Can you challenge over zealous speed limits?

So you’re just suggesting doing something pointless in addition to something useful? How much of your resources from the useful thing do you propose diverting to the pointless one?

molgrips – Member

A great concept, except for the fact that by the time they’ve crashed it’s already a bit late. The idea is to encourage behaviour that might prevent crashes, rather than simply apportion blame afterwards.

Well closing all the prisons would free up a bit more cash for policing. 🙄

We have punishments to act precisely as a deterrent.
Without the punishment you end up with ridiculous notions like having a car crash is “a bit unlucky”.

Crashing your car isn’t down to bad luck, or voodoo, or the alignment of the stars, it’s down to shit driving.
At the moment the message is as long as you stay under the limit, you’re ok.

At the moment the message is as long as you stay under the limit, you’re ok.

Hmm.. you might have a point there.

But we know what the reason for that is – they haven’t the manpower to enforce much, whereas speed cameras are cheap.

However the point is – speed limits are still important.

aracer – Member

So you’re just suggesting doing something pointless

No, because I don’t believe it’s pointless.
You might, but then you think crashing cars is down to bad luck so I’m not sure your opinion on the subject should be given too much weight.

I’m not sure you’ve really considered your position, that we should not punish people for committing crimes, but we should punish people for not committing a crime (if you take away the speeding itself). It’s like minority report except you’ve taken it one step further.

irc –

FPNs for careless, big ones but with a large discount from taking it to court. It happens in other countries. Points on the licence sends the right message.

You might, but then you think crashing cars is down to bad luck

Don’t be silly. That’s absurd.

Crashing cars isn’t bad luck, being crashed into is.

I’ve had five collisions in as many years. In three I was stationary, in the other two I wasn’t even in the car.

So you think that prosecuting people causing crashes will improve road safety – despite all the evidence suggesting that people don’t think their bad driving will cause a crash, so such prosecutions have no effect on their behaviour?

You might, but then you think crashing cars is down to bad luck

Go on then, where exactly have I suggested that? And in anticipation of selective quoting if you’re going to quote me in reply please quote the whole paragraph (in the process you could try and understand what I’m suggesting, as with that response it appears you’ve failed to get the point).

I’m not sure you’ve really considered your position, that we should not punish people for committing crime

On the contrary – I’m suggesting prosecuting all people committing crimes in the same way, whilst you appear to want to select based upon the consequences of the crime.

aracer – Member

So you think that prosecuting people causing crashes will improve road safety

Yes.

despite all the evidence suggesting that people don’t think their bad driving will cause a crash

People don’t realise their driving is bad,

so such prosecutions have no effect on their behaviour?

and they’re not going to if we don’t let them know, by way of prosecution.

Go on then, where exactly have I suggested that? And in anticipation of selective quoting if you’re going to quote me in reply please quote the whole paragraph (in the process you could try and understand what I’m suggesting, as with that response it appears you’ve failed to get the point).

OK.

I said:

I think we should spend more of our efforts prosecuting people that cause accidents rather than those that haven’t

You replied with:

No – what we should address is behaviour which causes accidents, not simply target those who’ve been unlucky. Otherwise we still have the situation that people think they won’t ever cause an accident through their bad driving, so no matter how hard you come down on those who drive exactly the same but are unlucky that makes no difference to them.

So the “no” is a total disagreement with me. You then qualify that with “not simply target those who’ve been unlucky” which is a statement directly contrasting mine about people who have accidents.

You have clearly related people having accidents to being unlucky.

And you clearly do it again:
“Otherwise we still have the situation that people think they won’t ever cause an accident through their bad driving”
This statement is referring to drivers that are shit but haven’t had an accident so don’t quite realise it.
Followed by:
“so no matter how hard you come down on those who drive exactly the same”
Same driving; no difference. Good good.
“but are unlucky that makes no difference to them”
So what outcome does this bad luck have?

I’m sure you can understand my confusion, as we were talking about two groups of drivers; one group that hasn’t crashed and one group that has.
If you’re changing the group of drivers who have crashed into a group of drivers that are unlucky, but haven’t crashed then you probably should have explained that more clearly as it:
A) doesn’t read anything like that.
and
B) doesn’t make any sense to do that.

On the contrary – I’m suggesting prosecuting all people committing crimes in the same way, whilst you appear to want to select based upon the consequences of the crime.

Not only is that wrong, but I have already pointed out where you are wrong.

Good point, that too (though I think most people know they shouldn’t play with their phone whilst driving). Thanks for strengthening my point – prosecuting people who have crashes has absolutely no effect on improving the standard of driving of those who don’t even realise they are bad drivers, hence won’t improve road safety. QED.

and they’re not going to if we don’t let them know, by way of prosecution.

Except you’re not prosecuting them under your system – not the people who are bad drivers but haven’t yet had a crash.

You have clearly related people having accidents to being unlucky.

No, I relate people having crashes to people driving badly and being unlucky. You imply that I’ve suggested that people having crashes are just people who are unlucky, which is something different and not at all what I said, hence the context being important.

I’m sure you can understand my confusion, as we were talking about two groups of drivers; one group that hasn’t crashed and one group that has.

