I can't believe this has finally made the options list!
http://www.autoexpress.co.uk/news/ae_news_story.php?id=54084
http://www.autoexpress.co.uk/news/ae_news_story.php?id=54084
What an option for a new car!
- Thread starter AdamW
- Start date
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national speed limit is 60mph, although I have had to admit to my recent wrongdoing in a car, I still can't find any possible argument for those who moan about speed cameras. If you don't drive over the speed limit, they'll never flash you. It's that simple!
If everyone realised that life would be so simple. The problem I find is that you end up with some bell-end driving 2 inches from your back bumper because they think 40 means 50.
I don't let it bother me but then I'm an a**hole, I take great pleasure in them getting pi**ed off with my flagrant respect for the law!
Hey simon, have you considered qualifying as an electrician by the way? I seem to recall you had an interest.
I don't let it bother me but then I'm an a**hole, I take great pleasure in them getting pi**ed off with my flagrant respect for the law!
Hey simon, have you considered qualifying as an electrician by the way? I seem to recall you had an interest.
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I was getting really quite irritated today. Travelling along a dual carriageway (with a prevailing speed limit of 70mph), I got stuck behind a queue of 4 cars in the outside lane doing just 55mph. Moving into the inside lane to get a better look at what was causing the hold up. I found that just in front of the leading car there was a police car (in the inside lane).
I found myself shouting (in the safe confines of my soundtight vehicle you understand) "If you're too f***ing sh*t scared to go past him, 'king pull over to let the rest of us through"
I finally pulled off the dual carriageway behind the police vehicle. (overtook him on the slipway). Later on, while sitting at some traffic lights, I started doing the maths to work out how much time the plonker had cost me.
12 miles at 55mph = 13 mins (approx)
12 miles at 80mph = 9 mins
So a total of just 4 minutes extra on a journey that takes, overall about, half hour on a good day. Makes you feel kinda silly getting all worked up about it. But it certainly felt very frustrating at the time.
I found myself shouting (in the safe confines of my soundtight vehicle you understand) "If you're too f***ing sh*t scared to go past him, 'king pull over to let the rest of us through"
I finally pulled off the dual carriageway behind the police vehicle. (overtook him on the slipway). Later on, while sitting at some traffic lights, I started doing the maths to work out how much time the plonker had cost me.
12 miles at 55mph = 13 mins (approx)
12 miles at 80mph = 9 mins
So a total of just 4 minutes extra on a journey that takes, overall about, half hour on a good day. Makes you feel kinda silly getting all worked up about it.
But it certainly felt very frustrating at the time.However, if you had gone past the policeman at 80mph,
9 minutes to drive + 10 minutes to be told off by the police = 19 minutes
I have noticed a tendency for some people to be afraid of overtaking the police even when the police are travelling significantly below the speed limit. Do you think the police sometimes use it as a game? "Hey PC Bob, how slow do you think we can go without anyone overtaking us?" If only the police had pulled them and given them a bo**ocking for incorrect lane useage
9 minutes to drive + 10 minutes to be told off by the police = 19 minutes
I have noticed a tendency for some people to be afraid of overtaking the police even when the police are travelling significantly below the speed limit. Do you think the police sometimes use it as a game? "Hey PC Bob, how slow do you think we can go without anyone overtaking us?"
If only the police had pulled them and given them a bo**ocking for incorrect lane useage 
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AdamW said:
Now I'm doing AD, I find it frustrating when I'm trying my hardest to stick to 30, and people are literally inches from my a ss, honking shouting, making winker signs etc.....my AD instructor was actually assaulted because of his adherence to the limits...
I have a friend of a friend that is a traffic cop in Hertfordshire. He has indeed, confirmed that they do exactly that. They even get a collegue to follow up to monitor the length of the tailback that they produce on the M25.
As you say, if these nervous types were to use the correct lanes, it wouldn't cause the hold up in the first place.
On the subject of holding up impatient drivers. I never do it. If anyone wants to pass me I let them through. You never know, thier passenger may be in the process of giving birth or even having a heart attack. 4 minutes to them could be critical.
If everyone stuck to speed limits normally, then you would know that someone in a hurry was so for a good reason and they would get those 4 minutes.
Of course I let people pass where possible, but on a single-lane road, or when I am already overtaking slower traffic, I'm not going to break the speed limit so the guy behind me can get to the next queue 2 seconds earlier
I live in Herts, the drivers here have it good. I know of only 4 speed cameras in this part of the county, all very prominent and on roads you definitely shouldn't be speeding on anyway (two outside a school, 2 through a very pretty village). The only guy I know who has been caught speeding in Herts was clocked at over 100 on the sliproad onto the A1 near the Hatfield Gonorrhea (that big shopping centre that is actually over the A1), into heavy traffic... you could say he was asking for it!
