The Chief

BBC NEWS | UK | Rising speed penalties pondered

Rising speed penalties pondered!!!!!

Dont get me wrong, i agree with clamping down on people who think its ok to roar through built up areas, in fact anyone who thinks its ok to blast through a built up area at 50 or 60 should be shot but how many times have you hit a road that has had the speed limit lowered, for instance there is a road near me which is a dual carriageway, away from houses and near industrial units you'd think at least 40 or 50 - er no its a 30mph i dont know anyone that does 30 down it and the police know this.

how many roads do you go down that has had the speed limit lowered and you think bloody hell thats a bit low.

I'm all for road safety but this is ridiculous

many a time you see them with their scamera vans - a right result sarge.

I geuinely believe it has bugger all to do with safety and more to do with raising revenue because this bloody goverment is that incompetant with OUR money they need to look into anyway to tax us more.

Why wont a mainstream party support the millions of motorists that are on the roads

when will it end? i've asked the question before, is the days of the performance car nearing an end.

Well i think its round the corner


P.s. and as for Cameron, you can stick your green policies where the sun doesn't shine.

_RIP_

The Chief

A report in the Times says those driving at 45mph or above in a 30mph limit could receive a fixed penalty of six points and a £100 fine.

Abdabz

To be honest, I dont think anyone can complain about that news article. It is obvious that the current penalties are not enough of a deterrent.
Too many self proclaimed "good drivers" feel it is up to them to determine the speed suitable for a road rather than keep within the limits set out by law.
I think more points and no exceptions when it comes to bans (all this "I need it for my job" bollox has to be disregarded) would be excellent. I don't just mean with speeding, I'd like to see driving while holding a mobile resulting in an instant ban, and some of the more pedantic things resulting in a couple of points on a license too (fog lights on when it's clear, dodgy reg plates, two white stripes on ford fiestas and the likes).
People only break the law because they feel that the chance of getting caught together with the weak punishments are worth the risk. Whack up speeding to say 6 points minimum and watch loads more people slow down

If this story was only about fines going up, then there could be an arguement that the motorist is a cash cow and all that, but increasing points and getting tougher on the drivers who think they know best can only be a good thing.

<abdabz goes into hiding>

The Chief

Your names not Bunstrom by any chance is it?

Jesus!!!


Some good points although not neccesary ones i agree with

MattW

As I followed the car park exit signs I noted a small super mini driven by a women who must have been in her 50's. Rather than follow me round the exit road she squeezed between two parked cars and exited just before me.

We joined the public road and she trunled up to the junction at 15mph. The junction, joined a 90 degree bend where cars on the main road had to slow for it, this gives ample opportunity to filter into the moving traffic safely.

The supermini stopped at the give way line, and waited. In what seemed like an age, a car came round the corner and finally the super mini pulled off.

The road is a two line 30mph limit with no parking, the speed limit can be easily reached safely, but no the super mini accelerated slowly up to 20mph. Eventually we came to a set of traffic lights and followed a few cars through at a distance.

She obviously was not aware that the pressure sensors in the road detect traffic as she hung back off the last car waiting for a traffic light to turn red, it never came.

Onto the Great Western Way and her previous hesitation was a distant memory as she pulled out in front of a large saloon, driven by another middle aged woman who didn't bat an eyelid. I joined the 40mph dual carraigeway behind the saloon only to see the supermini get into the outside lane. Thankfully, I thought, she must be turning off at the next roundabout.

We approached the roundabout side by side and i gained a few car lengths as cars managed to filter left. I joined the roundabout, but the exit was blocked by a pedestrian crossing on red (why the council like to oput these on exits to roundabouts i'll never know).

Rather than block the roundabout I left a gap for the left entrance to filter round, but by then the supermini had caught up and blocked the right hand roundabout lane. I had a van sitting in front of me with no where to go.

As the lights changed and the van moved on I caught up with the supermini, doing an indicated 35 on a 40mph dual carriageway. She was sat in the outside lane with nothing to her left. Half a mile later we arrived at the next roundabout, she took a right turn, I followed.

This took us onto a single carriageway 30 limit, I noted my speed 28 as she pulled away. We arrived at the next roundabout, single carriageway into two lanes. Left lane to go left, right lane straight on. She was going straight on, I was going left....phew!

