Just zis Guy, you know? wrote:
On Sat, 19 Jul 2003 20:58:22 +0100, "PeterE"
wrote:

Yes, I pass stop lines against red lights on occasion, though I
never enter the junction itself.

But you are admitting adopting a "contingent" approach to the rules
in the HC rather than the absolute one you urge on others.

Sure. I freely admit it. I have also given reasons, and the limits
which I set myself, and I have said more than once that if I get
caught I won't be bleating about the injustice of it. Advanced stop
lines are common, and where they are used I have never felt the need
to pass the line. I pass the line only when and where it will improve
my safety. I notice rather a lot of motorcyclists doing the same, now
I come to think of it. Sometimes the best place to be is right in the
following driver's line of sight.

[snip]

And yes, you rightly point out that I have made some very absolutist
statements in the past. When an argument runs on in Usenet it is
inclined to become increasingly polarised - I plead guilty to being
human. In reality I have never considered going a couple of mph over
the limit when the road starts running downhill to be speeding.
Speeding to me is going fast enough to be nicked, which in every
instance I've ever come across involves a significant margin over the
limit.

Indeed the nature of the medium does tend to encourage polarised and
absolutist statements, and those who make them need to be careful they're
not living in glass houses.

Common sense suggests that road traffic law must be enforced on a contingent
basis - all the laws can't be enforced all the time, so the authorities have
to decide which laws to enforce, and where, and should take into account the
benefit to be derived from enforcing the law rather than simply doing so for
the sake of it.

If it is widely believed that the law *is* being enforced for the sake of it
(e.g. the guy stopped 18 inches over a stop line) then trust in the
authorities is eroded and ultimately destroyed.

Is it possible to gain a substantially greater degree of genuine speed limit
compliance (rather than prosecution avoidance) mainly through persuasion? I
would suggest to a large degree it's a somewhat Quixotic quest, and in fact
over the last ten or fifteen years policy trends have actually militated
against it - both in the way speed cameras have been deployed and the way
wholesale and inconsistent speed limit reductions have made it clear that
speed limits, on a road-by-road basis, were not a constant but subject to
political caprice.

Speed cameras in the past have been deliberately concealed, giving the
impression that deterrence is not the first priority. Even where not
concealed, they are normally found on the widest, straightest, most open
stretches of roads and rarely on shopping streets or outside schools.

And, while the trend has not been uniform across the country, anyone who
does much driving will be aware of at least one or two roads where the
reaction is "why the hell is *this* a 30?"

Also much of the pressure for lower limits and tougher enforcement has come
from organisations that are interested as much in curbing car use as in
improving safety, which in turn makes people more likely to doubt the
argument.

So it's hardly surprising that the majority of drivers play "dodge the
Gatso", and will continue to do so until there's a camera every quarter of a
mile along every classified road in Britain. So the challenge must be for
those who wish to promote adherence to speed limits (on the terms you
defined), how this can be done by persuasion, or indeed with any element of
persuasion whatsoever. Because at the moment, on that score, we're going
backwards - speed limits are far less respected, and speeding offences
considered far less reprehensible, than they were when I learned to drive.

We do, of course, have the technology to compel people to adhere to speed
limits, but the risks of that are well summed up by the comments of a
contributor to another forum who said something along the lines of "Great! I
won't have to worry about cameras ever again, I'll be able to drive like a
total tosser, and they won't be able to do anything about it!"

--
http://www.speedlimit.org.uk
"If laws are to be respected, they must be worthy of respect."