Strange that around where I live there seems to be money for speed humps and other congestion-creating schemes, but not for mending the roads. Even cheap, short-lived patching up / filling in of holes takes weeks to achieve.
Pity the road tax (used to be called "road fund licence"!) doesn't get spent on the roads.
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why dont you drop the leader of the council your thoughts on this issue ?
keith.mitchell@oxfordshire.gov.uk
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contents of my email to council leader
Hi,
I would like to nominate Ian Beesley for an outstanding citizen award. I would be grateful if your council could give this award due consideration.
For fighting the council mandarins who are blindly following an anti-car agenda, and failing to improve road injury statistics.
The ever thinner roads, increased persecution for minor speed infringements while driving safely, speed bumps causing ever more widespread adoption of 4 x 4 vehicles, none of this makes sense.
You really should review the thoughts of the silent majority, and I humbly suggest organisations such as the association of British drivers have a better handle on that, www.abd.org.uk
Congratulations for getting your council on the national news for being a shambles, and clearly not consulting the public in a wide enough way.
Regards etc
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contents of my email to council leader
Crazed, I'm sure that your letter won't get a reply but I think that you comments raise an important point. With the ever increasing tampering with the roads to slow people down, usually by putting obstructions in the middle of the road, I believe that drivers become more irrate and when this happens concentration levels are reduced and accidents could possibly rise. Also it seems that it is our nature that if we have been stuck in some (unnecessary) queue then we will drive more erratically and quickly when we can (to make up for lost time).
I do it myself to a certain degree so presume that lots of others do as well. If this is the case then these impediments are slightly counter productive.
The calming scheme that annoys me the most is without doubt when in towns/villages one lane has been completely blocked off and a priority system has been implemented. Annoying and IMO increases the danger of crashing.
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"I do it myself to a certain degree so presume that lots of others do as well."
Ah yes - the infamous
"I think x - so OBVIOUSLY most other people think the same"
syndrome.
My aged mother always starts conversations with neighbour with words
"I'm sure dear that you'll agree that . . . ."
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TrevorP
Nothing to do with thinking (it annoys me when people say "you did , or said, that because you ........." when no such thought crossed my mind) but all to do with ones own ACTIONS and those observed in others.
My observations are that vehicles which have been travelling at 60 or so, after being held up accelerate rapidly to a far higher speed than they were travelling at before the holdup.
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An update. A website is planned to support \"Digger\'s\" cause, free legal representation has been offered to him, and a t-shirt campaign.
This bloke needs praising, not punishing.
www.thisisoxfordshire.co.uk/oxfordshire/archive/20...l
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CM - I sympathise with the way you feel. I too get so worked up by traffic "calming" (driver irritation) schemes that I also feel compelled to get my own back in some way - driving faster whenever I get the opportunity because I like to ENJOY driving and don't want to be held up by artificial means.
When the traffic is heavy, we all get held up "naturally"; when it's clear, I'm sure we all want to ENJOY driving, not to be told "OK, the road is clear, but we'll fine you / slow you down / irritate you if possible.
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Well I enjoy driving but some of you sound as if you need stress management courses:-)
I can recommend yoga:-)
madf
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"I too get so worked up by traffic "calming"
I suggest you take madf's advice.
I LIKE traffic calming.
It slows the "Richard Heads" to the speed that I was doing anyway.
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Interesting point, TP - and one we would all do well to remember the next time you're wearing your 'advanced driving instructor' persona! "Quod Erat Demonstrandum" as we used to say!
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but this IS part of the 'advanced driving instructor' persona!!
Where O where did some people get the really STUPID idea that 'advanced driving' means driving fast?
Especially around housing estates?
(like where they put these "intolerable" speed bumps.)
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Trev, would you want one of these things outside your house?
So I take it that you drive over the things at 30 mph? Of course you don't, some of them are so violent that you have to come to an almost stop to get over them gently. These are made too sharp/steep/tall whatever and they do damage to my car unless I stop and go over in 1st gear, why should I have to put up with that?
Blue
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Well said Blue! That is EXACTLY my point Trevor - these absurd things have no place in advanced driving - they reduce all to the lowest common denominator - of faxing gaze on the 'target' speed hump rather than the little old lady/pram wielding mother/child playing a few feet either side of it. Hence, my view that your 'advanced' driving and mine are not the same perhaps. And I didn't suggest that advanced = fast, although I have to say 'making maximum progress in safety' does ring a bell...? You, on the other hand, prefer your traffic 'calmed' - okay, lets not argue, but it doesn't seem consistent with advanced driving theory to me!
Neil
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The whole point is that advanced drivers don't need traffic calming as they are perfectly calm and safe without the things.
I make rapid progress through the City Centre without ever breaking the speed limit, and yet I can leave other cars in my dust, through careful lane planning etc. rather than all out pedal to the metal, speed limit smashing...
I don't really know where I'm going with this strange rambling response because I think it's time that I went to bed, but I suppose all I really want to say is that personally, I think that too many speed bumps are badly constructed and damaging and i find them highly irritating as I have absoloutely no need of them...
I'll go to bed now. :)
Blue
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"these absurd things have no place in advanced driving -"
Of COURSE, they don't dear boy -
Neither of course do speed cameras
OR speed limits of any kind
and any of the other REAL WORLD stuff.
You carry on living in your dream world -
I will carry on in the real.
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Hello Blue, m'dear,
Shedding bucket-loads of anguish here because I slightly disagree with you on this point! (don't know the 'tears' sign on here but suffice to say I have been breathing the fumes from that garlic last night!)
Speed humps in stupid places, for example all the places near where I live where all the residents of the 'rich' roads got them put in purely because of their influence with the local councillor - well those are stupidand should be done away with.
