Is there any point even trying to drive 'briskly' on public roads these days?

[Ponsonby]

12 hours ago, Paul667 said:

Ok so I am old!! In the 1980’s you could always see police cars in wait, you knew exactly where they would be. I travel the same roads now at similar times and never ( strong but true)see the police waiting like they used to.

Trackdays might seem expensive but imagine the impact that a ban would have on your job, family and pocket!

As for overtaking, think how many “safety” camera clips would be submitted to the police when you ‘safely’ overtake the 47mph brigand, minimising your time exposed to Danger!!!!!

Are we still allowed to overtake? I thought it must have been banned years ago by the glaring looks you get if you have the audacity to overtake someone.

I too was driving in the 80's. Feel sorry for the 'youngsters' who will never get to experience the same relative freedom.

[Rock_Steady]

39 minutes ago, Ponsonby said:

Public roads exist for the purpose of getting people and goods from A to B. They are not a playground.

The government should immediately ban high powered vehicles, they are completely unnecessary, and impose a maximum limit of 75bhp and countrywide speed limit of 40mph.

This will keep our roads safer, save manufacturers huge fortunes in development costs, and save all of us on this forum an absolute fortune. Since it will then take so long to get anywhere more of us will then be forced to use the new high speed railways at an inflated cost.

I'm off to build a display plinth and glass case for my 370Z so I can just sit and look at it and dream of days gone by ....

Disagree. Lowering the speed limit doesn't necessarily make things safer. Just makes you late or have to leave earlier. As long as people are doing the same speed whether it's 40 or 60 on a country road and you keep your distance, it's just as safe. it's people who drive slowly everywhere and DON'T indicate... anywhere, that is dangerous. You can drive as slow as you like but if you don't indicate - and this means before and as you turn not just as your turning - it's dangerous. Awareness / use of mirrors and good judgment is everything, speed is just an easy scapegoat that is a little misunderstood.  

[coldel]

I think he was being sarcastic?

[Ekona]

Trouble is, that could just as easily be a statement from Brake or similar. That’s the really worrying thing.

 

Picking up on what Rock Steady said though, I’m convinced we could lower the accident rate by at least 50% if people started indicating their intentions. Why so many people are so lazy they can’t even be bothered to reach 30mm (or four postcodes in the case of the Evora) to flick a turn signal on is beyond me. Just doing that one simple thing every single time would make such a difference.

[gangzoom]

Had to go into the city centre in rush hour traffic recently, forget about overtaking, I literally could have walked quicker. In the past would have taken the pedal bike but nursery runs means car had to come along.

 

 

 

Despite traffic, speed cameras, tailgating idiots I really so still love been in the car. Have somehow covered 1300 miles in just 4 weeks since picking up the new car, and got a 650 mile roadtrip coming up next week to Edinburgh/Glasgow, cannot wait.

 

Will be sticking religiously to the speed limit though :).

 

 

Edited November 2, 2017 by gangzoom

[Ponsonby]

22 hours ago, coldel said:

I think he was being sarcastic?

Well spotted Codel, I was indeed being sarcastic.

 

It would be interesting to know how many accidents have happened on the motorways where the speed limit has been reduced to 40/50 mph due to roadworks. I have spotted a few especially where they seem to go on forever. No doubt the arguement would be that the lanes are narrower but am sure that some will be due to the driver just losing concentration or falling asleep, or just losing the will to live!

 

[Keyser]

21 minutes ago, Ponsonby said:

Well spotted Codel, I was indeed being sarcastic.

 

It would be interesting to know how many accidents have happened on the motorways where the speed limit has been reduced to 40/50 mph due to roadworks. I have spotted a few especially where they seem to go on forever. No doubt the arguement would be that the lanes are narrower but am sure that some will be due to the driver just losing concentration or falling asleep, or just losing the will to live!

 

 

 

That last bit could be so true - that or frustration the top of the M3 for the past few years has been a nightmare and you can see people getting more annoyed as the miles go on and on at 50mph on a 3 lane motorway with not a workman to be seen!!

[Rock_Steady]

23 hours ago, coldel said:

I think he was being sarcastic?

O....

[Rock_Steady]

1 hour ago, Ponsonby said:

Well spotted Codel, I was indeed being sarcastic.

 

It would be interesting to know how many accidents have happened on the motorways where the speed limit has been reduced to 40/50 mph due to roadworks. I have spotted a few especially where they seem to go on forever. No doubt the arguement would be that the lanes are narrower but am sure that some will be due to the driver just losing concentration or falling asleep, or just losing the will to live!

