On Mon, 21 Jul 2003 20:10:33 +0100, "PeterE"
wrote:

A disturbing outbreak of agreement here.

Heh! :-)

However surely it is dependent both
on the physical road environment and the circumstances at the time whether
speeding past a Gatso does, or does not, significantly increase risk (see
earlier reply to WK about the Z-curve). You can't say it *always* does, nor
can I say that it *never* does.

No, but you can say that on balance it /generally/ does, which is my
point. It would be much easier to defend increases in limits in
various places, including the motorway, if the limits we had were more
widely obeyed. This also depends of course on reasonable behaviour
from politicians, so I'm not holding my breath.

around where I live many of the Gatsos are on wide main roads well
away from shops and schools

Can't comment on that as it's different from my experience. Although
to be fair I rarely notice Gatsos these days, for obvious reasons. I
do think they should put a speed limit repeater on the back instead of
the silly Diamond Grade, though.

In my experience I would say the noticeable increase in discourtesy and
aggression on the roads (which certainly does seem to be true) has mainly
occurred in the past ten years.

Hmmm. I would say it's been a steady decline for twice that long.
But these are subjective measures.

You couldn't get a speed limit
in a village with narrow roads and no footways

I'm never totally convinced by this - surely if it was a "village" in the
usual sense of the word then it would have qualified for a speed limit
anyway.

Nope. We lived in a village small enough for a letter addressed to
"Guy and Felicity, Checkendon" to be delivered - it had narrow roads,
no footways, a school, and a national speed limit. Checkendon now
has a 30 limit and traffic calming.

And if the message of adhering to speed limits is to be more persuasive then
steps must be taken to make limits more consistent, and restore faith in the
speed limit setting process.

No disagreement there. The Oxfordhsire definition of village for
30mph purposes includes anywhere there was a shepherd's bothy listed
in the Domesday book. I subvert the system, as you know, by riding a
bike and going at my own pace. Increasingly my answer to arbitrary
speed limits, congestion, mad traffic, jams and so on is "******** to
it" and get the bike out. I quite often ride to St Albans (40 miles
each way) rather than drive.

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
Maybe, maybe not. My Mum has now stopped speeding, since the "if he'd
been doing 30 he would have stopped here" campaign.
But I suspect her son may have bent her ear a bit.

Actually not. I think my bro-in-law might have done, he's a
motorcyclist and an unusually careful driver.

the cameras were inconspicuous, not totally hidden, so people found out
where they were soon enough,

Hard to completely conceal something that big which needs a clear view
of the road, I would suggest.

and the fact that they had been placed behind
signs and bushes was destructive of trust.

Well, that demands a certain mindset. For me, speeding was never so
much of a rush that I missed it. I used to drive about 25,000 miles a
year on business, would regularly do 500 miles round trip with a day's
work in between, but faced with a choice between points and slowing
down it was never a tough choice even when I did speed.

I would also question why so few permanent systems of SPECS cameras have
been installed even though they promote adherence to the limit throughout
the length of the road rather than just at a fixed point.

I don't know enough about it to have an opinion.

Even where it's all a reasonably appropriate 30 limit, the Gatso
tends to be where the road is widest and the houses are fewest, often also
on a downhill slope.

Maybe because that's the point where people tend to floor it?

people are rightly suspicious of ulterior motives.

I would say that the aims of such groups are openly stated.

drive along any road where the typical speed is more than 5 mph above
the posted limit and you'll see a ripple of brake-lights as they draw level
with the Gatso, often slowing well below the limit.

Oh believe me that ****es me off big time. It's indicative of a more
serious problem, though, that many poeple don't care enough to know
what the limit is or how fast they are going. Either that or they are
dissociated active and should be taken off the roads altogether.

Personally I regard it
as a failure of observation if I need to use the brakes.

In "level flight" I quite agree.

I accept many drivers are basically just not very aware of speed limits -
hence the well-known "40 everywhere" phenomenon. I don't encounter many
other drivers who show any sign of adhering to limits - those who drive at
40 in the 40 don't slow down when entering the 30, those who drive at 30 in
the 30 don't change their speed much if at all when entering the 40 (even
where the houses markedly thin out).

Ah, the 40 everywhere flat cap brigade. Yes, another candidate for
the wall after the revolution ;-) I would be more comforted if their
speed changed in response to the layout of the road and the dangers
presented, but many of them don't seem to be taking any notice at all
of what's going on around them.

It's often the less observant rather than the quickest who are more likely
to be caught.

In some ways that may not be an entirely bad thing. Poor observation
is a cause of many crashes, after all.

a quick trip around Greater Manchester would quickly disabuse you of the
notion that urban speeding is in decline.

Yes I normally stick to quiet places like the Thames Valley and
occasionally Birmingham, Luton, St Albans or Ross.

It may amuse you to learn that last week a "yoof" got out of the passenger
door of a white van and made a "******" gesture at me, presumably because he
or his driver felt I had been driving too slowly along a very hazard-rich
stretch of urban road.

It doesn't amuse me at all - that kind of thing can be quite scary (I
think I mentioned I've been on the receiving end of three traffic
tantrums). My Volvo is rather recognisable (it has mirrored windows
from when I used to carry a lot of computer equipment) and I'm always
worried that one of these ****-for-brains types will take out his
frustration when my wife and kids are in the car. It's even more
scary on the bike, because that's even more distinctive.

I suppose overflowing anger is understandable given that, short of
paving over the entire country, there is no realistic likelihood that
congestion will ever go away, but I do think that traffic tantrums
should be taken much more seriously. Baxter, for example, with
convictions for violent offences following two separate traffic
incidents, should never drive again.

The core of the problem for me of course is that careless, fast and
aggressive driving is substantially more dangerous to cyclists and
pedestrians than it is to those doing the driving. All my family
cycle, we do it partly for our health but mostly because we live in a
town and we would rather be part of the solution than part of the
problem.

Guy
===
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