As she approached the roundabout she straddled both lanes, her exit wasn't clear so I had to sit behind half her car for 15 seconds while the traffic moved on.

My exit had been clear, in the distance I could see another middle aged driver in a super mini pull out onto the road, and so it all began again.

Sound familiar? that's why speed enforcement happens, because once you pass your test there is no refreshment, and the majority of drivers are crap.

PeteBrant

If you are going to introduce a higher level of penatly for excessive speeds, which, is pretty difficult to argue against, then I would like to see the same sliding scale applied at the bottom end. If you are going 33 in a 30, then you dont get 3 points, you get 1.

Clarebabes

Matt, are you suggesting that bad driving should be penalised rather than just speeding? In which case I agree, this happens all of the time on our ring road. But, to catch bad drivers you need more police on the roads = big bucks. Aint gonna happen, is it?

alcazar

iTrader: (2)

Speeding, I'm afraid, is the number one public enemy crime at the moment.

Lying Labour have done this to us. They've publicised it so cleverly, that almost everyone you talk to believes the crap they spout.

If it was REALLY about road safety, they would target the group of motorists that have the largest proportion of injuries/fatalities: motorcyclists. (DfT figures: they make up only 4% of the traffic, but have 38% of the serious injuries/fatalities).

Instead, ACPO guidelines now favour the forward-facing camera, so that drivers can be identified. And which group of motorists CAN'T be caught by a forward-facing camera? I'll give you a clue: I've already mentioned them and they go around on two wheels

If you speed, you are punished twice: fine and points. Do an assault, burglary etc, and get off, or, if you're UNLUCKY you might get cs.

And try and get out of any speeding conviction, watch the fines and points rise and watch costs and a victim surcharge added on

Labour: a bunch of hypocritical lying b*stards! (don't start: the Tories are no better!)

Alcazar

ex-webby

The problem with this whole thing is that speeding is a flawed system for measurement of safety.

Lets argue, that a brand new Porsche with ceramic brakes on soft rubber in the dry, being driven by a fighter pilot who's just had 4 cups of coffee, is safe to be driven down a road at 60MPH.

Are you telling me now that a robin reliant, being driven by a 75 year old, who's on the final 5 miles after driving from Scotland to Essex, non-stop, on barely legal tyres on a wet road is just as safe at 60MPH?

The whole system is innacurate, and meaningless, which means that either those who drive alert, with excellent, road worthy cars and an excellent understanding of road safety, are made to drive far too slowly, or alternatively, those with crap cars, with dodgy brakes, and nearly bald tyres, with a total disregard for safety are allowed to drive WAY beyond their, and their cars' capabilities.

-

So, what happens? It ends up some kind of weird average.. which means nobody wins.

Now.. I'm not suggesting there is an easy solution to this, as "what do you do?". But I think from both sides..

From Us:
There's no point saying "This road should be a much higher speed limit", unless you mean "If I was driving a sack of crap down this road, half asleep, in the wet, it would be safe to go much faster".

From Them:
All this blanket, automated camera based, non-intuitive, judgement free, penalties is NEVER going to solve the problem. Mr 60MPH will still have accidents, regardless of whether he's within the speed limit. The only way to get close is to have twice as many police on the roads, and get them empowered to judge what's safe and what's not.

-

It would be very interesting indeed to see stats as follows :

Percentage of speeding-fine receivers, who have caused an accident.
Percentage of non-speeding-fine receivers, who have caused an accident.

Then we'll find out whether speeding fines are targetting those who cause accidents or not.

-

As you can probably tell, I wasn't completely in favour of the news this morning!!

The Chief

Thank god i'm not the only one that was pee'd off at this article.

some interesting points there.

MattW

Nothing in my post suggested illegal driving, it's just the roads are full of poor drivers who have never sought to improve their skills since they passed their test.

How many people do you know have been on a track day (you are probably not a great example for this one ), a driving course, IAM lessons etc.

I've done some fast road driving courses run by ex police instructors, I've done my A bike licence etc I'm not advocating people get punished I think we should have 10 yearly tests.

ex-webby

Anyone who gets caught for speeding only has themselves to blame (me included). The rules are the rules, whether you like them or not.

