we dropped to one car, in the event that we both needed it at the same time it was wildly more cost-effective to take the hit on trains, taxis etc than it was to run two vehicles.  I've always enjoyed driving but I'm coming to enjoy someone else ferrying me about more.

Posted by: Steve

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I seem to recall a thread about being overtaken by lorries while sticking to 50mph in roadworks sections. I think the assumption was that some drivers set their limit to 55mph to allow for the "10% plus 2mph".

I do wonder if big wagons tailgate to hide their registration plates from the cameras. 

The 10%+2 thing isn't always followed (see toby1 getting done for going at 53!)

I think the lorries mainly tailgate each other for the slipstream, it's a big fuel saving. Daresay the plate hiding is a good bonus though!

What's the point in hiding your plate if you're tailgating someone who is doing the speed limit?  It's surely either slipstreaming as someone else said, or intimidation because the vehicle in front has an under-reading speedo and theirs is calibrated.

In any case just lift off for a few seconds then go back up to speed, there's probably not a car on the road which can't get from 40 to 50 faster than any 18-wheeler.  They soon get the message when being an aggressive dick is costing them money.