Re: OT:Kirby Lonsdale Speed Cameras

The message <1348k927os0aq1f@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
from Roy <x@y> contains these words:

I've never understood the argument for making cameras apparent.
Naively perhaps, I take my speed guidance from what the tall posts
with numbers on a white background enclosed in a red circle tell me.
More power to the foliage I say.
Their ostensible purpose is to act as a deterrent while their real
purpose is to raise money.

Good thing too. Raising money from speeding, smoking, drinking keeps
down my personal tax burden.

Spoilsport.

Not at all, in fact I'm a huge fan of motorsport. I used to get my kicks
rallying. Perhaps that's why I feel less need to blast around on the
public highway exceeding the speed limits.

It is a long time since I got much enjoyment from driving but I need
something to engage the mind when travelling and concentrating on the
driving seems the obvious choice.

I was taught by a driving instructor. One of the things he taught me was
that large round white sign with a diagonal black band was the
derestriction sign. After that it was your judgement that determined how
fast you drove. Since you don't appear to remember those times I think
it would help to repost a comment I made on another ng recently:

Er, I think I'm rather older than you might think and have quite a good
memory.

Sorry but you response suggested to me that open roads might have been
an alien concept.

"The rot set in
in 1965 when an antediluvian socialist without so much as a learners
driving licence

So what? My dad never had a learners licence. he learned to drive in the
Army before there were such things.

Maybe not but he was taught to drive and would have had a full licence
if he continued to drive after leaving the Army. Barbara Castle didn't
have a driving licence of any sort.

My late father could have had a licence for the asking when he was a
young man but as it happens he didn't learn to drive until late in life
when he could at last afford a car, only a couple of years before me in
fact. When courting he relied on my mother for transport. A 500cc single
cylinder m/c I believe and I don't suppose she had to pass a test
either.

AIUI forces personel have never needed a civilian driving licence top
drive and if trained would not need to take a further test before
getting one when they left the forces.

According to the DVLA driving tests became compulsory in 1935 and HGV
and provisional licences were introduced during the following 2 years.
Begs the question what they did between the introduction of compulsory
tests and the introduction of provisional licences.

was appointed Minister of Transport and decreed that the
toffs in their fast cars would henceforth not be allowed to go any
faster than the peasants in their Volkswagens. VW Beetles were widely
advised at one time as being capable of being driven flat out all day. I
suppose we should be thankful that the bloody Beetle had a top speed as
high as 70 mph."

I am prepared to accept that the 60/70mph limits are a bit low, but I'm
afraid I still say the majority of drivers are crap and can't cope anyway.

Chicken and egg isn't it? But most drivers don't need to do much to get
by and have no incentive to learn. Drive fast and all you will get is
brickbats from drivers who have been taught that the slow driver is the
safe driver and anyhow the slow drivers think they already drive as fast
as is safe to do so which makes anyone faster at the very least an
irresponsible idiot in their eyes.

The dumbing down has continued since. Ever lower speed limits. Special
driving licences for those who lack sufficient co-ordination to master
the simple art of manual gear changing. A written exam for new drivers
with the standards set so low that they might as well not have bothered.

Agreed, that's why I said tests should be tougher and we should be
regularly re-tested.


But driving standards are so low precisely because the Nanny State has
taken away the ability to exercise judgement on so many aspects of
driving while acting lawfully.

No, it's because the required standard is set so woefully low.

It is not just that. If it was accepted that having passed the test
drivers should then learn how to drive properly then it would be much
better. But how can you properly practise driving skills when the only
times your skills are put to the test is when conditions are markedly
more hazardous than normal. Reading the road should be an integral part
of driving but the Nanny State has reduced that to reading the road
signs (or some of them at least) which is not an adequate substitute.

A bit like academic qualifications these days.

How else would you turn qualifications intended to test the brightest
20% (or 5% when it comes to degrees) into ones designed to make even
students of average ability appear more successful than their brighter
predecessors.

My driving is, of course, impeccable. Apart from that time I rolled my
car into a ball! At least it was on a country lane in the middle of the
night with no-one around, not in a 40 limit where blind bends lead to a
nasty little, very busy, junction with distinctly dodgy sight lines.

Such junctions are busy only part of the time. I don't get up at 5am for
the good of my health. I get up early to avoid the traffic.

Right, let's have time dependant speed limits. Let's see, 11:30pm to
6:30am, anything goes. I have in the past suggested a Friday night free
for all. Let all the drunks drive home rolling pissed at midnight whilst
the rest of us stay of the roads. A bit of Darwinisim at work.

That is where judgement comes in. No other traffic and a right side
junction doesn't reprepesent a hazard. Add a car waiting to turn right
and it does. Include another car coming out of the junction and passing
nearside to nearside and the degree of hazard worsens.

It is a curious fact of life that roads such as your country lane where
you may well need to drive well below the national speed limit do not in
general have a lower limit. In such cases motorists have to trust their
judgement and take the consequences. That their judgement may be more
than a little rusty from lack of practice is the fault of our elected
representatives.

Well I think I've agreed with you that current standards are poor. Apart
from low technical standards, the average British driver today is rude,
arrogant and unco-operative. So yes, by all means turn everyone into a
wonderful driver and then do away with speed limits altogether. Ah, Utopia.

What do you expect after several decades of Thatcher and her clones?

One more little whinge whilst I'm at it. I find it pretty childish how
some drivers seem to wear their speeding fines and points like a badge
of honour. I used to drive 30 odd thousand miles a year on business. I
have never once been done for speeding and never had a single point on
my licence. I used to get to where I needed to be on time because I set
out early enough to get there.

I don't see points that way. Badge of shame.

--
Roger Chapman
Nearest Marilyn still to be visited - Great Orme.
89 miles as the crow flies,
considerably more as the walker drives.
.

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