But I think the testing idea might be a better solution.

Maybe make the test far more strict, make MOT tests WAY more strict, increase road tax a bit, and make the roads out of better, safer tarmac. Raise the bar in terms of the SAFETY of CARS, ROADS and DRIVERS, and the problem will be reduced.

This would directly affect safety.

The big problem is that the revenue this creates now, is just way too big, and too much to now lose.

I absoultely hate the system, but a solution isn't easy to find. So for the most part its going to just be tough luck.

Brendan Hughes

I have little doubt they'd correlate. The vast majority of accidents are caused by young male drivers. I'd put money on the vast majority of drivers hit for speeding are also young male drivers. Look at insurance stats. But the problem is here, they're judging by averages. We don't want them to judge by averages, we want them to judge each case on its merits. Yes, hit the young male speeder - but also hit the middle-aged middle-minded middle-laner who has stuck to the speed limit, left his fog lights on, and caused everyone else to funnel into the r/h lane in order to overtake in frustration.

I don't see it as persecuting motorists, I see it as taking the majority option which is easy to enforce. It's a case of being efficient but not necessarily effective.

OllyK

I'd agree that a lot of accidents involve young male drivers, but I wouldn't think that number is an exact match for the cause.

I probably have a "near miss" every couple of weeks due to somebody else's poor driving, it's only because I am older, have done HGV C+E and IAM that I am more observant that I anticipate what the other driver is doing much earlier and address the situation before it becomes an accident.

Brendan Hughes

BTW, in Portugal / Lisbon there is a fantastic system for preventing speeding. Traffic lights have sensors 200m or so in front. Trigger the sensor by too high a speed, the lights go red. You're brought to a stop then allowed to continue. It's brilliant, no-one wants to be brought to a stop so they stick to the limit. No speeding, therefore (in the authorities' eyes) less chance of an accident (though the locals manage to have them in plenty other ways, I assure you). In contrast, cameras are bollox. They don't prevent any accident, as often the first thing you know about your speeding is when you receive an NIP two weeks later. They are the pure hypocrisy of prevention; they don't prevent anything at the time, they just act (now) as a cash cow for the authorities.

Lisbon has just installed I think 21 radars, linked to cameras, on various routes. There has already been official protests by the RAC equivalent as to how they are inappropriately sited (one of them 50m before a traffic-light crossroads FFS, another next to a 50kmh sign which is obscured by trees), or inappropriately set - one on a major circular road but set to 50kmh when everyone thinks the limit is 80. Unfortunately the authorities doubtless have bills to pay and they are set to continue.

To make people slow down, my proposal would be to use the traffic light system with a camera back-up. Some people know of the lights and simply ignore them and drive through on red. This can be bloody dangerous, there is a crossing on a main road near me where drivers assume it's just a speed stop and go through on red, when I'm about to cross ). So link one of them to a camera and anyone jumping it gets serious points and fine. That way, you force people to slow down and actually PREVENT the speeding, rather than permitting it, not stopping it, but just punishing it afterwards.

As for people's crap driving, that's another story as we all know.

ex-webby

That's illustrated another problem with all of this, in the fact that you've - understandably - presented a totally different statistic, that doesn't NECESSARILY have any bearing on the originaly point.

I'm talking about percentages.

For instance : You MAY find that the biggest percentage of *drivers on the road* fall into the "young male" category. In which case, even if all else were equal, the biggest percentage of accidents would be caused by young male drivers.

I'm not saying this is the case, but I'm talking about percentages.

Lets say there are 1million young male drivers on the road, and 100K young female drivers on the road. If there were 100K accidents caused by young male drivers, and 50K by young female drivers, it would be very easy to come to the conclusion that young male drivers cause twice as many accidents, and make no further analysis.

The Chief

Hmmm got me thinking (for a change)

Maybe the solution is to educate, ok say your caught a few mph over the speed limit, Say no more than 20% in a 30mph which equates to 6mph and 8mph in a 40 and so on until it reaches 84mph in a 70mph.

Ok get caught doing this and issue a non endorsable but wrist slap 60 quid fine end of.

