New Penalties for Drivers

VimFuego · August 2013

holnrew said:

The sooner there are no drivers on the road, the better for everybody imo.

yeah, but if you turn up for the MOT with forward pointing phased plasma cannons in a 40 watt range, they really frown upon you.

Axe_meister · August 2013

I pretty much drive for a living (about 30k a year) so what gets my beef.
It's not the BMW flashing it's head lights in the fast lane. I just pull over no problem. I see them coming a mile off.
It's the guy who sits in the middle lane at 60 because they feel safe with lots of space either side. It's the young driver in a custom Saxo driving like a twat weaving in and out the lanes.
In town it's the company transit driver and taxi drivers who think they own the road.
Or the plod who sit at 69mph in the middle lane daring anybody to overtake.
Worst if all are the European truck drivers.

juansolo · August 2013

ICBM said:

Wolftone said:
The flashing headlights thing get's me. The purpose of flashing headlights is to let people know you are there. So, in lane three, I'm doing seventy, and up ahead is a driver doing sixty, can't I flash my lights at a reasonable distance to let him/her know, I'm there?

The problem is that it isn't "letting them know you're there", it's an aggressive "get out of my way" gesture.

Even if you don't think so, I bet 99% of those who you do it to think it is.

If there's space for them to pull into and they're just merrily plodding along paying no attention I'll give a quick flash of the lights. If I get no response I undertake them as they're not gonna move. But I'll try and do this as non-aggressively as possible... God you don't want to piss people off on the road these days, there are some proper psychotic idiots who consider either of the above tantamount to raping their cat or something.

The right hand lanes are for overtaking. When you're not overtaking, keep left. It's a simple concept to grasp.

stickyfiddle · August 2013

I've got no trouble with a single flash of the lights well in advance if a car is closing fast, by so many do it when you're still faster than everything in lanes 1 & 2 and you have no gap to move into. That is aggressive and unnecessary.

bertie · August 2013

Axe_meister said:

Or the plod who sit at 69mph in the middle lane daring anybody to overtake.

got to say, never seen that.

If we're going to get into specific middle lane hoggers. IME tend to be petrified middle aged women with hands so tight on the steering wheel you can see the pain, very OAP men with wife in their Rover, or Saxo driving "just past my test" young girls chatting chatting chatting

musicegbdf · August 2013

Interesting comments so far.
I think the big one is uninsured drivers. A £300 fine is useless when the premiums for the people who do not insure are often in the £'000's. but I do like the idea they take the car away and if not resolved and fines paid they crush it. Get more old heaps off the roads if nothing else.

Emp_Fab · August 2013

I've never seen a traffic cop sitting in the middle lane at 69mph unless he's part of a rolling roadblock. I've seen them driving in lane 1 at 69mph. I can't say you can call that 'daring you to overtake' though !

I don't know if it's just my age, but if I approach that scenario where there's a cop doing 69mph and everyone is hiding away behind him, I see it as a challenge to get past him without getting pulled, so I overtake... very slowly... and never looking at the copper. My logic is that as long as I don't go over their prosecution threshold (i.e. 10% +2mph) then they're not going to waste their time pulling me for an offence they can't successfully follow though. I've never been stopped for this yet.

My big hate is people (sorry to say this, but it's 70% women) who hog lane 3, completely oblivious to anyone behind them, when lane 2 is clear. I'm convinced they do it because there's less traffic in front of them in lane 3. I've seen traffic cops in full 'blues and twos' mode, lit up light a Floyd concert, sirens blaring, driving just feet away from some of these retards, flashing every light they've got to get them to get out of the fucking way, and they're still tootling along. How can anyone not see a Volvo estate with strobe lights on when it's up your arse ?

Oh... and women again.... who have the rear-view mirror permanently tilted so they can look at themselves and not the road behind.

OilCityPickups · August 2013

It's been my own experience that everybody thinks they are a good driver ... and therein lies the problem. Our own definitions of good differ wildly.
I used to love driving and car ownership ... witnessed by my posts on the 'classic car' thread ... but now I positively hate it (apart from small country roads). I'd abandon the car completely if the infrastructure was there to get to and from where my horses are stabled without setting wheel to tarmac, but it doesn't.
The motorist has become the cash cow for every parasitic industry and government agency under the sun ... and the driver, seen as being as antisocial as the public cigarette smoker. Manners and consideration have evaporated from the motorway, A road and town centre ... and you are as likely to get stabbed for some perceived slight to another road user as get the rude sign you might have got twenty years ago. You are sandwiched between loony Clarkson-esque petrol heads and tree hugging eco-twats.
I'm not sure motoring as we know it will be around in another twenty years ... and I'm not sure if I'm sad.
My plan is to move out to the country in a couple of years ... living on site with the horses ... use my 4x4 on waste oil ... and only on my own property ... and keep a shotgun handy for anyone who doesn't look 'local'.

holnrew · August 2013

I don't like the term "the motorist", it's always used when drivers act like victims. Most people drive cars, I could hardly call them marginalised.

