Get this !
I drive many Miles up and down the motorways, and one thing which really makes me livid, is a phenomenon that you can see much better when you are travelling in the opposite direction. Can you guess what it is ?
Mr Plod in his marked car travelling at 68mph, with a MASSIVE tailback behind him as motorists are forced to brake and gingerly creep past the Brainless plod for a few hundred yards before speeding away at the accepted sensible motorway speed of 83.5 mph.
This does absolutely no good at all, in fact it just creates a danger, as perfectly capable and sensible motorists are herded like farm animals into a totally artificial bottleneck and made to feel guilty for driving at a reasonable and sensible speed. When the 70 MPH limit was introduced, most cars had drum brakes, crossply tyres and were barely capable of exceeding 70mph, now most drivers benefit from ABS, massively improved suspension, brakes etc, yet to exceed this speed, even only for a moment, could lead to fines, points on licence etc.
Now before you start, It is not my wish to advocate people breaking the speed limit, there can be occasions where the limit may be 30mph, but in a crowded town centre this is too fast, however we need to focus the efforts of the police on other much more dangerous offences, rather than acting as a rolling road block - creating a hazard where non existed previously.
Why cant we have a system where Insurance companies issue a sticker in order that mr plod can confirm at a glance that a vehicle is insured ?
surely this would force uninsured drivers off the road in one swoop.
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Be fair Marcus. Given that the national speed limit (which I think is too low) is a government decision what are the police traffic cars to do? 68mph or 72mph, it makes no difference...the queues will form. You can't expect them to cruise about breaking the law all the time, that would be a farce. Of course if they're late for that snack break.........
When some advocate a raised 80 - 85mph limit others reply that people will just exceed that by the same margin and we'll all be doing 100mph. I don't think that is true. When the 70mph limit was introduced it was a natural limit for most cars, now 80 - 85 mph is a natural speed for most current cars. I don't think the majority would push it to 95mph+ because, at this speed, it does get noisier and concentration levels would rise to an uncomfortable degree. Also many would be aware of a sharp drop off in fuel consumption.
We are lucky to live in a rural area and my daily/weekly travels do not involve hovering traffic police, speed cameras and worries of digital no. plate readers. I respect all village/town and roadwork limits. For that reason I haven't been stopped or fealt threatened by the police in 20 years, I would still expect to see the patrol car as a help. Naive, I don't think so.
David
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Let them drive at a speed at which they feel safe.
No one *forces* you to exceed 70mph; so if you feel safe driving at 90-100 then that's OK.
What is not OK is bad driving, but if there is an accident, the "bad driving" genes will be taken out of the gene pool
Daisy
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Marcus,
Bleating about Plod doing 68 mph is one thing, but if he was doing 80 mph the bleating would then be about him exceeding the speed limt.....its all about bottle in the bottle neck. The first to have the bottle to overtake the non speeding plod would then be followed by all the others. funny sheep bleat don't they ?
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