Agreed. And if the speed limit isn't what the default should be for a given section of road there should be small repeator signs to tell you what the limit really is. Note the word "should", they are often very far apart. For non-motorways if there are street lights it's 30. But can you tell the difference between a "street light" that triggers a 30 limit or a "footway light" that doesn't...
Dashcam... but if one is doing more than about half a dozen hours driving per week it'll either need a big card or you swapping cards to stop the "evidence" being over written in the two weeks or longer that ticket takes to arrive.
60 > 30 happens at almost every rural road entering a village or town.
I've never managed to work up the enthuasium to try an untangle street lights, speed limits and signage.
Near Middleton-in-Teesdale there is a section of lit single carriageway "B" road. There are no both sides of the road speed limit/NSL signs on entry/exit. There are no small repeator signs. The footway is only on one side of the road, the lights are on the other.
30 mph if the lights are less than 200 yards apart
because
a. s.82 Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984 provides that " a road is a restricted road for the purposes of section 81 of this Act if ... in England and Wales, there is provided on it a system of street lighting furnished by means of lamps placed not more than 200 yards apart"; and
b. s.81 provides that "It shall not be lawful for a person to drive a motor vehicle on a restricted road at a speed exceeding 30 miles per hour."
The only exception I can think of is where the relevant traffic authority has directed otherwise but failed to put up signs to that effect. But you'd have to ask yourself, "are you feeling that lucky? and if so confident you'd find the TRO to that effect?"
I recently bought a fairly cheap tablet to use as a satnav - with HERE. 7 inch screen makes it much easier to read than (most) phones. It has a very cheap SIM so can work on its own - uses very little data so long as updates to everything are done on wifi.
Also means I have a larger screen available for other purposes wherever I go. And battery lasts a long time without needing to plug it in (my phone uses its charge up all too quickly when used as a satnav).
I already have a 14 inch one, but much prefer it pigs when I have exceeded the speed limit by the amount I specify instead of having to look at any screen when driving.
Sire but its very undesirable to look at any screen when driving.
Yeah I use google maps on my phone most saturdays and don?t use anything like my 1GB of data a month with me using my facebook garage sale group actively every saturday.
I don?t use the screen at all when navigating. Use the voice directions.
My phone is fine as long as I start the garage sale run with it charged and that?s with me on the phone to my mate for hours during the run too. Even all day satnav runs are fun, just have a charging cable for the most extreme long distance trips.
I forgot the question "what's 'a system of street lighting'?" AIUI there's no definition for the purposes of the Act but it's generally taken to mean 3 or more lights spaced as defined. The Traffic Signs regulations definition includes "lit by electricity, provided for the purposes of illuminating the road". I don't know any authority for arguing that applies for the purpose of the Act. But even if it does, "road" in the 1984 Act means any highway or other road to which the public has access. A highway includes any footways. So eg lights the parish council put over a footway count as much as "proper" lamps over the road.
Indeed. Ther is a very ambiguous strectch of roead newr where I live, which has one or two street lights in all, has houses and a green, and yet is I think classed as unlimited (60mph)
https://www.google.com/maps/@52.2070024,0.4598974,3a,75y,65.55h,103.48t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1ss9aiFFe3lnGWZdXyzs8ubw!2e0!5s20111001T000000!7i13312!8i6656 shows the exit from the limited section.
And yet the village itself extends a mile or two plus beyond that. With a lot of residential stuff on both sides...
Not in Warwickshire, where you are more likely to come across 50>40>30 or 50>30.
The A426/A423 Dunchurch to Banbury is 50mph through out, save for the
1.2 mile Southam Bypass (NSL), a smudge of 40 as you approach Southam from the south, and the only 60>30>60 interface is at the roundaboiut where the A423 meets the A425 east. This is despite passing through no major settlements.
There are two locations where a short stretch of 40mph might concentrate the mind (a crossroads partially hidden by a humped bridge, and another crossroads with relatively high crossing and turning traffic), but the one size fits all "50 is the new NSL" policy has bugger all to do with addressing real safety issues.
Either way, with both your opposing attitudes, it's clear the future of cars should leave the gizmos up to the owner, and just provide an interface. Having had my car for nearly 4 years, I would dump all the ICE and satnav shit, and just have the screen connect to whatever device/ software I like to use.
It was clear the car manufacturers are living up their own arses when they tried to flog me an internet subscriber module for the car at £40/ month. Even as he explained, the salesman said "of course, you could just use your phone for free". Although they have crippled the cars system to prevent it being tethered. Not that it matters, since I'm not using anything that needs updating - certainly not the sat nav (which they want extra £££s for on top of the connection subscription).
As I said I dipped into the Google forums a few years back, and one of the most requested features was a current speed limit display. Google ain't listening.
I did try WASE once. It must have lacked something, since I didn't stick with it. Does it *display* the current speed limit, even when not navigating to a destination ?
HERE WeGo (which I use) does. It has a nifty "Driving Mode" which is basically just a live map/info display where you can configure the screen to show "Current Speed Limit". Which is my default.
My only gripe is that you have to explicitly enter "Driving Mode" when the app is started. There isn't an option "Start in driving mode", which would possibly make it the most perfect "app" I have on my phone.
But that option is gone now that the EU has mandated that all cars will have to have the driver deliberately override the local speed limit if they want to exceed the speed limit.
Its less clear if the UK when out of the EU will also require that in new cars and whether cars used outside the EU will be able to disable that mandatory requirement. Yes, it would be possible to that by location with the system using the GPS to see if the car is in a EU country or not.
I'd go the other way, drive with and adaptive cruise control on all the time and have some mechanism whereby you can supply the car cruise control with the speed limit it should be following.
Currently the best of the car systems do read roadside signs for the current speed limit, but none currently use a speed limit database like the satnav apps do.
And I'd like to go even further. I want the cruise control to run the car at x above the current speed limit, but in a few places where the local country cop is known to hide in the undergrowth off the road and catch people with his car radar, have the car go thru there at the speed limit. If the car system could have the speed to keep the car at externally supplied, I could do my own smartphone app for that rogue cop situation.
And no car manufacturer will ever be able to do as comprehensive a system as google maps with its street view and the use of mobile phone base traffic to work out where there is traffic congestion and its silly to even try.
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