Adrian wrote:
Gawnsoft ) gurgled
happily, sounding much like they were saying :


It's more like telling someone a helmet will Save Their Life [tm]


True.

Very similar, also, to saying that religiously sticking to a speed
lower than some arbitrary number on the side of the road is safer than
setting a speed based on the conditions.



Of course these speed limits are not completely arbitrary as you
suggest, but vary depending on the conditions.


No, they don't.


e.g. residential urban street 20mph, rural motorway 70mph


residential urban street at 8.40am in ****ing rain - 30mph
residential urban street at 2.30am, clear and dry - 30mph

Round 'ere, residential urban street at 8.40am, ****ing rain, 40mph.
9pm, clear and dry, 50mph. (I know this to be the case because I made
tea and coffee for mr.plod camped on the side road, outside my front
door, and got 'whoops, here's your mugs back, we'll be back in a bit,
that one was doing 53'.)

Now, anyone think that 40 (which is the normal speed for most people
down this road) is appropriate, in the dry, for a road with parked cars
along each side, only enough room for one car to travel between them at
any time (so bi-directional traffic entails much ducking into gaps),
very poor visibility as to anything/kid between the cars, and a blind
corner half way along that's not sharp enough to make people slow down
enough (more than once there's been a head on and several very near
misses at that point), has kids playing around/crossing the road in the
evenings a lot?

Let alone 40+, which some drivers appear to think is fine. And that's
in the dry... they don't slow down for the rain... I drive down it at
25-30 a lot of the time, and get harassed by people that come flying up
behind me, obviously doing closer to 40 than 30. Apparently my ideas
don't agree with theirs, and they tend to be in the majority, I have to say.

There are no centre lines on this road, or speed limit signs (it's a 30,
it doesn't need them, which I'm in two minds about) and still the
buggers drive down it at 40 most of the time - I can't see that removing
what little markings there are (four side turnings) would slow people on
the section that doesn't have any. Humps *might just* slow the buggers
down though, to something approaching reasonable speeds for the road.
Quite why it doesn't have something of this ilk I'm not sure, since it
runs parallel to the main A road, and is used as a rat run by those too
impatient to wait, or incapable of adjusting the time they need to allow
for their journey, or perhaps just plain selfish in their insistance
that they should be able to get from A to B in the shortest possible
time at whatever speed they deem necessary to achieve this, regardless
of safety.

I'd love to see this road a 20, but I know the only difference that
would make would be to those who already driver closer to 30 than to 40
and 50 - the buggers that ignore the current limit and road conditions
aren't exactly going to be the ones that accept the limits are lower for
a good reason, are they. No, they'll be the ones that trot out the
mantra that they drive within the conditions of the situation rather
than the inflexible limits that don't take into account varying
conditions...

--


Velvet