The fact that everyone thinks they're great drivers is why I think they should be off the roads, replaced with cool futuristic pod shit.

Evilmags · August 2013

I believe the Tories would have cupped the motorway limit to 80. The they saw what the leftist harpies of mumsnet thought of that...

VimFuego · August 2013

I always think mumsnet is more the smallminded right.

Emp_Fab · August 2013

I've never been on mumsnet, but I'm agreeing with Vim. Just because any opportunity to have a poke at the right wing is not to be missed. Factual or not.

Oh... and 80 ??? Just 80 ?? What a pointless waste of money that would have been. If you're going to do something, do it properly, not piss about with token gestures. Make it a ton FFS. Nice round figure.

Evilmags · August 2013

It's certainly not very libertarian, that's for sure. Maybe just merge the description to small minded harpies with disproportionate influence over UK politics...

ICBM · August 2013

Emp_Fab said:
Oh... and 80 ??? Just 80 ?? What a pointless waste of money that would have been. If you're going to do something, do it properly, not piss about with token gestures. Make it a ton FFS. Nice round figure.

No, Cameron is all about pointless token gestures that appear to be "doing something" but actually have no effect at all even if they aren't actively counterproductive.

Actually I don't agree with raising the speed limit at all - unless it was raised to 80 and then rigidly enforced, not allowed to creep another 10mph as it is now... ie effectively the same thing but without giving the impression that it's OK to speed as long as it's only a little bit.

Higher speeds don't actually really get you anywhere much faster - but it's likely that they do increase the number of accidents, and a certainty that they increase the severity of accidents when they do occur. The energy in a crash at 100mph is double that at 70. Have a look at those German figures again.

It really puzzles me why everyone is in quite such a hurry on the roads. I admit I used to drive fast - more for the hell of it than anything - but once I had kids and especially when the price of fuel went up, I slowed down a lot. It doesn't take much longer to get anywhere, it's a lot cheaper, and it's almost certainly safer. 60-70mph is plenty on the motorway, and I'm normally happy at 55-60.

Evilmags · August 2013

Cars are miles safer than even 30 years ago. 100 would suit me fine, but with a.much more driver training and harder tests.

OilCityPickups · August 2013

holnrew said:

I don't like the term "the motorist", it's always used when drivers act like victims. Most people drive cars, I could hardly call them marginalised.

The fact that everyone thinks they're great drivers is why I think they should be off the roads, replaced with cool futuristic pod shit.

I used motorist as I see it as a catchall term for those that drive cars, vans, motorcycles, pickup trucks, 4x4s, lorries ... in fact 'motor vehicle' drivers. 'Car' to me implies just a four seat, four wheel plain vanilla ... er car. And many moterists feel picked on because the car is seen as an extension of the human personality not simply a possession. Pick on someone's car and you pick on them is how many feel inside ... again rightly or wrongly.
If you look at the letters written in the era when the horse was being replaced by the railway ... then the same outrage for things that might 'fright the horses' was being expressed. I might hazard because 'personal transport' is fixed deep in the psyche alongside notions of personal freedom. Personally I think that the motorcar has had its day ... but there's not really any viable alternative for most people. I drive because I have to ... and hate pretty much every minute of it.

ICBM · August 2013

Evilmags said:

Cars are miles safer than even 30 years ago.

Yes, but why make things more dangerous again by increasing the speed? There's only so much that safety technology can do - beyond a certain speed the human body simply can't take the forces involved in a crash. It's not only the maximum speed - very few crashes actually happen at full speed - but that it takes you much longer to slow down because you have to lose more energy, and you cover the distance quicker so you'll still be going a lot faster at the actual impact... it's a triple whammy.

The energy is proportional to the square of the speed, not the speed itself - and you can't change the laws of physics. If you're going at 50mph and you brake down to 30 before you hit something, that impact contains only one-ninth of the energy than if you were going at 100 and slowed down to 90 (not 80 - you'll get there in half the time so you won't have time to lose 20mph) before the impact.

Personally I think 70 is about right. It's quick enough to get you where you're going, and slow enough that most people can cope with driving safely (enough) at that speed and have time to react and get the speed down to where it's survivable if something does happen. UK roads are some of the safest in the world, we should keep it like that.

It's true that it's bad driving which causes accidents, but it is speed that kills.

Evilmags · August 2013

Fast car and empty country road is fun. Busy motorway is seriously dull.

