Graham Butcher

Not disagreeing with that, I remember the adverts well, however, a 20mph blanket speed limit for all built-up areas is plain stupid. Drivers should be taught how to drive according to the prevailing conditions within the speed limits. In other words, near schools, hospitals etc, drive sensibly and reduce speed in case you need to brake in a hurry because people/children are pre-occupied with other things on their mind and forget their own safety. Children should also be taught at school and by their parents to understand the inherent dangers in crossing a road (green cross code) and also playing near roads etc. Parents especially should be drumming this into their children instead of just relying on someone else to do it, i.e., schools. There used to a dedicated team of people, including police that used to go around the schools giving safety talks and videos, but that seems to have gone the way of other things, i.e, cut. Instead, they would rather take us backwards in time to match all the other ancient diseases that are making a comeback because of the flipping cuts that 13 years of Austerity have ushered in. The 20mph limits are far more to with shifting responsibility rather saving lives. I think that most would say that the biggest threat to drivers and pedestrians safety on the roads is the shocking state of the roads, which is directly the fault of the authorities. These are TV ads about safety crossing the road and instructing drivers what lights means on crossing etc, these are from 1976 era, when was the last time you saw things like these on TV, all part of the cuts I'm afraid. Song The Green Cross Code (youtube.com) (719) Green Cross Code 3 - YouTube Green Cross Code - Kevin Keegan (youtube.com) Green Cross Code - Joe Bugner (youtube.com) (719) DAD'S ARMY GREEN CROSS CODE ADVERT - YouTube

Yeah, sorry, I thought I was replying to @lol-lol. I agree, we don't need 20mph on our roads. I discovered today that my own city council were planning to introduce 20mph on all residential roads but at a recent meeting, residents said no.

I'm confused, thought you was happy with 20mph, so why not on the NDLR?

OK, I'll have a stab at answering your questions here, goes. 1,2 and 3 I don't see a way that you could enforce this as it would require police to pull over and check almost every car carrying 1 or more passengers unless it clearly visible that the driver met those ages. New cars can detect speed limits. this is strictly true is it? Do you know for a fact that all new cars can do this? Then you also have the fact that a speed sign could be obscured by say a bus, lorry, overhanging tree etc or even be defaced enough that system cannot detect the limit. You mention that they can also know the limits from Google maps, but someone has to update Google maps with the latest speed limits, which have recently changed in Wales, do you know, if all these changes have yet been updated on Google, or even TomTom and other sat navs. The built-in one in most Skodas and other VAG cars for instance will not know that info either. I have just updated to the latest maps on mine, and there are speed limits shown on it which do not reflect those in my city for instance. Apart from that how many teenagers do you know could afford to buy a new car with the latest tech, let also get insurance for a new car? The US rule of no passing of buses when they are alighting passengers, given that most buses the days are front entrance ones, you are unlikely to know if the bus is stopped at a bus stop for passengers to alight or disembark, or if it is just sitting in a traffic jam. To my mind, there is only one way to attempt to cure the problem and that is far better training in the first instance and far more police on the roads in unmarked cars so they can observe a person driving and if required stop them and deal with any observed problem before a nasty accident occurs, and it is too late. Speed cameras are not the answer, only more police on the roads, both high visibility and low key can do this.

Looking at the scene on Google Earth and also street view, it is an undesignated road, narrow, and is reasonably flat has a slight bend in the road, is a very short stretch with apparently no traffic-calming measures and the road, Elwyn Street in Rhondda Cynon Taf is the only road in and out of the hamlet of about 100 houses. The road is assumed to be of the newly limited 20mph road with a 40mph stretch at either end of it. One end comes from the roundabout on the A4119 and judging from the photo showing the taped off section of road, the point of impact was 400 metres from the roundabout and just 50 metres or 139 metres depending on the direction of travel, from the bus stops. The accident happened approx 240 and 120 metres from the point where the speed limit changed to 20mph. Given that the ages of the victims and that the accident happened at approx 7:00pm, it is almost certain that speed was the main factor, ice can I think be ignored and that the bus driver knew the route and was either approaching the bus stop 50 metres away, or was travelling towards the A4119 roundabout which a left bend from post office location. The occupants of the A1 were teenagers, so form your own opinions of what actually happened, and I think most of us will be thinking the same thing. I really cannot see that altering the speed limit is going to any difference to the outcome of any similar accident in the future, it could be 10, 20, 30 or 40 mph on that stretch, if someone is speeding, then they are the main cause.

Was it in the UK media? The link I posted was from the States. I thought that autopilot was not yet approved anywhere.

All the same, a 20mph limit makes zero difference if they are speeding, might just as well 30, if their speeding, the result would be the same.

I'm pretty sure that a normal red routemaster was limited but the Green Line version for the countryside had a higher gear ratios to give it higher speed, but that much higher. Buses need more grunt to pull away faster and get up to the speed limit which was 30 mph in built-up areas quickly to aid traffic flow. I used to drive buses (not with passengers on board, never had a PSV licence) and it was possible to reach 50mph if going down hill at times otherwise they would top out at around 42-45mph but took a long time to build that speed up. Buses stopping regularly at bus stops never had the time to reach those speeds between stops due to the spacing of the bus stops.

@Bap33 Where is the air quality sensor located and is it easy to change?

