[OT] Speeding motorist - "It's unfair"

The original "anger"

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/north_west/3052856.stm

"He [the speeder] said the case had nothing to do with road safety as
he had completed the manoeuvre in total safety ... raise money through
fines ..."



What is interesting about this one is that the police have it on camera.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/3105751.stm

But the police have now hit back. "Video of the moment when he was caught
in his BMW was shown at the news conference, and reporters were handed
31 photographs of the sequence"

I can't find the video or photos on the BBC site.


Two other quotes. "... he [the speeder] said the chief constable must be
desperate to make such a fuss over such a trivial case."

"Mr Shaw [the speeder] was upset that the chief constable suggested he
was driving dangerously, when he said he obviously was not."

Clearly, not only do cameras have no discretion, which is obviously
unfair to speeders, but even the police can't tell the difference between
good and bad drivers.


Tim.



--
God said, "div D = rho, div B = 0, curl E = - @B/@t, curl H = J + @D/@t,"
and there was light.

http://tjw.hn.org/ http://www.locofungus.btinternet.co.uk/

On Tue, 29 Jul 2003 10:14:20 +0000 (UTC) someone who may be Tim
Woodall wrote this:-

The original "anger"

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/north_west/3052856.stm

[speeder] "An honest, law-abiding pensioner

Someone who drives at 39mph in a 30mph zone is patently not
law-abiding. He may have convinced himself that he is law-abiding,
but in reality he is a minor criminal.

"In doing so, he unwittingly may have strayed over the speed limit

That is not an excuse AFAIK.

by a few mph

The definition of "a few" might stretch to five, but not nine.

He was driving at 30% over the speed limit.

We also know from TRL the difference between 40mph and 30mph in
terms of the likely outcome for those hit by motorists.

for a very brief period.

That we don't know.

"The police answer is to threaten him with court proceedings,

Glad to hear it.

a maximum fine of £1,000 and penalty points

That is about the size of it. Note the disparity between the maximum
fine and the one the Magistrate imposed.

unless he pays them £60

Which goes into a fund for paying for speed camera maintenance and
more speed cameras. An excellent use of the money. It does not go
into something like the Chief Constable's Christmas Party Fund,
despite implications that this is what happens.

and then prosecute him in court,

That is the CPS.

take away a chunk of his pension

I'm fascinated to know how the police or the CPS did this.

I doubt if £90 will make much impact on the pension of a retired
bank manager.

and make him out for all to see as a bad and dangerous driver,

That appears to be the opinion of the police.

and a convicted offender.

That is a fact. There is no making this out.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/3105751.stm

But the police have now hit back.

I am glad they have done so. It is good to see the police behaving
sensibly for once.


--
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I will always explain revoked keys, unless the UK government
prevents me using the RIP Act 2000.

"David Hansen" wrote in message
...

[speeder] "An honest, law-abiding pensioner
Someone who drives at 39mph in a 30mph zone is patently not
law-abiding.

Absolutely. The U-shaped curve puts him in a zone of significantly
increased risk of crashing - that is not safe driving. There is, after all,
no law which says that if a vehicle is going slower than you want to, you
must overtake.

"In doing so, he unwittingly may have strayed over the speed limit
That is not an excuse AFAIK.

You don't "stray over the speed limit" by a third.

I doubt if £90 will make much impact on the pension of a retired
bank manager.

Especially one who can afford a rather nice-looking car...

Bad News: link to bugger-safe-lets-speed.org.uk on the report. I suggest a
campaign of feedback to the BBC drawing attention to the "who's vulnerable"
thread and the 12mph page (mirrored with comments at my site if you want to
see it now it's been laughed off the web). I think there is no room for
doubt: our friend in the North is not a road safety campaigner, just a
garden-variety speeding apologist.

--
Guy
===

WARNING: may contain traces of irony. Contents may settle after posting.
http://www.chapmancentral.com

Tim Woodall wrote:

[snip]

Clearly, not only do cameras have no discretion, which is obviously
unfair to speeders, but even the police can't tell the difference between
good and bad drivers.

I disagree with Tim's implied irony. Although I am a keen cyclist,
I am also a motorist ("cager"), motor-cyclist (don't know what the perjorative
term for one of those is), horse-rider, walker, and have even roller-
bladed on the public carriageway on quiet lanes in Germany, so I have
no particular axe to grind. But from my own observations, travelling
typically 120 miles every day (mainly motorway but including country
lanes, residential streets and so on), the police are perfectly happy
to tolerate speeding when it is (a) not excessive, and (b) not accompanied
by dangerous driving. Motorway users who signal, practice lane discipline,
use their mirrors and so on, are almost never pulled over unless their
speed becomes truly excessive (in excess of, say, 90 miles per hour).
But motorists who hog the outside lane, flash everyone who dares to
impede their progress, and carve up more law-abiding motorists who
are trying to stick to the speed limit, can be and are pulled up when
they are spotted. And to my mind, this is just as it should be :
speed is not of itself dangerous, but when it is /accompanied/ by
dangerous driving, can and should be stopped and punished.

