Another £20 bet won from an apprentice

[F]

The variables on the M62 will also flash at 70+ (79? - 70 +10% +2) even when they're not displaying a limit and, apparently, turned off.

[Steve Walker]

A friend of mine was caught after coming off the motorway and the officers told him that on the motorway they'd been doing 120 and he had been pulling away!

They were actually quite understanding when they heard that he'd had a phonecall from his mother and she thought that someone had broken in and was still in the house. They still did him, but only for 96, so no ban.

[bert]

General rule 30 over the speed limit = ban However they seem to have gone soft on it these days Just plead you will lose your job and your house and your ids will be taken into care and your wife will have to work the streets and you will get off.

[Steve Walker]

It has always struck me that there is an inherent unfairness in that for some people a ban is a minor inconvenience and for others it is a catastrophe - as you say leading to job loss, repossession of house, etc. so it probably does make sense to take that into account ... but also to take into account repeat offences.

[polygonum]

Looking at it another way, someone who depends heavily on their driving licence knows that they need that licence. It behoves them to take that into account in their behaviour on the road.

Instead of taxi drivers being among the most frequent breakers of the driving laws, they should be among the best behaved.

[ARW]

Well we were always going to take different motorways. I used the M40 as it is faster than the M1

[dennis]

They should be banned the same as anyone else. They shouldn't get unemployment benefits either as they brought it on themselves.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Taxi drivers are generally self employed. So no unemployment benefit.

[ARW]

I already have 6 points on my licence.

[John Rumm]

Given most cars speedos will over read 10%, that would be getting on fo an indicated 90 ish...

[Steve Walker]

Everyone makes mistakes, misses a speed limit sign that's partially hidden, etc. at some point. A pensioner who drives 3000 miles a year to the shops and back, on roads that they know like the back of their hand is a lot less likely to collect points or a ban than say a sales rep who might be doing 60,000+ business miles per year, often on roads they have never been on before, held up by delays and against deadlines.

There is also a difference between the sales rep and a taxi driver - who is mainly driving in a built-up area that he knows well, with fairly unanambiguous limits and who's livlihood does not depend on fixed time meetings at the end of journeys hours long.

[Bob Eager]

I was on an unfamiliar mixed-urban trip recently and I was very careful. But I did also turn on the car's speed limiter, linked to its recognition of speed limit signs (it's not perfect, but belt and braces).

[polygonum]

Perhaps companies that expect their sales staff (or any other staff!) to drive 60,000+ business miles in the circumstances you describe should be another party that gets banged to rights?

Perhaps if every driving offence done under business miles were in some way allocated against the employer? If the number gets too high, the company gets banned from operating vehicles.

And any company that imposes "drive at 100 mph or get the sack" rules should most definitely have the book thrown at them. Even if that means a new book has to be written to cover that.

[dennis]

Are you suggesting they should be done for careless driving rather than speeding or as well as speeding?

[Steve Walker]

I am not saying that employers impose such rules, although there have been many cases in the past of companies setting extremely tight schedules, so any delay causes problems.

Even where schedules are not too tight, sales people's jobs live or die by their results and if they've been held up by a motorway crash and the person they are going to see has only a particular slot to see them in, what are they going to do? Try to still get there in time or possibly lose a major contract?

I personally have had an ocassion (nothing to do with work), where I set out on a 4-1/2 drive, with 6 hours to do it. I did not want to allow more spare than that, as I was travelling with 3 young children and arriving too early would not be good - as anyone who's sat waiting at a port in the early hours of the morning with bored and tired kids in the car will attest! We also did not want to miss the ferry, as it was a

1-1/2 hour crossing and if we missed it, we'd have to wait 6 hours for the next one or see if they could fit us on a 3-1/2 hour crossing 3 hours or so after ours - again with 3 young kids, not fun and also no guarantee that there would be space on any subsequent crossings anyway. We then got held up for just over 1-1/2 hours as someone was threatening to jump from a bridge and we were trapped on the motorway. I was then left with the choice of speed or miss the ferry. Obviously, legally, I should have missed the ferry, but with the thoughts of getting there too late and having to negotiate a place on another ferry, with no idea how long we'd have to wait and how long the crossing would be, we made it with minutes to spare.

On another ocassion we were at another ferry terminal (Birkenhead) in plenty of time for our 07:30 Seacat crossing, only for them to tell us an hour after we should have departed, that they had an engine problem (it turned out that the ferry had had an ongoing problem and hadn't run for 3 months!) and the ferry was cancelled. They arranged for everyone to be accomodated on a slow 16:30 crossing from Hollyhead, but that was no use to us, as we had to be on the far side of Ireland by 20:00 as we were attending a wedding the next day and my wife needed to be part of the practice in the church. We managed to negotiate an earlier crossing with another company (Seacat agreed under the circumstances), but again, to make it we had to break a few speed limits.

Now you can argue that I was wrong to speed, but in both cases, I had allowed enough time for the journey, with a stop and with sopme spare time, but outside events sabotaged our plans. In both cases, there were good reasons not to miss the deadline. Real life is like that and we can't all take an extra day off work and travel a day early, just in case there is a delay.

[T i m]

My company were kind enough to move to the top of our road and because I was a 'Field support tech', had to drive my company car in every day (even if I rarely went on site towards the end).

Now, on a good day my total commute took about 2 minutes so I would leave at 5 to 9 to be there 'on time'. However, if we got caught up behind the dustcart that 2 minutes could lengthen to maybe 10 minutes and if there was some other issue (fire engine in the road) then it could be even longer (making me 'late').

Those who regularly drove in over longer distances would typically allow the same amount of 'extra' time but it would be a smaller percentage of their overall traveling time than me.

It was good to have an hour for lunch and actually have (the option of) 55 minutes at home. ;-)

Cheers, T i m

[Dave Liquorice]

Quite.

Sales rep doesn't have a mobile phone and handsfree or know how to use a public telephone. Simple enough to call client, say they are going to be late due to traffic and apologise.

My livlihood fits that description, I can't remember the last time I was late... no I tell a lie it was over ten years ago, 1 to 2" of snow on the M74 in The Borders brought it to a crawl (flippin arctics with one driven axle and effectively slicks as tyres) then a road closure due to another heavy about to be pulled out of the ditch/hedge.

These days there really isn't any excuse. Satnavs give pretty damn accurate driving times. Of course if the user of that information is so stupid as to only allow that amount of time for the journey they really are stupid. I find that satnav driving time, when limited to

60 mph, plus 30 mins (and 20 mins per planned pee/coffee stop) gives enough buffer to get lost in a one way system or snarlled up in roadworks. 30 mins would have coped, just, with one of the delays the last time I was late but not both.

[tabbypurr]

In some parts of the country that's far from true. One route I'm familiar with takes anything from 3.5 to 7.5 hours. It's not really predictable.

NT

[Richard]

Why should it be wrong to speed? Sure, if there is loads of traffic and one is weaving in and out of lanes it is wrong. If the road is almost empty and the driver is competent it should not really be considered 'wrong'.

Of course the only time speed is always wrong is when it's preceded by 'Rod'.

[Peter Johnson]

Years ago I noticed that those who lived closest to work were invariably the last to arrive at shift changeover, which meant those being relived were rarely relieved early, whereas those who lived closest often were.