Unfortunately, the drivers round here are also utterly, utterly rubbish. I have lived in several places, and I have never seen such idiots behind the wheel. Many like to turn right on a roundabout from the left-hand lane, most like to speed, most like to accelerate like a disabled snail, lane discipline can go and hang if crossing lanes means you turn the steering wheel less... They scare me. They really do. And it's not just me, my colleagues come from all over the country and they tell me the same thing. Oh, and they have this thing against indicating ONTO roundabouts, many only indicate when they are leaving.
It is like they have taken all the urgency and stress of London driving, then removed all the skill and courtesy. Throw in a bit of plain stupidity, a heap of selfishness and you have it.
Of course I let people pass where possible, but on a single-lane road, or when I am already overtaking slower traffic, I'm not going to break the speed limit so the guy behind me can get to the next queue 2 seconds earlier
I live in Herts, the drivers here have it good. I know of only 4 speed cameras in this part of the county, all very prominent and on roads you definitely shouldn't be speeding on anyway (two outside a school, 2 through a very pretty village). The only guy I know who has been caught speeding in Herts was clocked at over 100 on the sliproad onto the A1 near the Hatfield Gonorrhea (that big shopping centre that is actually over the A1), into heavy traffic... you could say he was asking for it!
Unfortunately, the drivers round here are also utterly, utterly rubbish. I have lived in several places, and I have never seen such idiots behind the wheel. Many like to turn right on a roundabout from the left-hand lane, most like to speed, most like to accelerate like a disabled snail, lane discipline can go and hang if crossing lanes means you turn the steering wheel less... They scare me. They really do. And it's not just me, my colleagues come from all over the country and they tell me the same thing. Oh, and they have this thing against indicating ONTO roundabouts, many only indicate when they are leaving.
It is like they have taken all the urgency and stress of London driving, then removed all the skill and courtesy. Throw in a bit of plain stupidity, a heap of selfishness and you have it.
Thought about buying a speed limiter, with a car as the main optional extra !!
There is talk abroad about lowering the national to 50. and imposing blanket 40 on country B roads.
They are gonna squeeze the car out of us, slowly but surely..
There is talk abroad about lowering the national to 50. and imposing blanket 40 on country B roads.
They are gonna squeeze the car out of us, slowly but surely..
I haven't been up to Hertfordshire in a while, but from memory. In Mutton land/cecil road, there is a prominent speed camera, going towards South Mims there is another (well hiden by trees). This stretch of road is wide open green fields with nothing but speed cameras (and the occaisional tree), yet the speed limit is 40mph!AdamW said:
Going down Queensway in Hemel Hempstead, there are a string of about 4 cameras. I'll grant you that it is a residential area, but it has nice wide green areas to each side of the road, and is as straight as a die. The 30mph limit + cameras would suggest that it is an accident blackspot. I think not!
On the road that goes between Leavesden and Watford town centre (I think it's Hempsted road), there is a speed camera, that suddenly appears just around a bend. You could argue that the speed limit here is justified, but the positioning of the speed camera has definately been chosen to catch out the unweary.
As I say, I havn't been in Hertfordshire in a while. Used to do lots of miles up there. As you say, the general driving pattern seems to be much different to Essex.
It seems a strange mix of Less urgency yet accompanied with Less curtessy and less understanding of roundabouts. I lost count of the number of times someone would pull out on me at a roundabout. Stop dead in front of me. Then have they have a go at ME as I only just stopped in time. This doesn't seem to happen in Essex.
Then you get the situation at mini roundabouts where every idiot has stopped and each of them is scared to take the initiative to move. (Very common at King Harry Lane, St. Albans).
On busy roads in Essex, if you are waiting to turn across a slow moving queue, someone will let you out. In Hertfordshire, you will just get the burks stop right across the entrance to the road.
Driving aside, my experience of Hertfordshire people is that they are very nice people.
TexMex said:.............., I started doing the maths to work out how much time the plonker had cost me.
12 miles at 55mph = 13 mins (approx)
12 miles at 80mph = 9 mins
So a total of just 4 minutes extra on a journey that takes, overall about, half hour on a good day. Makes you feel kinda silly getting all worked up about it.
The day I began regularly calculating and therefore thinking, I became a much more relaxed driver ...
60 / current speed = time per mile in mins --> easy !!
'Tis surprising how stressed we become over trivialities.
Tail gaters.... mmmm. How's about a black box with a camera lense fitted prominently and two blue lensed lights (not connected, no bulbs) mounted either side, the whole lot mounted on the rear parcel shelf facing aft .. maybe a toy police hat alongside ?
Failing that a Gatling multi barrelled cannon .
P
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