If the speed is higher than 20% then issue a 100 quid fine and a compulsary 1/2 day course on the dangers of the road. But ok you say you can just keep speeding and paying the 100 quid - but maybe have a system where the driver can only tot up so many of these in 12 months - say 4 occasions then he is issued with 6 penalty points.

Or maybe have a system as such on the continent the higher the speed the higher the fine.

Just a thought

Brendan Hughes

Simon, insurance companies' profits and therefore entire existence depend on accurate calculations of statistical histories - I think you're doing them a disservice to say they haven't done a good analysis.

ex-webby

Its brilliant at reducing speeding.

But the point is. Is speed the measurement we should be using to keep our roads safe?

The fact is.. it may well BE the correct thing, as it would probably be far more costly, less lucrative, impractical, etc to use a more realistic measurement.. so we might be stuck with speeding.

But its vital to RECOGNISE that speeding is meaningless, and therefore not go overboard on the most meaningless of all of them, which is the blanket camera.

ex-webby

Brendan

I think you misunderstand me. I'm saying the insurance companies stats are correct. But those statistics don't necessarily relate to my point.

But, even as simplistic as directly relating it to the insurance industry... Surely you don't think that every industry has everything right, and there are no historically accepted methodologies that could do with a refresh?

PeteBrant

I would be absolutely against any penalty that was purely financial. It basically means that the rich can speed as much as they like.

scoobynutta555

There used to be a very good formula for spotting drivers and cars that have different capabilities which Webby highlighted above. It was called traffic police when they weren't put on quotas for detection rates.

To rely on camera vans or gatsos, which by their nature have no one on one contact with the driver, you'll arrive at where we are now, very little discretion and 'unfair' convictions for speeding.

PeteBrant

It's really difficult to argue this point.

What constitiutes an "Unfair" speeding conviction?

Brendan Hughes

Speed is one measurement in some places - where the driver thinks they can go quickly but it is unadvisable (residential driveways, concealed entrance, adverse camber /blind bend, etc etc). In those places, such a prevention measure would be great.

For motorways, the UK has one of the lowest limits in Europe despite having some of the best drivers (honestly!) and better maintained cars due to its high GDP or whatever. The limit is a joke, as are the sanctioning attempts to enforce it.

I think we reach the same point from different directions. I agree that sticking to a limit is not always the best way to guarantee the minimum number of accidents, and sometimes is even counterproductive (frustrated motorists carry out truly stupid manouevres). But, as said before, it's viewed as the most cost-effective blanket measure. In that case, I ask to enforce it in the spirit it was conceived - as a prevention measure, not simply a post-hoc sanction.

For the stats, I don't think industries have everything right, but I think there's a lot of money in the insurance industry to attract intelligent people, and when a private company's existence depend on them making correct calculations by people who have studied stats as a living for 10, 20, 30 years, why assume that they've always been wrong up to now? If it was public sector, with a lot less money to pay experts and answering to a minister's political whims, I'd have less faith in it.

The Chief

Only like the council tax then

Luan Pra bang

The trouble is sometimes bad drivers don't crash very often. My mother is one of those that drives a great big 4x4 and can hardly see out of it. She pretty much drives at 45 mph every where wether its a 30 limit or a 70 limit. She has loads of speeding tickets as she is pretty oblivious to everything around her but, by some strange piece of chance has not been involved in an accident for over 20 years. as far as I know she has only ever been in one car accident in her driving life.
I on the other hand try very hard to concentrate on being a better driver keep large stopping distances on the motorway and anticipate what other peolple are going to do. Riding a bike teaches you how important these thigs are. BUT I have no points on my license have only ever had three and have been onvolved in at least 4 crashes. So who is the better driver and who is safer on the road ?

OllyK

The man of course

ex-webby

EXACTLY.

So the number of speeding offenses bears no relation to the number of accidents.

One thing to look at though. How many hours / miles a year does your mum drive compared to you? You might find that you have more accidents or less accidents per mile.

-

Regarding insurance companies. There are all sorts of reasons why rates are set as high or low as they are.

Think of it this way. If "the insurance companies" had got their calculations correct, and they were a great way to decide who had the most accidents, why do we need to shop around for a better quote?

If you can (as it quite common) get a quote for a subaru from two different companies with sometimes 300% difference, there is something wrong in the formulas, or the rates do not reflect th formulas.