Well no, you seem to want to make that distinction by only focusing on those who have crashed. In reality there is a single group of bad drivers. It is those we should be concentrating on.

I am surprised that I have to explain this to you – there are thousands of drivers every day who don’t have a crash despite doing exactly the same thing as those who do. It is simply a matter of chance that there wasn’t a pedestrian crossing the road when they were looking at their phone, the cyclist they passed too close didn’t wobble, a car didn’t come round the blind corner as they were overtaking, there wasn’t a stationary queue of traffic in the fog in front of them, etc. etc. The thing is it’s actually very rare that such things do all come together and a crash results for an individual driver. Yet tomorrow they might, so what we need to do is address the bad driving which is the ultimate cause of crashes whether or not it resulted in a crash today

Not only is that wrong, but I have already pointed out where you are wrong.

Are you suggesting that doing all these bad driving things is only a crime if the pedestrian is crossing the road, cyclist wobbles, car comes the other way or there’s a stationary queue?

Good point, that too (though I think most people know they shouldn’t play with their phone whilst driving). Thanks for strengthening my point – prosecuting people who have crashes has absolutely no effect on improving the standard of driving of those who don’t even realise they are bad drivers, hence won’t improve road safety. QED.

You pre-emptively suggest I’ll use selective quoting, then go on to do just that.
Strong move, if a little ridiculous.
As is your “logic”:

Prosecuting one group will have no effect on a different group so we shouldn’t bother

I could present it in many analogous situations to more clearly demonstrate the silliness, but I don’t think I need to.

Except you’re not prosecuting them under your system – not the people who are bad drivers but haven’t yet had a crash.

Do I need to explain the phrase “not mutually exclusive” to you? It appears you do not understand what it means because you keep repeating the same false statement.

sbob –

You have clearly related people having accidents to being unlucky.

aracer –
no

My mistake.

I relate people having crashes to people driving badly and being unlucky

Oh, so you do relate people having crashes to being unlucky after all!
You’re saying there are shit drivers, and unlucky shit drivers, but only the latter group have accidents. If the shit drivers aren’t having accidents then it must be down to bad luck, it’s the only difference between the two groups.

It’s such a ridiculous view, coupled with the fact that you keep insisting I have a different opinion to the one I have, and have explained, repeatedly, that I’m g……………….snore.

FPNs for careless, big ones but with a large discount from taking it to court. It happens in other countries. Points on the licence sends the right message.

A few years ago the law was changed so that FPs could be issued for careless driving.

https://www.theaa.com/driving-advice/legal/fixed-penalty

Couldn’t swear to it but there may have been guidance that FPs were not to be used for accident cases but for things like tailgating etc.

I even helpfully explained why it’s down to bad luck. Do you really not get that there is lots of rubbish driving going on which doesn’t cause accidents? Do I also need to point out that the rubbish driver who has been lucky so far might be unlucky tomorrow?

So to summarize, accidents are caused by voodoo and you’re not sure if we should punish people or not.
Useful, very useful.

Merry Christmas.

Have you made any attempt at all to understand what I’ve written?

If you two weren’t brimming over with passive agression, you might be able to actually communicate your points. Neither of which are bad, from what I can tell.

Be nice 🙂

I understand the point he’s making (whilst he was still making a point rather than attacking me), I simply disagree with it in essence, because whilst I’m not suggesting that those causing accidents shouldn’t be prosecuted, all the evidence suggests that on its own it does very little to improve road safety – because as we seem to agree most drivers don’t think they’re bad drivers and going to cause an accident, so their driving behaviour is unaffected by such punishments.

I’m not sure sbob has tried to understand or engage with my point at all.

At work I have to re-take some standard training every year. Everyone in the company does.

Perhaps we should have annual mandatory refreshers for driving?

Id’ be up for that.

aracer – Member

Have you made any attempt at all to understand what I’ve written?

Have you? 😛

molgrips – Member

At work I have to re-take some standard training every year. Everyone in the company does.

Perhaps we should have annual mandatory refreshers for driving?

It’s lapsed now, but one of the reasons I preferred RoSPA to IAM is that it’s continuous.
If I return to driving I’ll be seeking tuition first.

molgrips – Member
At work I have to re-take some standard training every year. Everyone in the company does.

Perhaps we should have annual mandatory refreshers for driving?

Maybe instead some practical lesson in physics, eg momemtum, coefficients of friction etc.

Going back to the subject of the OP. The thing to do if a speed limit (or any TMO) is implemented that you want to query is send a friendly email to the council/traffic authority asking them for the reason they made the change. This would quite likely provide some clarity on the way forward rather than resorting to 2nd guessing or randomly ranting about stuff.

Don’t start with an FOI, they are a fallback option if the authority does not co-operate with an informal request.

Oh and if you do want to travel free from the restriction of speed limits then then you just need to cycle, speed limits do not apply to bicycles (unless you are cycling in a royal park).

Watched this lastnight and came away thinking the he’s a bit of a shit driver in a fast car. And there are no speed cameras.

^so re captainsasquatch’s video, just so I’m clear, is that acceptable ‘driving to the conditions’ or unacceptable driving? – because once you allow driver discretion I don’t know how you’d tell.