Update: I drove today as I often do down the length of Harrow Road where I have seen so many cars driven at speeds that seem dangerous even to me, at a decorous 35 of course and not in the bus lane, it being 5.30.
There is a new speed camera in fetching yellow, of a shape and height new to me but decently unmistakable, installed, er, just where I would install it.
So it's going to be safer outside the pub there this summer, if slightly less entertaining.
|
"There is a new speed camera in fetching yellow, of a shape and height new to me but decently unmistakable, installed, er, just where I would install it.
So it's going to be safer outside the pub there this summer, if slightly less entertaining. "
Well Lud, in view of the sentiments expressed on speeding and speed cameras in the not dissimilar 'Now this is sneaky' posting, perhaps you'd care to explain just why it's going to be safer outside the pub from now on - I've given up.
BB
|
|
There's no contradiction BB. All the difference in the world between technically exceeding the speed limit, even by some margin, and going down the bus lane inside a line of traffic at twice the speed of that traffic or more. One isn't dangerous, the other looks as if it is. What's difficult about that?
|
|
|
Bill black
I think it should be fairly obvious why LUD will be safer outside his 'poncy' pub .Because The people with driving licences,tax and insurance,will be doing 30mph or less when they go by him,pity thats only about 45% of the the cars here
|
Actually isisalar I imagine most of the illegal and semi-legal cars going past will back off when they see the camera too. All 55 per cent of them (!).
I feel some people here have an exaggerated, over-excited view of metropolitan life. It isn't nearly as exciting as they think. People whose car documentation is incomplete try to pass unnoticed as a rule. They aren't usually total idiots.
Harrow Road is a fairly major urban artery. Lots of very pedestrian, respectable commuter and delivery stuff going busily up and down. And right along the edge of the congestion zone too.
|
|
Which pub is this? Masons Arms or William IV by Kensal Green cemetary? Both qualify as poncy - shame because the Masons used to be a proper London pub not that long ago.
Edited by boxsterboy on 30/04/2008 at 00:38
|
The WmIV boxster, yes. Not a traditional London pub but a nice place for all that.
Is the Mason's Arms the one on the other side between the cemetery entrance near Ladbroke Grove and the crematorium more than half a mile away at the other end of the cemetery? Haven't been there for ages but did once have a drink there with a Nigerian human rights activist, now deceased, who was a good friend.
|
|
|
|
Well Lud in view of the sentiments expressed on speeding and speed cameras in the not dissimilar 'Now this is sneaky' posting perhaps you'd care to explain just why it's going to be safer outside the pub from now on - I've given up.
Don't give up, BB. It's easier than you think.
Go back to the not dissimilar thread you mention. When you find it, follow these two simple instructions.
1) Read the actual words people have posted. All of them.
2) Take care to avoid confusing those words with any preconceptions you may have in your own mind about what point you think people might be making.
I think it will help.
|
GJD ? I have, over the years sought and received much sound advice on these boards, albeit mainly technical and in stark contrast to this particular exchange.
I will not have it said that I am one to generally ignore advice, however patronizingly presented, and have therefore:
1) Re-read the actual words people have posted. All of them. (Well, the ones I could make head or tail of at least).
2) Taken care to avoid confusing those words with any preconceptions I may have in my own mind about what point I think people might be making.
Amongst all the wisdom and blatant stupidity, I quote one posting from Mapmaker that sums it all up:
?We are all fantastic drivers and would be capable of doing 100 in a 30 zone. (Let us assume.)
However not everybody else is.
Limits exist, and should be enforced, to protect US from the rest of THEM.
Until an accident has happened, it is difficult to identify whether an individual is driving dangerously/without due care?.
Should you care to take your own advice, you will see that my original comment concerned the widespread perception that the apprehension and subsequent prosecution of speeding offenders is some sort of game. Not a discussion about the politics of public funding through ?unfair? policing.
Finally, the law, as we all know, is an ass. We also know that no-one is above the law, but above all ? there are none so deaf as those who won?t hear. Take your pick, now as far as I?m concerned that?s an end to it.
Q.E.D.
BB
|
Yes, speeding does seem like a game to some - and indeed it can be! Until, that is, you or one close to you is on the receiving end in some way when the 'fun' goes wrong. I can only think those liberally disposed to speeding haven't yet learnt this lesson.
Accidents will always happen even in the most regulated & law abiding of communities, the thing about speed is that it causes much more injury & damage the more of it there is - it's better to crash (if you accept that human fallibility will persist) at a lower speed than a higher one - a very simple point that some seem unable to absorb, even in debate.
That is the very straightforward reason for having speed limits enforced even in a 'sneaky' & 'unfair' way.
|
woodbines,
reasonable point....but...still doesn't address the angle of an unnecessarily low limit set in the first place... which some roads have been subject to
an awful lot of people would agree the point, if that part was covered
|
....but...still doesn't address the angle of an unnecessarily low limit set in the firstplace...
Bearing in mind:
"Harrow Road is a fairly major urban artery. Lots of very pedestrian, respectable commuter and delivery stuff going busily up and down"
Without knowing the road, but with the above description, and other comments concerning the lack of protection between the pedestrians and the cars, 30mph seems quite reasonable.... or am I missing something?
|
|
was talking 'in general' not that specific area. Would tend to agree with you on that one, albeit at 5 in the morning you're not going to have the same hazards as you would at 0830... but in reality you're not going to get variable limits all over the place, would be too confusing
|
|
Lud, yes. That's the Mason's Arms. I think it has ben a long time since any proper stone masons went there after a hard day's work on the tombstones.
|
but in reality you're not going to get variable limits all over the place would be too confusing
Quite Westpig. The stretch in question, in light traffic, is the sort of place where a smooth fifty, even a burst to sixty, particularly when travelling westward (there being no side turnings on the south side of the road) is usually perfectly safe with a sane driver. But what with vile articulated buses and their very wide bus lane (eastbound only), and a few side turnings on the north side, some drivers, just a few, have in the past gone much too fast in that direction.
Let's just hope that the new camera, still surrounded by upended paving slabs and earth yesterday, won't be set to catch people in the early morning unless they exceed say 38.
|
new camera still surrounded by upended paving slabs and earth yesterday
But all tidy today and possibly functioning. The camera is taller than average and looking slightly downwards. It has two horizontal slots in the front of it, slightly out of line with each other and differently proportioned. Its sinister gaze meets your own in a grim and direct manner when you are driving westwards. I imagine it can see traffic going in either direction, and perhaps read the minds of their drivers for incorrect thoughts or longings.
|
The camera is taller than average and looking slightly downwards.
Is it anything like the one in the Cromwell Road about halfway between the museums and Gloucester Road tube, on an island in the middle of the road?
Due to having got off at the wrong station for the Science Museum (oops) last Saturday, we were walking down there and noticed it - the yellow box seemed smaller than the usual sort, although it was definitely a speed camera, as everyone was slowing down for it and there were markings on the road
Edited by paulb {P} on 02/05/2008 at 18:19
|
|
|
|
