ULEZ and other similar schemes we are being told are all about clean air for everybody but are they really just a means of making money from motorists?

[Graham Butcher]

Wow, the video appears to show the bomb was beneath the van, but the photograph indicates it was on the opposite side of the road, while I can appreciate people's anger at the cameras and the scheme,  I cannot condone that kind of action, it could easily kill someone.

[J.R.]

https://youtu.be/8g_GeQR8fJo?t=20

[Graham Butcher]

This post covers two things, diesel gate and ULEZ, because diesel could well have an impact on ULEZ.

 

We all know about the scandel called diesel gate which hit the VW group and how all the other main stream manufacturers and in particular the owners and drivers of these other makes of cars all sneered and were smug about VW owners and their drivers, well this video is claiming loads of other makes were cheating on their emissions and the owner and presenter of this video, known as BlackbeltBarrister is actually suing one of these makes personally. Might worth a watch, even if for entertainment purposes only. If the claims are successfully upheld, it spells trouble for the LEZ and also ULEZ zones as well maybe?

 

 

[@Lee]

Interesting little piece I came across about Belisha beacons. 

https://www.mylondon.news/news/transport/ulez-style-vandalism-isnt-new-27967507

[Graham Butcher]

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

Edited 12 December, 2023 by Graham Butcher

[Ootohere]

^^^ Location location location yet again.

Plenty 20 mph limits are in place and have been for years and more coming. 

  People should maybe choose their fights sometime.    If slowing down is required and in appropriate locations then good.

 

There are no blanked bans on speed and the likes of 20 mph max other than in built up areas where there might have been a 30 mph limit anyway.

[Graham Butcher]

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

[@Lee]

6 minutes ago, Graham Butcher said:

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

 

That would actually increase the speed in London given that the average driving speed in Inner London is 12mph and it's already about 20mph in outer London  

[Graham Butcher]

12 minutes ago, @Lee said:

 

That would actually increase the speed in London given that the average driving speed in Inner London is 12mph and it's already about 20mph in outer London  

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. 

[J.R.]

3 hours ago, @Lee said:

Interesting little piece I came across about Belisha beacons. 

https://www.mylondon.news/news/transport/ulez-style-vandalism-isnt-new-27967507

 

You see the line or lines of studs on the road in the photos? Even back then they were making provision for the blind.

[Graham Butcher]

30 minutes ago, J.R. said:

 

You see the line or lines of studs on the road in the photos? Even back then they were making provision for the blind.

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. 

Edited 12 December, 2023 by Graham Butcher

[Gaz]

3 hours ago, @Lee said:

.. given that the average driving speed in Inner London is 12mph...

 

I went to central London about 20 years ago for a training course (Press and media relations ) and on a whim took my pushbike.  The freedom of movement was exhilarating, as it was quite like riding around a car park with cars shuffling along  a bit every now and then.  Even going up to East Sheen recently I took my folding bike, and going from East Sheen to Richmond I was leaving Lambo's, Ferrari's and Bugatti's for dead - it was almost embarrassing 😁 

 

G

[lol-lol]

3 hours ago, Graham Butcher said:

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

 

You have missed the word "nominal" out from your sentence above as the speed limit, in a 20 mph marked zone in Wales or other UK police force areas is actual 24 mph as the cameras etc are set to 20 mph, plus 10% tolerance plus 2 mph for other variances ie tyre size options, inflation etc.  Freedom of information reveals Welsh cameras set to 24 mph.

 

I have been driving in Wales this weekend.  Zoe's digital speedo is quite accurate to GPS speed, I travel along in the 20 mph at an indicated 21 to 24 mph, occasionally someone comes speeding up behind me, clear driving at around 30 mph but they usually  just match my speed until one of us turns off, no flashing lights or signs of frustration.

 

If speed was set to "nominal" 30 mph drivers would be oft driving in the low 30s.  So much more dangerous to pedestrians and drivers in a close urban environment.

 

Three lads killed last night in a 20 mph zone in Rhonda in a Audi A1, same platform as Skoda Fabia of course.  Road was urban 20 mph zone.  long bend in the road, no sleeping policemen or crossing. Two other lads from the car fighting for the lives and with probable life changing experience/injuries. 

 

Twenty is Plenty.

(Because human nature is to push limits and drive more than the prescribed limits). 

 

[Graham Butcher]

1 minute ago, Gaz said:

 

I went to central London about 20 years ago for a training course (Press and media relations ) and on a whim took my pushbike.  The freedom of movement was exhilarating, as it was quite like riding around a car park with cars shuffling along  a bit every now and then.  Even going up to East Sheen recently I took my folding bike, and going from East Sheen to Richmond I was leaving Lambo's, Ferrari's and Bugatti's for dead - it was almost embarrassing 😁 

 

G

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.