 

Soooorrry! it's always after i post i tend to get the impression that perhaps, in this case, you were being sarcastic, but i'd already posted,  And now i look like a pillock. I'll wear the hat. i'm used to it. 

Edited November 2, 2017 by Rock_Steady

[coldel]

1 hour ago, Ponsonby said:

Well spotted Codel, I was indeed being sarcastic.

 

It would be interesting to know how many accidents have happened on the motorways where the speed limit has been reduced to 40/50 mph due to roadworks. I have spotted a few especially where they seem to go on forever. No doubt the arguement would be that the lanes are narrower but am sure that some will be due to the driver just losing concentration or falling asleep, or just losing the will to live!

 

 

But there are so many factors as you say. Certainly at lower speeds the two facts have to be true 'like for like' 1. you have more time to react 2. impacts result in less damage. Motorways are quite safe and the UK has the safest ones in Europe I believe, you are twice as likely to die on a German motorway than a UK one by all accounts. Most accidents though happen in built up urban areas, they just don't make the news like a big motorway pile up. Doing just a few mph over a speed limit makes huge differences to survival rates in urban areas to both driver and more importantly pedestrians. 

 

I would disagree with the boredom thing in 50mph zones, I actually think there is no difference and people are as likely to lose concentration at higher speeds they just have less time to correct it. So heres a theoretical question, if motorways had been 50mph since year dot, would you be sat on it frustrated and bored? If you had known no different?

[rabbitstew]

On 23/10/2017 at 16:22, Jetpilot said:

Maybe its an older generation theme as perhaps we remember the roads when they were less congested and policed, my golden era was late 90's and motorbikes, cant help but look at national speed limit general a and b roads now and think, f*ck that, i am glad to be in my daily bus , but i imagine to a younger driver its all they have ever known.

I was thinking this the other day. I seldom get chance to really open up my daily driver on my commute and when I do, within 30 seconds I am back stuck behind someone happily cruising along on a lovely bendy B road at 40mph in a 60. Then I am stuck behind them again for ages until a suitable straight comes up where I can get past them. What amazes me though, ive noticed of late, when ive made a decision its not safe to overtake, along comes some idiot in a 40bhp Astra and happily overtakes me, and the car in front whilst approaching a blind bend. It happens all the time! The other night though, I had pretty much an empty B road for a good 20miles on the way home. Stuck sport mode on and happily wrung its neck. Id forgotten how good the adrenaline buzz was.

 

One of my biggest worries is dashcams now though. Everyone has them. So if you do want to give it some stick and overtake someone, next thing you know they could be emailing that HD footage of you to your local police or uploading it to youtube etc.

 

I shudder at some of the stuff me & my  mates did on our sportsbikes back in the late 90`s, you just couldnt do that stuff these days - not that id want to tbh, those days of being "invincible" are long gone.

[Jetpilot]

Last year i went to join Keyser at Combe for an afternoon session, i dont think there was anything else on that journey that i could have bumped into slowing the progress:

 

Horse Box

Caravan

Tractor

Artics

Coaches

Learners

Roadworks

 

Least of all the driver that absolutely refuses to overtake at the head of any queue.

 

On the flip side of that i went to the same place this year, but left at 6am, made pretty good progress but still had a fair bit of traffic to circumnavigate.

 

 

Edited November 2, 2017 by Jetpilot

[chips]

Never when there's any buildings, cars etc on the roadside.- built up zone etc.
Never when there's any other moving vehicles in the vicinity.
stick to the limit on the those roads and cruise control is set to 70 on the highways. Inc those 50 zones of so called 'roadwork' everywhere. I cruise straight thru them and have never got a ticket in all the years-M20, M25, A1/M1 recently. M20 at Dover end was set with that 50 average check for about a year for some 'traffic flow testing purpose' so would have gone through a fair few times.
It's all too hard in those areas. I have no idea, are there prizes or something for doing 10mph under? or stopping for some hazard light on emergency picking up smokes or something from the shop or stopping on continuous road to let someone enter the road or someone cross the road. Plus all the roads are so narrow.

Maybe head out for a lap from about 4am in summer on country roads only where's there's no development on the roadside or in view.
Problem then esp beginning of spring is there's lots of mainly birds on the road.
It's annoying but I guess the good thing there is that it's not Kangaroos or Camels.

Chuck in a yearly trip to Scottish Highlands, Wales, Germany.

But for me cars are a bit more for cruising slowly. I have a bike that got to the track 15 days this summer just gone for my fun motoring stuff.