I maintain however, that outside my kiddie's schools, for lack of other preventative measures, I think we should have speed humps. (sorry going back to earlier discussion, and don't mean to be monotonous!)
There are alternatives, as have been pointed out to me- - and I agree with the alternatives, if ad when the council ever puts them into practice.
Well I hope i haven't annoyed you Blue - just aother side to the argument you're having.
Take care Blue,
HF
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Hi HF, I couldn't resist waiting just a bit longer to see if anyone replied. :)
I agree with them outside of schools and stuff, I was refering mainly to residential roads where they tend to be more badly constructed. I've driven over some that are absoloutely viscous (they were constructed from red blocks) and really would do damage to the car. These are the kind where nothing short of stopping before each bump will do. I think I should have worded the post better!
There is a sort of raised platform with a crossing on it outside of my brother's school and indeed I think it is worth it, as it makes more drivers stop for the kids, if it wasn't there, then they would be more likely to try and speed across before the kids get to the edge of the crossing...
HF - You could never annoy me by disagreeing with me! :) I'm not the kind to think I'm always right and I'm the first to admit when I'm wrong (well sometimes anyway :), you can count the above as a sort of admission as I didn't think about or mention schools etc. when I wrote my first posts! oops. That's what I like about posting at this time of night, you can say almost anything and blame it on tiredness! :)
Take care.
Blue
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That's what I like about posting at this time of night, you can say almost anything and blame it on tiredness! :)
Hello Blue,
I am dreadfully tired, as I always am at this time of night/day.
Which must excuse anything I've ever said on here!
And i *know* what you were referring to, I was just trying to make a point that this isn't necessarily a totally above-the-board general thing - as you obviously know, with your comment about your brother's school..
Agree that most speed humps are riduculous and damage our cars. And am being converted away from the idea of speed humps outside every school,as long as there are other traffic calming schemes that work there. Still not convinced that I wouldn't be happier seeing them outside my youngest's school - other realy good possiblities have been mentioned here to me, but I cannot really see the council doing any of these. If they do, great, But it will take more than me campaigning on my own to achieve a change!
Well, like I said, I'm tired and am talking nonsense - so better go, wish you well Blue, have a good night and speak to you soon I hope.
HF
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Blue Oval and HF. Some sensible thoughts. Basically, I would like to see common sense coming from education and not control.
Control is for the less educated, in the controller as well as the controlled. It's too easy to keep piling on more and more restrictions.
As Blue Oval said, you can make "fast" progress without being dangerous, it just takes better driver education and, perhaps, a different approach to driver training and the driving test.
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"it just takes better driver education"
Absolutely.
"Understanding your own attitudes and changing them to reduce accident risk is a difficult task"
"Many drivers who are fast, aggresive and inconsiderate are quite happy with the way they drive and do not accept that it is unsafe.
They tend to think that their behaviour is more common than it really is, and that it is as a result of external pressure rather than their own choice.
These rationalisations create barriers to attitude change."
- Source:- Chapter 1 of Roadcraft.
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"Many drivers who are fast, aggresive and inconsiderate are quite happy with the way they drive and do not accept that it is unsafe."
It's the aggressive and inconsiderate bit that we really have to deal with, and that can only be done by on the spot by law enforcement officers.
The police do not seem to have the resources to do this, and IMHO the criminalisation of certain technical motoring offences has done great damage to police/public relations.
Maybe it is time to have a separate body, trained only in
road traffic matters, to take to the roads, actually catch these idiots in the act and issue fixed penalty notices or institute court proceedings as appropriate. They need not be concerned with speed limit enforcement: it would be careless driving, dangerous driving or nothing.
Such a body would not need the training in drugs, riot control, first aid, etc., etc. of a fully fledged police officer but could make a major impact on road safety.
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It's the aggressive and inconsiderate bit that we really have to deal with, and that can only be done by on the spot by law enforcement officers.
Yes, absolutely! We could have all the improved driver training in the world, but it is never going to change the attitudes of those who drive aggressively and inconsiderately, and believe that they have some god-given right to put the lives of all other road-users at risk so that they don't get home from work 5 minutes late.
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Oh yes.
Which is why the "cowboy drivers group" asking for training INSTEAD of being fined is living in cloud-cuckoo land.
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Latest update for those still interested;-
Builder Ian \'Digger\' Beesley has been charged with criminal damage after digging up an Oxford road hump in November. He will appear at Oxford Magistrates Court on December 13. And in a double blow for the 41-year-old, his JCB digger was also given a parking ticket -- after he drove it to the city\'s St Aldate\'s police station on December 11. He had parked on double yellow lines in Floyd Row and had caused traffic jams while he was at the police station.
Rest of story at:- www.thisisoxfordshire.co.uk/oxfordshire/archive/20...l
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Taken from today's telegraph.
Good on him I say.
Speed-hump digger guilty
(Filed: 03/10/2003)
A builder who dug up a speed hump with his JCB has been found guilty of causing criminal damage.
Ian Beesley
Ian Beesley, 42, took his mechanical digger to the bump after five weeks of sleepless nights caused by lorries passing over it on Ferry Hinksey Road, Oxford.
He was given a one-year conditional discharge and orderd to pay £263 compensation to Oxfordshire County Council.
The verdict followed Home Secretary David Blunkett's comment that he had a "great deal of sympathy" with the plant operator.
An acoustics expert told Oxford Magistrates Court today that Mr Beesley would have been exposed to as much noise as a pneumatic drill outside his bedroom.
District judge Brian Loosley said: "Whilst I cannot possibly condone what you did, I can accept at the end of the day, why you did what you did."
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This\'ll get merged into the previous thread on the subject later DD.
www.honestjohn.co.uk/forum/post/index.htm?t=8891
Done, 04/10/03. DD
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