When you brag about speeding and complain about measures to reduce it you lose a lot of that respect.
To me, bragging about speeding is on a par with bragging about hitting your wife. Speeding is dangerous and the fact that animals and small children are not fully aware of the danger of roads makes limits necesary.
Sorry, but the speeding law in the UK is an ass.
If people drove at safe speeds they wouldn’t have to worry about it.
I love these arguements. Just because you’re not allowed go as fast as you want to go, the law is an ass.
If I had my way, public vehicles wouldn’t be able to do over 70 miles an hour by engine size.
Care to elaborate? Otherwise there’s no reason anybody should pay any attention to you
FWIW, Clarkson’s a moron.
Someone will surely be by to correct me if I’m wrong but I believe in the US the speeding laws were originally more geared towards saving gas than saving lives.
I’m pretty sure the average person can go 15-20 miles over the speed limit without being any less safe. Studies have been done on this. I’ll see if I can find any.
Cisco This is the Uk we’re talking about. And if you increased the speed limit by 15 or 20, people would go 15 or 20 mph over it. The speed limits are bound to consider all factors when decided.
But Jerremy was talking about going way over the speed limit.
I don’t think it’s safe to
With all due respect that’s a stupid thing to say. And probably wrong.
Damn, preview (if only in the head).
I meant to say, in the UK the main limit is higher than the US, (not sure about urban limits)
And ignore “I don’t think it’s safe to” (it was a edited thought I forgot to edit from the post)
I’d be truly astounded if this were true. Remember safety doesn’t just involve the probability of an accident, it must take in to account the severity of the accident. 15-20 mph can be the difference between life and death in a car/pedestrian collision, and in a head-on the relative speeds are 30-40mph. Not a trivial difference at all. Check out this US government research page - about a fifth of the way down is a chart plotting probability of fatality against velocity change of impact. An increase of speed from 50 mph to just 60 mph fully doubles the probability of fatality.
I know. That’s why I specified in the US.
I know that, too. But you can’t say it’s unsafe and/or stupid to speed when you admit that the speed limit was set lower than a commonly decided safe speed.
For some reason, when I wrote my first post, I was only thinking of highways and rural roads. And when I said 15-20mph over the limit I was thinking of places where the limit was already 65-75mph. Of course it’s stupid to speed in residential or urban areas. Maybe that clears some things up.
I’m almost positive that I read a study that said speed was rarely an accident factor on interstate highways.
Check out this government funded study. Evidence suggest that people tend to drive the speed they feel comfortable at regardless of the actual posted limit.
My point is the actual limit will have an effect on people’s decision of what a safe speed is. If you were to set the limit based on the original assesment of safe speed their decision would be influenced and they might raise their idea of a safe speed. To put it finer I think it’s wise to set the speed lower than the ‘commonly decided safe speed’.
In that case I apologise for calling your statement stupid. (But it would be stupid to apply it to urban areas, which you did not mean)
If ONE life can be saved because ONE driver obeys the lower limits then they are worth it.
.
No, because you actually increase the chances of people speeding , leading to more deaths. If you have artificially low posted speed limits, the average driver will assume they are worthless. So when you need to have a lower limit for some real issue (such as an upcoming sharp curve), drivers will be unprepared. It’s a classic boy who cried wolf" situation. You need realistic speed limits so drivers can trust the speed limits.
The only way people will think they are worthless is by hearing people like Jeremy Clarkson telling you that it’s perfectly safe to ignore the speed limits.
The thing Clarkson generally gives out about it all the speed cameras on motorways. He’s not talking about 2nd or 3rd class roads. These cameras are put there for one reason and one reason only, money. They are not about safety and this is the problem.
The new points system also does seem to facilitate a larger money take from drivers.
Finally Clarkson is a TV presenter he is not a newscaster. Top Gear is first and foremost a entertainment prog for drivers. He’s playing up to his audience in the same way all other presenters play up to theirs. His audience would generally dislike cameras and tickets.
Clarkson doesn’t make anyone speed in the same way that Chris Evans make anyone drink.
I’m sure one thing that would improve people’s respect for speed limits would be to alter motorway ones to suit the road - there’s plenty of straight clear stretches of road where the 70 limit is antiquated, and 80 or 90 would be safe enough, given the improvements in cars in the last thirty years. The limit could then be reduced back to 70 (or lower) for winding stretches, complex junctions etc.
This is the Pit right?
Good.
In my opinion Clarkson is a smug twat with a annoying shit eating grin.
He once wrote a column in the Times explaining that all bikers must be gay becasue they wear leather suits.
Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight.
Better go break the news to all the MotoGP and AMA riders then, Clarkson.
“When they first came along, and were going to be put in blackspots outside schools, and be visible so you’d be forced to slow down, they were a good idea. Now there are 6,000 of them, none of which appears to be in accident blackspots, just hidden behind bushes.” http://www.metro.co.uk/metro/interviews/interview.html?in_page_id=8&in_interview_id=724
Hidden behind bushes? Doesn’t sound like he’s talking about motorways to me.
Oh, and this one is good: “On the roads I don’t curse speed cameras because of the civil liberty issues. I curse them because they slow me down.” Sums it all up. The Times & The Sunday Times
OK maybe I was painting with a very large brush but giving out about cameras that are hidden is still very valid IMO. Cameras should be there to slow people down. The best camera system would not catch anyone as they’d all know not to do as they will be caught. Hiding cameras is futile and silly. It is all about money and not safety.
Cameras are also put in spot just coming off motorways etc. to catch people who haven’t had the change to slow down.
I don’t drive and have no clue about the UK motorway system BTW so I’m probably not the right person to argue with any of you 