[Ponsonby]

2 hours ago, rabbitstew said:

I was thinking this the other day. I seldom get chance to really open up my daily driver on my commute and when I do, within 30 seconds I am back stuck behind someone happily cruising along on a lovely bendy B road at 40mph in a 60. Then I am stuck behind them again for ages until a suitable straight comes up where I can get past them. What amazes me though, ive noticed of late, when ive made a decision its not safe to overtake, along comes some idiot in a 40bhp Astra and happily overtakes me, and the car in front whilst approaching a blind bend. It happens all the time! The other night though, I had pretty much an empty B road for a good 20miles on the way home. Stuck sport mode on and happily wrung its neck. Id forgotten how good the adrenaline buzz was.

 

One of my biggest worries is dashcams now though. Everyone has them. So if you do want to give it some stick and overtake someone, next thing you know they could be emailing that HD footage of you to your local police or uploading it to youtube etc.

 

I shudder at some of the stuff me & my  mates did on our sportsbikes back in the late 90`s, you just couldnt do that stuff these days - not that id want to tbh, those days of being "invincible" are long gone.

+1 on the sportsbikes back in the 90's. I really would not have the bottle for it now. Do you remember the Ogri (I think) biker T shirt that stated 'I am invincible - well, so far anyway'. I bought one then decided I might be tempting fate so never wore it : )

[rabbitstew]

12 minutes ago, Ponsonby said:

+1 on the sportsbikes back in the 90's. I really would not have the bottle for it now. Do you remember the Ogri (I think) biker T shirt that stated 'I am invincible - well, so far anyway'. I bought one then decided I might be tempting fate so never wore it : )

Indeed! Scary things was, mates were crashing & breaking their arms etc and yet we still did it. I had a massive highside at about 120mph once and totally wrote my bike off, and yet within about 3 weeks id bought another identical smashed up bike and made a good one out of the 2 and was back out on the roads again. Think I actually crashed that bike 3 times in the end and it only finally died when the engine overheated once.

[coldel]

I was driving a 1 litre burgundy VW Polo in the early 90s, no fear of accident issues for me during that time!

[TT350]

Cash generators. 

[TT350]

I did more crazy risky things on my 50cc moped and in my 55bhp Clio than in my Z. Despite lower speeds and power, it was a case of once I was committed in a low powered car such as my Clio....that was it. I had to go through with agonisingly slow overtakes with on coming traffic that wasnt there 20 seconds previously and couldn't pull back into the spot I'd just left. 

 

Idiotic street racing with mates in their 1.0 and 1.2 cars require so much risk. Crazy. 

The Z..its a 5 second job to overtake. Done and dusted. The power and brakes are there. 

[TT350]

I got caught speeding.

[HEADPHONES]

That sucks TT350

[gangzoom]

23 hours ago, TT350 said:

I got caught speeding.

 

By what, a camera or actual human? I thought for a human they have to stop you and fine you on the spot, and the camera will take 2 weeks or so to know via the post?

[TT350]

On 06/11/2017 at 11:34, gangzoom said:

 

By what, a camera or actual human? I thought for a human they have to stop you and fine you on the spot, and the camera will take 2 weeks or so to know via the post?

I was doing naughy speed very briefly on the A55 towards Anglesey.

 

After a 5 min chat he let me go on my way. He could tell i wasnt an absolute pratt and I have a licence for 20 years that I've never lost or had any points on.

 

Car was totally above board too and on decent tyres. 

 

He was a nice guy.

[Rock_Steady]

Unmarked or panda?

[rabbitstew]

16 hours ago, TT350 said:

I was doing naughy speed very briefly on the A55 towards Anglesey.

 

After a 5 min chat he let me go on my way. He could tell i wasnt an absolute pratt and I have a licence for 20 years that I've never lost or had any points on.

Wow, that was a bit of luck then. I think I have only ever been let off once and that was because the officer was radio`d to an emergency before he had written my ticket. Usually one look at me and they throw the book at me.

[JetSet]

Yes, we've just had another batch of speed limit changes around here, all downwards of course. The one that made me laugh is the 50 mph average speed limit (with cameras) they've put on Sealand Road from Sealand to Chester, about 6 miles or so. I use this road on a regular basis and can't recall the last time it was even possible to reach 50 and there's also a set of traffic lights to navigate and overtaking is near impossible. How some 300 or so drivers have been caught speeding on that stretch is something of a mystery. On the plus side, they're giving serious consideration to removing the 50 limit on The A55 around Colwyn Bay.

 

Pete