EDIT: I'm also sure that there is no legally enforced minimum speed limit in the UK.

Not read the highway code recently?

There are minimum speed limit signs in there

Not read the highway code recently?

There are minimum speed limit signs in there

And do you often see these on the Motorway? Or is it usually in tunnels?

Or is being killed a better option?

Yes it is, then the silly **** who stepped out in the road without looking/pulled out in front of you, won't do it again.

BY SHIFTY

These people in the shoguns & rovers are employed to remove the debris from the motorways ' date=' left by accidents or bits falling off vehicles, I would sooner these people were sweeping up broken glass & bits of car off the motorway after the accident, to let the Police go and get the nutter drivers.

[/quote']

Utter bo11ox. Where are the policemen and women who have been freed from tedious debris removal? I cant remember the last time I saw a traffic car on the motorway, and the HQ is only at preston. The last few I have seen have been parked near the barrier protected, well illuminated, straight dual carriage way with the 30mph limit as you enter Blackpool. And they are not catching nutters with a 'kin speed gun.

I fully agree that the police are benefitting from the new highway agency patrols, but the public don't benefit at all. It won't be long before the police will just be a ltd company, subcontracting all the work out.

RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA:mad: :mad:

If a tree had fallen, and you came barrelling around a corner into it, would it be the tree's fault?

No, that would be bad luck.

Utter bo11ox. Where are the policemen and women who have been freed from tedious debris removal?

Five volvo estates on the A449 and A40 this morning doing the full fruitmachine impression.

On their way to an accident as it happened.

Probably some glass to sweep up.

Not all immigrants are bad for Britain' date=' ask the NHS about 40 % of its staff, who happen to be immigrants. Ask the hospitality and farming industry in fact. One immigrant doctor saves the UK several hundred thousand pounds in training costs and they are ready to work straight away. The same counts for Immigrant accountants, lawyers, plumbers, technicians etc. and I do agree about the "jobless scum" or parasite class as I like to call them. :thumbdwn:

[/quote']

Please don't think i'm being racist, cos i'm not, but the NHS is a government body, and will employ anyone foolish enough to take a lesser wage than our own nationals. I have nothing against anyone who has a job though, no matter what it is.

As far as hospitality, foriegn nationals only work in that trade because you don't need any qualifications until you reach management level. As for farming, we don't actually have a need for farmers, or farming, so they are immaterial. It's far cheaper to import farm produce, instead of subsidising the scumbags who run round in

Please don't think i'm being racist, cos i'm not, but the NHS is a government body, and will employ anyone foolish enough to take a lesser wage than our own nationals. I have nothing against anyone who has a job though, no matter what it is.

As far as hospitality, foriegn nationals only work in that trade because you don't need any qualifications until you reach management level. As for farming, we don't actually have a need for farmers, or farming, so they are immaterial. It's far cheaper to import farm produce, instead of subsidising the scumbags who run round in

police are benefitting from the new highway agency patrols, but the public don't benefit at all.

Not true.

If you break-down on the hard shoulder of an unlit section of motorway wouldnt you like a big 4x4 with disco lights on the roof to park behind you? I frequently see the patrols offering well needed protection to stranded families - something you hardly ever saw from police cars.

As for farming, we don't actually have a need for farmers, or farming, so they are immaterial. It's far cheaper to import farm produce, instead of subsidising the scumbags who run round in

Not true.

If you break-down on the hard shoulder of an unlit section of motorway wouldnt you like a big 4x4 with disco lights on the roof to park behind you? I frequently see the patrols offering well needed protection to stranded families - something you hardly ever saw from police cars.

If I break down, i'll call the AA thanks. I'd rather see a real policeman in a real police car actually driving on a real road for a change. That way they might spot someone driving badly and hopefully stop an accident from occuring further down the road.

So now the police have more time to do this is that not a benefit to the public?

[i']EDIT: I'm also sure that there is no legally enforced minimum speed limit in the UK.[/i]

Not strictly true. If you drive a vehicle below 15mph (i think) you have to have flashing amber warning litgts.

There was a story in our local paper several years ago. An old lorry crawled up a hill on a single carrage way, and then freewheeled down it. The police car following nicked him for going 2 slow up the hill, and then again for going too fast down it

Back to the camera vs real policeman thing:

If you shoplift and get caught by a camera, do you feel agrieved? Is it better to get caught by a "real policeman"?

Personally I think that a lot of speed limits are inappropriate, but it's the law. Break it by all means, but don't complain if you get caught.

