Don't expect that to change anytime soon. The (ex police) instructor on my speed awareness course responded to one of my fellow attendees who complained about that this that the reason they do it is because it reduces accidents, and they have the stats to prove it.
FWIW, ever since I got a car which had a cruise control/speed limiter, I haven't broken the speed limit anywhere near as much. Seems so simple to set the limiter, and keep my license. Which is why was *so* irked to get snapped _as I was changing the limiter_
That said, 01:00 on a deserted motorway, seems a shame to stick at 70 ;)
That we're going to see an awful load more A roads where you _could_ safely do 70, but the limit is actually 50 or 40.
It was quite an illuminating debate. The attendee who raised the point became almost physically aggressive in his rant at the instructor. red face and all. It was clear that he had every intention of doing what speed he wanted, and sod the consequences.
I'm in my forties, and was clearly the youngest of the other 23 attendees, as was clear by the fact that I had only been driving 30 years. One guy had been driving for 70 !
As there must be if the lights are more than 183 metres (185 metres in Scotland) apart or the lights are deemed not to be there to light the road. A number of speeding prosecutions were overturned several years ago at Littlehampton, when it was ruled that the lights were there to illuminate the promenade, not the road. Repeater signs quickly appeared.
And living in a rural area where there is an increasing trend for limits of some sort on unlit, what used to be NSL roads, the authorities seem keen enough to put up the repeater signs in the first place but then cant be bothered to trim the vegetation so that they disappear into the hedges.
I cant help thinking that might be a reasonable case to fight a speeding ticket - not that I intend to deliberately get one to find out.
In the States, that's far more explicit. And it's driven by the fact that revenue generated is kept locally. This must be resisted at all costs in the UK.
If the local administration needs some dosh, the Mayor phones up his mate the Chief of Police, who instructs the boys not to return from patrol without two movers and three sitters (for example). So two get done for some "moving violation", e.g. speeding, not stopping at a Stop sign [1], broken light, or similar. And three get done for parking, wheels not turned the right way on a hill, parking the wrong way on a street, etc. [2]
The aim of traffic signs over there is to assist you to become an administrative criminal between leaving home and arriving at destination. [3] Nominally, over here the signs are to assist the driver and help them drive safely, although all this is getting a bit eroded.
[1] And by "stop", I mean cease all motion. None of this rolling through a stop sign. Of which there are billyuns of unnecessary ones in the US. See above as to why.
[2] Source? An off-duty San Francisco cop who was running the traffic school I attended after a speeding ticket. He was queried on this very point by a little old lady.
[3] That I only got two speeding tix in 12 years there is more by luck than judgement.
Would you know if he "passed" the course? ISTR that if the instructors feel that if an attendee has not showed any sign of giving the course contents sufficient consideration with at least some indication that driving habits may change then the procedure for prosecution for any offence may still be invoked. Ranting at the instructor in the way you describe by the bloke sounds like he would be the sort of person that could happen to.
No, he passed, in that he did engage in all the activities, and provided the appropriate level of feedback.
However, the instructors left us all under no illusion that the course is the latter-day equivalent of a stern ticking off by a copper (since they never happen anymore) and that *any* motoring offence in the next 3 years would be dealt with by the courts - no second chance.
I was cynical about being invited by the government to spend £85 with a
3rd party to avoid a criminal (points) record. However, having actually been, it wasn't a complete waste of time, and the body running it are actually a non-profit organisation (whatever that means :) ).
As I said, I would actually support a proposal to require drivers to attend one every 10 years. It might pull up a few nasty habits.
The problem with that is that only 5% of RTCs have exceeding the speed limit as a contributory factor, while 42% have driver failed to look properly as a contributory factor. For fatal accidents, loss of control was the most common factor, at 34%. Speed is easy to measure, which makes it an easy target, but a serious attempt to cut accidents should target bad driving.
Agreed. In many places in the US, parking facing the 'wrong' way is illegal, which really confuses us Brits. And when parking in San Francisco, even on level ground, it is indeed obligatory to turn the car's wheels into the kerb. There is no room for any sense or judgement, that's the law. Apart from a couple of speeding tickets, including one for 82mph in a 55 mph zone, at 5 am on a country road int he summer, with only an 'energy speed' fine for exceeding the old 55 mph limit (paid with a credit card in the police car), I also got a ticket for ignoring a direction of travel sign when leaving a car park, as the proper route out was blocked. My lawyer got me a plea to 'obstructing traffic', a non-moving violation, instead of the 'proper' moving violation. I got no points on my license for that, which was the point. Weird, the lot of them.
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