Heartfeltdawn · August 2013

Evilmags said:

I believe the Tories would have cupped the motorway limit to 80. The they saw what the leftist harpies of mumsnet thought of that...

The users of Mumsnet are neither left wing or right wing. They are simply female and therefore incapable of any kind of sensible comment to do with motoring.

Evilmags · August 2013

A .robin Reliant is legal at 70mph. At that speed the stopping distance I's a three times that of a modern car. Germany is easily the least unpleasant country I've driven in. Mind you I happily drive in South Africa. Which makes Europe look very, very safe.

ICBM · August 2013

Evilmags said:

A .robin Reliant is legal at 70mph. At that speed the stopping distance I's a three times that of a modern car.

Only three?! I'm amazed one can stop from that sort of speed at all without turning over. Mind you, they weigh about as much as a pram so probably wouldn't do too much damage to whatever they hit. Not sure about the Robin driver though...

I used to drive slightly tweaked 2CVs which would do maybe 90 on a slight downhill with the wind behind. I have no idea what the brakes would have done at that speed, I never had to find out. But I was young and immortal then

.

OilCityPickups · August 2013

With the world overpopulating like hell who says we actually need road safety?

holnrew · August 2013

Evilmags said:

A .robin Reliant

Reliant Robin!!! Unless you also say Escort Ford, Astra Vauxhall, etc.

Evilmags · August 2013

ICBM;13767" said:
Evilmags said:

A .robin Reliant is legal at 70mph. At that speed the stopping distance I's a three times that of a modern car.

Only three?! I'm amazed one can stop from that sort of speed at all without turning over. Mind you, they weigh about as much as a pram so probably wouldn't do too much damage to whatever they hit. Not sure about the Robin driver though...

I used to drive slightly tweaked 2CVs which would do maybe 90 on a slight downhill with the wind behind. I have no idea what the brakes would have done at that speed, I never had to find out. But I was young and immortal then .

Have you driven one? It is some experience. One of my best mates (aka the house hIppy) has one and it is, by a mile, the most dangerous car I've been in. You can do a left corner 10mph faster just by having a passenger. And that passenger WILL lean into corners he's so freaked out. If they can legally do 70mph then the limit for a decent car should be about 150....

ICBM · August 2013

Evilmags said:
Have you driven one? It is some experience. One of my best mates (aka the house hIppy) has one and it is, by a mile, the most dangerous car I've been in. You can do a left corner 10mph faster just by having a passenger. And that passenger WILL lean into corners he's so freaked out. If they can legally do 70mph then the limit for a decent car should be about 150....

No - I sat in a (thankfully!) stationary one once and that was quite scary enough

. I didn't like the way it tilted when I got in, and then lurched the other way when someone heavier than me got in the other side.

The 2CV leans a lot too, but you at least feel that the springs are doing something. They actually corner very well despite the angle the bodyshell appears to be at, and are supposedly impossible to turn over unless in reverse. I managed to get into four-wheel drift quite easily in mine without any sense of being about to ground loop it...

Evilmags · August 2013

They should give reliant drivers car licences and a cheap four wheeler in exchange for their Robins. Easy way to improve road safety. Clarkson was not exaggerating when he made that film. The local scumbags love turning
The poor househippy's car upside down at night.

Heartfeltdawn · August 2013

Now I may have made a cheap and obvious jib as Mumsnet and female drivers in recent days. I admit to being foolish and my faith in womanhood has been revived by this Mumsnet thread:

http://www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/a1566954-To-think-Toby-Young-is-not-an-expert-on-anything-other-than-being-a-smug-cunt-and-Newsnight-last-night-was-ridiculously-biased

If Mumsnet thinks Toby Young is a cunt, then they're alright by me.

mike_l · August 2013

Ok, who the fuck is Toby Young? Never heard of him........

holnrew · August 2013

mike_l said:

Ok, who the fuck is Toby Young? Never heard of him........

Wrote the book "How to Lose Friends and Alienate People" He's a journalist and son of a Labour peer (who coined the phrase "meritocracy", as a warning against it), and is a massive elitist poo.

I don't think you can lump mumsnet together, it would be like defining all of us with he same poitical and moral beliefs.

Heartfeltdawn · August 2013

holnrew said: Wrote the book "How to Lose Friends and Alienate People" He's a journalist and son of a Labour peer (who coined the phrase "meritocracy", as a warning against it), and is a massive elitist poo.

I don't think you can lump mumsnet together, it would be like defining all of us with he same poitical and moral beliefs.

It'd be like defining drummers as being 'failed musicians who can't strum, sing, or pluck, so are forced to hit things with a stick in the manner that captive apes do'.

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