How many farmers do you actually know who have

Education!!!!!! This has not been mentioned... Driver trainning is pathetic...

You learn to drive in a 1 litre supermini' date=' driving at no more than 60mph..

pass a test..

Then you can get behind the wheel of anything you like, drive on the Motorway at well over 100mph ,,etc etc.....

Dazz[/quote']

Hi Dazz

NEW driver training is possibly better than it has ever been in the past. A learner on test not attaining a suitable speed for the road conditions will fail. The learner on test will need to demonstrate that they are aware of the requirements, will need to demonstrate that if required they are able to plan and execute overtaking manouvres and will need to show that they are able to drive at a speed that does not hold up other road users.

A very common reason for driving test failure is when the candidate fails to make sufficient progress. As an example from my own local test centres, that means overtaking and progress at 70 on dual carriageways. If you choose to doddle along a 60 when an overtake or clear road is available, you will fail. Also on the local derestriced rural roads, there are several palces where you will fail if someone catches up with you and has to reduce their pace unless you are doing very close to 60.

It is also advocated that on a dual cariageway, should you begin an overtake and the vehicle you are overtaking speeds up, you should accelerate to a slightly higher speed (75 ish) to complete the manouvre. If they speed up to match, you then slow down.

The Pass Plus Scheme (currently optional) allows new drivers to take a 6 hour extension to their training during which, motorway driving, night driving, poor weather driving and a variety of other additional areas are covered. Completion of this course gives the new driver a significant insurance discount.

As for 1.0L supermini, my pupils are currently suffering a Fiesta Zetec. However, next week they will be learning in a nice shiny new Fabia vRS

A major problem is existing drivers. You get the 45mph club. Those that travel down the 60 limit roads at 45, then sail through the 30 zone at 45 as well. Total lack of awareness, and a danger to other road users. They have probably forgotten that if they choose to drive a slow moving vehicle, they are obliged to pull over at the earliest convenience to allow other road users to pass.

You get the lunatic who cuts everyone up to make a few seconds off the journey home. Dangerous by putting the onus to compensate for their lack of patience and road manners on others.

You get the inexperienced youngsters showing off how great they think they are.

You get the stupid gits who dont use the mirrors. One of my pupils, doing an overtake on a dual carriageway at 70mph was nearly run off the road by one of these on Sunday. Towing a caravan, o mirror extensions, just moves right to overtake a moped without looking. No I did not use the dual controls, the pupil handled it perfectly.

And lets not forget the evangelists. Those that sit in the outside lane of any road at bang on the speed limit, while the inside lane is clear. Their warped minds are possibly thinking "oooh, look how safe everyone is behind me now they are all doing 70". "I am a saint and will get my reward in heaven". The sooner the better.

And of course all the assorted unlicensed, uninsured scum.

What is needed are two thing: extended driver training, maybe a compulsory retest every 5 or 10 years and also, a return to courtesy and consideration for others. Hell will freeze over before either of these happen, and when it does, anyone skating above 5mph will be on film.

Chris

Shifty I think Goochie was just trying to point out that farmers pay a lot of tax too, and don't exactly make a rich living out of the land. Try watching "A very English village" next time it's on - growing barley at a loss, if the weather isn't exactly right, for example. And calling a group of hard working individuals "scumbags" isn't exactly the way to win friends and influence people either.

A major problem is existing drivers. You get the 45mph club. Those that travel down the 60 limit roads at 45' date=' then sail through the 30 zone at 45 as well. Total lack of awareness, and a danger to other road users. They have probably forgotten that if they choose to drive a slow moving vehicle, they are obliged to pull over at the earliest convenience to allow other road users to pass.

[/quote']

Wrong, of course, to drive through 30 limits at 45. Not wrong to drive at 45 in a 60 limit if that's what they wish to do, or the conditions dictate. The limit is just that, a LIMIT, not a mandated speed. I hope you don't teach your pupils to drive at 60 in a 60 limit regardless of the conditions and to inherit your own obvious intolerance of people who choose not to drive as fast as you.

"Slow moving vehicle" doesn't mean cars travelling at 45mph, it means tractors, wide loads, and other very slow vehicles. If you come up behind a car doing 45mph, you're welcome to overtake it, when conditions allow.

You are right Mr Carring, not all farmers are scumbags. And not all jobless people are scum either

Just got carried away with my rant, and clear thought went out the window.

