Anyone here part of SpeedWatch?

[Harry Bloomfield]

As per subject!

[Andy Burns]

Do they monitor your broadband speed, or point hair-dryers at your car?

[Nightjar]

[Andrew Gabriel]

They tried to setup one around me for a new 20MPH zone, but I've never seen it operating in the 20MPH zone, only in the older 30MPH areas. I suspect they never finished off the 20MPH signage to legal requirements (in particular, the repeaters or traffic calming measures required were not implemented, just 20's painted on the road, which I don't think count for anything).

[Tim Watts]

I don't mind if it is taking a real problem like twonks flying past the school at 40+ (or 30+ in a 20).

But a bunch of curtain twitchers getting excited about pulling everyone doing 1mph over the posted limit gets this sort of activity a bad name.

[Robin]

[ARW]

But at least you know which houses to egg on mischievous night.

[Robin]

Apologies for mis-keying leading to premature epostulation

I think there's also an exemption from repeater signs if there are full-size 20 mph signs at every entrance to the controlled roads. That catches out some visitors here where - although AFAICS there's no enforcement of the lmit at all.

[Bill Wright]

Do you mean expostulation?

Bill

[Robin]

Oh no. I can see why you might have thought so but that was, exceptionally, not a typo. It just struck me that as we have ebooks and email it was perhaps time we epostulated - though I have no illusion of publication somewhere which might gain me an entry in the OED.

[The Natural Philosopher]

No E-postulation is the process of placing an untested hypothesis online as absolute truth.

See '911 CIA' 'Climate change down to man' etc etc.

[Huge]

Only if you think that complying with the law is pedantry.

[Tim Watts]

Depends. Pulling people 1mph over the limit would be pedantic, even though technically still an offence. Not to mention some laws are just stupid and should not be complied with on principle.

[Robin]

As my follow-up tried to indicate, the post on which you commented involved no such thinking - it weren't me it was them fingers 'guv

[Huge]

Well, quite.

Although I was referring to Robin's comment that it was pedantry to assume the 20mph limit was invalid because the signage was wrong. The law applies just as much to the enforcee as it does to the enforced.

Well, in theory, anyway.

[Huge]

The whole thing being a stupid, pointless waste of time and money.

[Huge]

And who might "you" be? How about leaving some context and attribution in, as per usenet norms?

[Johny B Good]

There's no such thing as being pulled over by the police for being only 1mph over the posted or implied limit (unless you're referring to the possibility of being caught by doing 36mph in a 30mph limited section of road).

Indeed, the police (at least the North Wales Police who most definitely aren't working hand in hand with the Welsh tourist board) will quite happily annoy motorists who have touched the limit plus 10% plus 2mph allowances as I discovered a decade or so back.

The only consolation to this incident, where I was clocked as doing

35mph (almost certainly at the beginning of a 30mph stretch after travelling a 50mph or derestricted section) was that I was offered the alternative of a speed awareness course (same 60 quid price as a speeding ticket but without the addition of 3 points on my license). Needless to say, I opted for the speed awareness course.

Whilst, currently in law, there's no enforcable speed limit below

30mph and signage for 20mph and slower are merely 'advisory', there are plenty of side roads (and even the odd main road) where travelling at the 30mph limit is quite clearly 'wreckless' or downright dangerous.

In this case, the police would certainly be able to prosecute motorists who fail to take heed of the 20mph advisory signage, not on the basis of 'breaking a speed limit' but on the basis of 'wreckless' or 'dangerous' driving, so are not powerless to deal with such inconsiderate road users.

Perhaps the police aren't so keen on taking this approach since the prosecution process isn't quite so clean cut as a measurement of speed showing a clear and unambiguous breach of the speed laws. IOW, they prefer to take the lazy way out when such incidents do not include death or injury.

[Tim Watts]

We're talking about the neighbourhood DIY speed gun schemes.

And I used "pull" loosely - they get your number, which amounts to the same thing.

This are ACPO guidelines - the law is absolute about the limits.

[Dave Liquorice]

Are you sure? I've seen 20 mph circular signage with a green border but recently spotted some with a red border, normal size on entering the zone and with smaller repeator signs, also with red borders within the zone. Just looked on Street View, (Lightfoot Lane, Preston) but the images there are too old.

If those circular red bordered, white ground, black lettering signs are not enforceable(*) it makes a mockery of *all* other signage.

(*) Assuming the have been installed correctly and comply with the regulations. B-)