And (a slight digression), I would like to commend 99.9% of the motorists in
the New Forest, where my wife and I were cycling two weekends ago :
almost without exception, they would wait for a cyclist who was
ahead of them to wave them through, rather than just blindly barging
past as happens only too often around outer London.

Philip Taylor

"Helen Deborah Vecht" wrote in message
...

How *dreadfully* unfair! Kinetic energy @ 39mph is only 69% more than at
30mph.

I would have guessed it as 1.3 times more (ie 30%), but it's about 30 years since
I did physics!

Just zis Guy, you know? wrote:

"Philip TAYLOR [PC87S/O-XP]" wrote in message
news:a3399d5dbefc13c4e781ed5cddad7b22@TeraNews...


speed is not of itself dangerous


Speeding, however, is. There is a large and growing body of evidence saying
that (a) driving at significantly above the median speed for a road is
associated with greater risk of crashing (significant being 15-20% or more);

I would completely agree with this; it is the /median/ speed which is
important, not an arbitrary figure set by a local authority and/or the
police. If you travel south on the M3 when traffic is not excessively
heavy, the median speeds for the three lanes will be close to 75, 85 and 95
respectively. By selecting the appropriate lane, and by matching your own
speed to that of the prevailing traffic, you will do far more for road
safety that by blindly following a "= 70 : good ; 70 bad" rule.

(b) those who have several speeding convictions are also more likely to have
been involved in crashes;

Yes, I don't dispute that for one instant, but not does it conflict with
my earlier assertion that (using your terminology) those who have several
speeding convictions probably tend to drive dangerously as well as speed.

(c) probability of fatality rises roughly with the
fourth power of impact speed - and so on.

Certain as /a/ power of impact speed : not certain I would agree with
the fourth powet without doing a little more research.

Speeding is dangerous, and suggesting it isn't is one of the more dangerous
pieces of self-delusion we practice when we drive.

The problem is, "speeding" is open to interpretation. If you mean
"exceeding the statutory limit", then I disagree (for reasons which
I will return to below); if you mean "driving significantly faster than
the median speed for the road/lane which you are using", then I would agree.

There are two reasons why I disagree with the first interpretation :

1) speed limits are arbitrary : German autobahns are little different
to our own motorways, yet unless posted to the contrary, there is no
speed limit on them. Thus speeds which are legal in Germany are illegal
in this country : that is illogical.

2) speed limits should be seen as guidance, not rule : if I drive down
even a four-lane road near my home, with cars parked both sides,
I try to keep my speed down to 20 mph or so -- reason : it is a residential
area, with all the accompanying risks of children, pets, etc, suddenly
appearing between the parked cars. Where that same road narrows to
two lanes, yet ceases to run through a residential area, I frequently
increase my speed to 30 or more : even 40 if the road is completely
clear and visibility excellent. Yet the limit for this road is
30 mph throughout : the local authority make no distinction between
residential and semi-rural stretches.

** Phil.

"Philip TAYLOR [PC87S/O-XP]" wrote in message
news:d72cdaeffc44552811057a57de964856@TeraNews...

I would completely agree with this; it is the /median/ speed which is
important, not an arbitrary figure set by a local authority and/or the
police. If you travel south on the M3 when traffic is not excessively
heavy, the median speeds for the three lanes will be close to 75, 85 and 95
respectively.

That seems a lot more than most m-ways! I'd say more like 60/70/80

Adrian Boliston wrote:

"Philip TAYLOR [PC87S/O-XP]" wrote in message

[snip]

If you travel south on the M3 when traffic is not excessively
heavy, the median speeds for the three lanes will be close to 75, 85 and 95
respectively.


That seems a lot more than most m-ways! I'd say more like 60/70/80

I agree, which is why I specifically cited the M3; it does seems to
support a very high average speed southbound from the M25.

** Phil.

"Adrian" == Adrian Boliston writes:

"Helen Deborah Vecht" wrote in message
...

How *dreadfully* unfair! Kinetic energy @ 39mph is only 69%
more than at 30mph.

I would have guessed it as 1.3 times more (ie 30%), but it's
about 30 years since I did physics!

It's a long time since I did it too... but 0.5mv^2 is floating around
somewhere in my brain so the ratio of energies is 39^2/30^2 or
1521/900 or 1.69.

So 69% extra seems correct to me.

In ,
Helen Deborah Vecht typed:
How *dreadfully* unfair! Kinetic energy @ 39mph is only 69% more than
at 30mph.


And cycling through a red light is infinitely more dangerous to pedestrians
and other cyclists than stopping at a red light.

Form a post of mine a short while ago:


I'm a cyclist (and driver) I was alomost knocked off my bike on wednesday
evening. I was turning right out of a traffic light protected T_junction
when i was almost hit by a cyclist going striaght across the T ignoring the
red light - I had to take evasive action to avoid the errant cyclist and the
car following me out of the junction, the f**kwit cyclist ignored me and
carried on

If cyclists want to make a song and dance about motorists breaking the law
then more cyclists need to obey the law themselves and many that I observe,
while cycling myself, need to pay more heed to the safety of other road
users of all types.

pk