Hi to all

This thead has degenrated a bit has'nt it?

Appropriate use of speed. Many of the "examples" stated are out of context. The important thing is that you drive at a speed appropriate to the conditions. When teaching learners, we have to stress the importance of making proper progress. Overtaking, by it's very nature, is hazardous. To put yourself and others in the situation where overtaking is necesary is wrong and will fail you a driving test, as well as being selfish and inconsiderate. If you want to bubmle along, do it, but get off the road and and let people pass at every opportunity.

Farmers. If you want cheap food, buy all the cheap imports the supermarkets sell. All the fruit and veg is tastless due to storage / transit delays. You would not buy some knackerd old chip shop range instead of a nice shiney new one, so why shouldnt a farmer spend a decent sum for a good quality tool. I am sure the average farmer would be glad of getting a tractor for a coule of thou from the back of farm machinery mart if it would get the job done, but as anyone in any industry knows, cheap equipment is false economy. I know a couple of farmers and they make very little. If you want to do your bit, only buy UK grown produce in the supermarkets. Then our farmers could afford to pay a living wage for the farm workers, instead of using cheap labour from abroad.

As for the labour from abroad. I am anti racist (my better half is half Indian). However, we know that there are too many people from outsider the UK working here in jobs where the pay and conditions are very poor. Are we doing them a favour letting them work here, or taking advantage of the strenght of our currency? At the other end of the spectrum are doctors who range from genius to useless. It aint the colour or the country of origin that is the issue. I is the bodies that employ 'em. The tax we pay is being squandered elsewhwere, in the pension funds of civil servants and council employees, in the huge markups that middle men of the NHS supply system impose and in countless other scams. England is rotten to the core. Convenient to poin the finger at immigrnats, some of who are undoubtedly a burden to our state and some who are contribute their share to it.

The local authorities regularly make 30 limits where they should not, against the wishes of the local police force. This leads to a problem of behaviour transferance. You go, for example, down the estate bypass at 70mph for years and then the coucil slap a 30 limit on it. You and countless others cannot see a reason to only do 30 so you ignore or bend the speed limit if no cameras are watching. You get used to doing this and the behaviour transfers to other 30 limits, wehre there is a valid reason for doing 30. You get knicked and resent the police for it. It is of course not the polices fault, but the local authorities. The police are supposed to be there to uphold the law. When the law is used for the purposes of social engineering, there is trouble ahead.

So who is to blame? Well the government want to speed camera the whole country. The thin end of the wedge is cameras. A new and worrying idea is the pay as you go insurance that tracks drivers mileage use via a GPS system and charges them accordingly. Of course if it tracks this it also tracks speed. So how long before we have a box in the car that grasses you up for speeding?

The government need to brainwash the public befor they can go for the total speed clampdown. It is no secret that they are anti car in the extreme, the motives possibly harking back to the days that cars were the preserve of the rich, or maybe a grudge from those dark days where unions and car makers fought so bitterly. Who knows?

All I know is if we buy all the **** that the government tells us, sooner or later we will no longer be able to enjoy our driving. Or much else.

Chris

Kill the politicians.

Wrong' date=' of course, to drive through 30 limits at 45. Not wrong to drive at 45 in a 60 limit if that's what they wish to do, or the conditions dictate. The limit is just that, a LIMIT, not a mandated speed. I hope you don't teach your pupils to drive at 60 in a 60 limit regardless of the conditions and to inherit your own obvious intolerance of people who choose not to drive as fast as you.

"Slow moving vehicle" doesn't mean cars travelling at 45mph, it means tractors, wide loads, and other very slow vehicles. If you come up behind a car doing 45mph, you're welcome to overtake it, when conditions allow.[/quote']

It is wrong to drive at speeds inappropriate to the conditions. Therefore it would be wrong to teach my pupils to drive at 60 where 60 is not appropriate. It is also wrong to teach them to drive at 45 where this is not appropriate. The driving test requires that you make reasonable progress without causing other road users to unnecesarily change speed or direction. So if you are doing 45mph where 60 would be appropriate, you will get a driving fault on the driving test report form. If someone catches up with you and then cannot proceed at the appropriate speed, or has to overtake you to do so, you get a serious driving fault and fail your test. I teach my pupils to do what the Driving Standards Agency requires them to do. My test pass results confirm that I am teaching them appropriate use of speed. I have yet to have anyone fail for going too fast, or not controlling the car at speed.