[Graham Butcher]

34 minutes ago, lol-lol said:

 

You have missed the word "nominal" out from your sentence above as the speed limit, in a 20 mph marked zone in Wales or other UK police force areas is actual 24 mph as the cameras etc are set to 20 mph, plus 10% tolerance plus 2 mph for other variances ie tyre size options, inflation etc.  Freedom of information reveals Welsh cameras set to 24 mph.

 

I have been driving in Wales this weekend.  Zoe's digital speedo is quite accurate to GPS speed, I travel along in the 20 mph at an indicated 21 to 24 mph, occasionally someone comes speeding up behind me, clear driving at around 30 mph but they usually  just match my speed until one of us turns off, no flashing lights or signs of frustration.

 

If speed was set to "nominal" 30 mph drivers would be oft driving in the low 30s.  So much more dangerous to pedestrians and drivers in a close urban environment.

 

Three lads killed last night in a 20 mph zone in Rhonda in a Audi A1, same platform as Skoda Fabia of course.  Road was urban 20 mph zone.  long bend in the road, no sleeping policemen or crossing. Two other lads from the car fighting for the lives and with probable life changing experience/injuries. 

 

Twenty is Plenty.

(Because human nature is to push limits and drive more than the prescribed limits). 

 

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.

Edited 12 December, 2023 by Graham Butcher

[Gaz]

47 minutes ago, Graham Butcher said:

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.

 

So let me get this straight, travelling at 20mph it's going to take me longer to get somewhere than if I was doing 30mph?  Glad I was sitting down for that revelation 🙄

 

On some Motorways I've found myself able to hit the dizzy echelons of 70mph at certain times.

 

G

[skomaz]

7 hours ago, Graham Butcher said:

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. 

I was an Assistant Resident Engineer on a big road scheme in Doncaster when those were introduced...   None of the contractors guys knew how they were supposed to be installed so I had to find a copy of the standards and help them out.  We also had to change some of the crossing layouts slightly too to meet the requirements.

 

These days they are everywhere and instead of using precast slabs with raised bumps they often just tarmac and use a stick on rubber 'topper'.

[skomaz]

5 hours ago, lol-lol said:

 

Three lads killed last night in a 20 mph zone in Rhonda in a Audi A1, same platform as Skoda Fabia of course.  Road was urban 20 mph zone.  long bend in the road, no sleeping policemen or crossing. Two other lads from the car fighting for the lives and with probable life changing experience/injuries. 

 

Twenty is Plenty.

(Because human nature is to push limits and drive more than the prescribed limits). 

 

 

Yes, I saw that too...   Makes you wonder what speed they were actually doing as I doubt the bus would have been speeding?

 

Just shows that you can try what you like with speed limits and the like but it won't always make a difference as human nature, at times, will be to drive in whatever way someone wants to regardless of speed limits.

 

On the other hand driver frustration is caused by long stretches of slow speeds or limits for no apparent reason and is known to often lead to speeding elsewhere...   It's something assessed during road design.

[Graham Butcher]

6 hours ago, lol-lol said:

Three lads killed last night in a 20 mph zone in Rhonda in a Audi A1, same platform as Skoda Fabia of course.  Road was urban 20 mph zone.  long bend in the road, no sleeping policemen or crossing. Two other lads from the car fighting for the lives and with probable life changing experience/injuries. 

 

Twenty is Plenty.

(Because human nature is to push limits and drive more than the prescribed limits). 

 

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

Edited 12 December, 2023 by Graham Butcher

[@Lee]

42 minutes ago, skomaz said:

 

Yes, I saw that too...   Makes you wonder what speed they were actually doing as I doubt the bus would have been speeding?

 

 

I used to regularly see buses going more than the posted limit. Both local and between towns and even in the New Forest where there's wild ponies roaming around. Schedules to keep etc.

And as for National Express on the M25 from Heathrow to Gatwick back in May I think Luke Skywalker was piloting it  

[Graham Butcher]

11 minutes ago, @Lee said:

 

I used to regularly see buses going more than the posted limit. Both local and between towns and even in the New Forest where there's wild ponies roaming around. Schedules to keep etc.

And as for National Express on the M25 from Heathrow to Gatwick back in May I think Luke Skywalker was piloting it  

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.

Edited 12 December, 2023 by Graham Butcher

[@Lee]

49 minutes ago, Graham Butcher said:

Were this buses normal service buses 

 

Yes. First Bus Southampton and Solent Blue Line

[PetrolDave]

11 hours ago, Graham Butcher said:

normal service buses are limited to around 38 mph

I'm not sure that is true of all service buses, when living in South Molton it was pretty normal to find a service bus (not a coach) doing well over 50mph on the roads between there and both Barnstaple and Tiverton.

[Dieselgate]

20mph is too slow. I used to be able to run faster than this (just not for long!)

Heaps of cyclists doing more than this too.

[Graham Butcher]

44 minutes ago, PetrolDave said:

I'm not sure that is true of all service buses, when living in South Molton it was pretty normal to find a service bus (not a coach) doing well over 50mph on the roads between there and both Barnstaple and Tiverton.

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.