Were this buses normal service buses or coaches? I ask because normal service buses are limited to around 38 mph, but coaches can do far higher speeds. When I was working at the local bus company, the police would never bother speed checking buses because of their limitation and also, while they could certainly exceed 30, it was deemed that because of the frequency of bus stops, it was almost impossible to reach 30 between stops. The National Express on the M25 are indeed coachs and while they have regular routes, they do not stop on request at bus stops but only at dedicated coach stations.

What you omitted from your post was that there was a bus involved in this accident and I have seen some reports suggest that a motorcycle was also involved. But police say that there is no evidence of a motorcycle being involved. Maybe there was, but they just rode off into the night as it did not crash, but may have been part of the reason for the crash? Also a local has described the road as being a bit of racetrack at night. Sounds like the road behind my house, also has a "S" curve in it and is just under half a mile long, but has many speed bumps as well as keep left bollards and a infants school at one end and a junior, a senior school and a college at the other end. My end has the infants school and has a 30mph limit, and halfway along this road it changes to 20mph as it approaches the other 2 schools and college. I can often hear both cars and motorcycles, late at night and early in the morning up to around 2am using it as a racetrack. The road where this terrible accident happened was one of those that had recently gone from 30 to 20 mph and is fairly short stretch of road not even a quarter of mile long and each end of it is a 40 mph, so maybe that in itself was a major factor? On the scene of fatal Coedely crash - BBC News

Do Telsa have a problem that is being hushed up here or what? Virginia sheriff's office says Tesla was running on Autopilot moments before tractor-trailer crash (msn.com)

@@Lee I see, I was wondering if you were looking at it on a mobile phone for a moment, as they can do some weird **** at times if the site is not optimised for mobile usage.

Oh, that's odd, because I just tested that link I posted, and it works perfectly OK for me, something wrong at your end I think. I attach a screen print of the photo that I refer to on my post.

No, I didn't miss the word out, as the sentence did not require it. The actual speed tolerance used to be 10% + 2 mph, but many forces these days are limiting it to 30 mph + 1 mph. This was brought in about a year ago, and I tend to drive when ever possible with my cruise control set to the signed speed limit, so in my case CC set at 30 mph actually equates to 28 mph true, confirmed by my aftermarket SatNav and my dashcam which when in operation defaults to becoming a digital GPS controlled speedo. Speed is also to be adjusted according to road conditions, traffic, pedestrians, schools, hospitals etc and of course the type of road, i.e., is it a housing estate road, or road through a busy shopping area or is it a main road that goes through a built area, a ring road etc, so nobody should be driving at a constant 30 mph. The 30 mph is only the maximum, i.e., maximum permitted if conditions away it. Just because 3 lads were killed in a 20mph zone does not mean that the driver who was involved was honouring the limit, far more likely to be speeding and more than likely exceeding 30 mph to boot. The fact that 2 lads in the car are also fighting for their lives suggests that the driver was indeed speeding. I had my other car written off for in a 19 mph crash and this speed is also confirmed on the dashcam footage, and the crash was not hard enough to set off any airbags, which must have gone off in the car you are talking about. After having been for many years, a professional driver covering many hundreds of thousands of miles all over the British Isles, I can tell you that 30 is a safe speed provided the driver is not distracted by other things or people, or been drinking or drugs taking, its just good old plain common sense and driving on or above the limit rather ten using your brain and matching the speed to the actually conditions prevailing, within the prescribed limit is the correct way of doing it.

Yes, that is quite possible and is even true here in my home city at certain times of the day, but equally at other times you can get up to 30mph for some reasonable distances, but if speed limits are reduced to 20mph, then those 30mph dashes will not be available and therefore must slow down the speed overall and therefore increase journey time overall. This would also be true in Eastbourne or anywhere and ICE cars are spewing more emissions when their engines are revving more in lower gears, slowing traffic down even further to just 20mph max is making the air quality that much lower.

@@Lee Why the confused emoji?

Oh dear yet another piece of poor journalism, this time regarding the open air car park at Bristol airport, which uses a photo of the fire at Luton airport as the attention grabber, which has some readers already commenting and blaming it on an EV with zero evidence to suggest it was the cause. At least the Luton fire did have some footage of a car on fire, which did tend to suggest that it could have been an EV, but it seems now that was not the case. Airport car park fire breaks out at Bristol although fire crews quick to extinguish blaze | Regit

And on the footpath, they also have a special pattern of studs so folk with little no sight can determine where crossings are and they have been for years.

Well, here's the kicker, that is a fallacy. There are loads of places where you can, or could do 30mph. In the city area 20mph is good. But you are also saying the average is 12mph is true, but that takes account of idiots on the road trying to park, or turning right but not taking the correct position on road so blocking it for those who want to got straight on etc. Fact is 20mph will make that average even lower still.

I have zero problems where there schools or other hazards, but blanket limits of 20mph in places like London is sheer folly.

Perhaps we might see similar happenings again when they introduce 20mph signs and limits almost everywhere?

@Rooted, I'm not actually that your second video is factually correct about the Scots are paying more for their electric, it is more likely to be due to the fact that it is actually far colder and so more energy is being used to provide heating? Otherwise, I would say that the presenter is right.

You're right, I did post that, but either way, you can be sure that ultimately, it will not be to our advantage, there is a reason for the removal of cash and an interconnected world for everything.

If they have offered you £100 to have one fitted, that's a huge indication that they know they are going make that much back again quickly and much more.