It is wrong to drive at 45 in a 60 limit if the conditions permit a higher speed IF BY DOING SO YOU HOLD UP OTHER ROAD USERS. This is not my opinion, but that of the Driving Standards Agency. That is why you would fail a driving test by doing it.

It is also inconsiderate to others. You are effectively creating a hazardous situation. Of course, if you dont feel comfortable driving at the appropriate speeds, then you should consider driver training. The problem is that many drivers do not have any training after they pass the test. They think that the way they drive is the best way. So they naturally think that if they are doing 45mph and someone else wants to overtake them, it must be the nutter in the other car that is in the wrong. Some of 'em get pretty indignant when overtaken by a learner. They cannot see that they are in fact a mobile hazard and therefore fail to see the need to get updated training. Because they have not had appropriate training, they are quite probably not able to identify the proper speed for the road conditions, or / and are unable to correctly utilise the cars performance to attain the appropriate speeds.

I really beleive that compulsory driver training and assesment every 5 or 10 years would reduce many of the problems (including the 45mph club) that we currently experience on our roads.

Laslty, if you were doing the 45mph club thing and looked in your mirror (not that 45mph club menbers use their mirrors), would you pull over at a convenient place to let the following vehicles past? If not, for what reason?

Chris

I really beleive that compulsory driver training and assesment every 5 or 10 years would reduce many of the problems (including the 45mph club) that we currently experience on our roads.

Chris

Of course, your not at all biased being a driving instructor and all! think of all the extra money!

If a tree fell onto the motorway as I was doing 70, and I hit it. Would it be my fault for not doing 30mph?

Why are you avoiding the question I posed?

And Shifty - while there'd be an element of bad luck, it'd primarily be down to bad judgement on driving at such a speed that you can't stop in time if something unexpected happens. A good driver will modulate their speed such that they can always stop in the distance they can see - that's just basic common sense.

So if you are doing 45mph where 60 would be appropriate' date=' you will get a driving fault on the driving test report form. If someone catches up with you and then cannot proceed at the appropriate speed, or has to overtake you to do so, you get a serious driving fault and fail your test. I teach my pupils to do what the Driving Standards Agency requires them to do. My test pass results confirm that I am teaching them appropriate use of speed. I have yet to have anyone fail for going too fast, or not controlling the car at speed.

...

It is wrong to drive at 45 in a 60 limit if the conditions permit a higher speed IF BY DOING SO YOU HOLD UP OTHER ROAD USERS. This is not my opinion, but that of the Driving Standards Agency. That is why you would fail a driving test by doing it.

It is also inconsiderate to others. You are effectively creating a hazardous situation.[/quote']

Amen!

This is what I am trying to say. And you have worded it so much better, thankyou.

Why are you avoiding the question I posed?

Very well. No it wouldn't be my fault. It would be an 'Act of God'. I wouldn't blame the tree - I'd blame myself, but I wouldn't expect myself to go dangerously slow everywhere 'expecting' something that in all likelihood wouldn't happen.

And I think I'm sounding wrong here. I don't blast down country lanes at a speed where I am unable to slow down/stop if a hazard exists. But I am saying that by going excessively slow on these roads you become the hazard that everyone has to slow down/stop for. And that is dangerous, especially when you come across people who do go too fast to stop from what is a legally permitted speed.

I'm not talking about fault, or legalities. I'm talking about real life and what actually happens on the roads. If we all drove perfectly legally all the time accidents would hardly ever happen.

Of course, if you dont feel comfortable driving at the appropriate speeds, then you should consider driver training.

You were doing so well, and then you decided to get patronising

The problem is that many drivers do not have any training after they pass the test. They think that the way they drive is the best way. So they naturally think that if they are doing 45mph and someone else wants to overtake them, it must be the nutter in the other car that is in the wrong.

It's not always a case of wrong or right, just preferences. If you go out on a Sunday afternoon with your wife, do you drive along twisty country lanes at exactly 60 mph all the way? If so, you must have a very tolerant partner.

Lastly' date=' if you were doing the 45mph club thing and looked in your mirror (not that 45mph club menbers use their mirrors), would you pull over at a convenient place to let the following vehicles past? If not, for what reason?

Chris[/quote']With the speed differential of 60/45 I'd probably just give the other driver every opportunity to overtake, and yes I do use my mirrors, thanks. I might give him the odd flash of the indicators when an overtaking opportunity arose to let him know I was aware of his presence too. We're not all in a tearing hurry all the time, you know.

:cheers: