Robbie Savage - Escapes Driving Ban.

[Abraham]

The laws of the land say otherwise.

The law also used to say being gay was an offence. The speed limits we have today (on NSL/Motorways) date back to the 60s. While obviously there are still older cars knocking about most cars on the road today can safely travel at higher speeds.
The speed limit is irrelevant in discussing whether speed is appropriate for the current conditions, in fog (the reason for the introduction of the speed limit) it would frequently be dangerous to be driving AT the speed limit, but in a world focussed on speed it would be legal. It would be potentially considered driving dangerously, but that can't be enforced by speed cameras and arbitrary limits.

 

[geekman]

Band can be for anything if you decide to go to court it's a risk you take and can be varying lengths.

Ie if you get six points in your first 2 years you can try to argue it down to say 2 points and a ban for a few months so you don't have to take your test again.

It's impossible to get 2 points. It's also impossible to get points + a ban, you either get one or the other. And magistrates have been advised not to use short bans to circumvent the new driver disqualification rule.

I've no idea why, but there seems to be so much misinformation surrounding stuff like this.....

 

[Abraham]

It is possible to get 2 points, or at least was. It's quite commonly been used to put people at 11 points rather than hitting 12 and getting banned

 

[Sliver]

Top Gear talked about speed limits recently. They pointed out that modern cars can stop far far quicker today and as such the speed limit was out of sync with modern motoring. Still, the law is the law, but I do feel that motorway speed limits should be increased. Germany has it's Autobahns and their roads are as safe as ours if not safer.

 

[geekman]

It is possible to get 2 points, or at least was. It's quite commonly been used to put people at 11 points rather than hitting 12 and getting banned

Well I haven't heard of any cases like that recently. It's quite common to hit 12, then present an exceptional hardship argument to the court which, if successful, will allow you to keep your licence - to my knowledge a court will never give 2 points to avoid this situation.

 

[semi-pro waster]

Anyway GD is this double standards or a reasonable judgement. For what it is worth I think this is blatant double standards and he should be banned and told to pay for a taxi if he is that concerned about getting hassle.

My understanding, which could have course be wrong, is that there are a range of possible punishments available to the judge ranging from a slap on the wrist and a ticking off to a 28 day ban if the offence was judged to be serious enough (and probably had aggravating factors). The ban is obviously at the harder end of the scale but after assessing the evidence the judge appears to feel it wasn't merited - I suspect the defence that he's "marmite" had very little to do with it but that his speed and conduct didn't actually merit a ban when compared to others who speed.

For the amusement of all he could, and perhaps should, pay for a taxi so that he can share his opinions with the stereotypically equally opinionated drivers but the offence in this case probably didn't merit a ban and I'm not sure whether anyone else would have been banned in similar circumstances.

Frankly I'd lose no sleep if Mr Savage was banned from punditry and generally appearing on any media sources at all but my feelings on him peddling his "insight" are irrelevant to whether he should be banned from driving or not.

28 day ban for 99 in a 70 with only 3 points on your license would have been very harsh imo.

£600 fine and 6 points leaving him on 9 points for 3 years is still a pretty heavy punishment.

The fact that he is a "celebrity" has nothing to do with it.

But should we be considering fines more related to ability to pay as some other countries do? e.g. in Sweden it's calculated based on income and seriousness of offence so you can end up with cases such as this one where the motorist could be fined up to £650,000.

Top Gear talked about speed limits recently. They pointed out that modern cars can stop far far quicker today and as such the speed limit was out of sync with modern motoring. Still, the law is the law, but I do feel that motorway speed limits should be increased. Germany has it's Autobahns and their roads are as safe as ours if not safer.

Cars have improved, sadly I'm less convinced that people have as their reaction speeds are probably much the same as they always have been. It's also only fair to note that there are now many more cars on the road than previously so while they may stop more quickly and safely than ever before the number of cars on the roads is likely to increase the risks of a collision. Perhaps you think of it as a trade off - safer cars vs more of them and how does that change the risks in relation to number and severity of accidents?

 

[platypus]

But should we be considering fines more related to ability to pay as some other countries do? e.g. in Sweden it's calculated based on income and seriousness of offence so you can end up with cases such as this one where the motorist could be fined up to £650,000.

I vaguely recall something similar in Switzerland, a chap got find an awful lot of money for doing 140mph. Can't find a source though.

I'm not in support of that really. If you fine people based on what they can afford to pay, it somewhat undermines the right of universal justice for me.

 

[Sliver]

Cars have improved, sadly I'm less convinced that people have as their reaction speeds are probably much the same as they always have been. It's also only fair to note that there are now many more cars on the road than previously so while they may stop more quickly and safely than ever before the number of cars on the roads is likely to increase the risks of a collision. Perhaps you think of it as a trade off - safer cars vs more of them and how does that change the risks in relation to number and severity of accidents?

Yes you're right about there being many more cars on the road which does mean a higher probability of accidents. Motorways though are the safest roads in the UK. So I do think that upping the speed limit for them is a good idea. Lets be honest, lots of people do 80, 90 or more on them anyway, so why not follow Germany's example and up the speed limit ?

 

[semi-pro waster]

I vaguely recall something similar in Switzerland, a chap got find an awful lot of money for doing 140mph. Can't find a source though.

I'm not in support of that really. If you fine people based on what they can afford to pay, it somewhat undermines the right of universal justice for me.

Justice could be universal in that everyone would feel the effects relative to their circumstances e.g. a £200 fine for a millionaire is quite clearly going to have less of an impact on their finances than a £200 fine for someone who earns £20k a year.

I'm not convinced on the topic one way or the other but you've got to decide which way is fair(est) and whichever option you pursue then someone is going to be disadvantaged by it. Put simply I don't think you can get a system that impacts everyone equally and entirely fairly so it's a case of picking the least bad option or the one that comes closest to being fair (in whatever way you choose to define that).

Yes you're right about there being many more cars on the road which does mean a higher probability of accidents. Motorways though are the safest roads in the UK. So I do think that upping the speed limit for them is a good idea. Lets be honest, lots of people do 80, 90 or more on them anyway, so why not follow Germany's example and up the speed limit ?

Where is a line drawn? If you set the speed limit to 90 then will more people start to drive at 120 instead? The levels of concentration required at higher speeds are greater I believe so it becomes tiring more quickly and would people be aware enough of this and the risks attendant to that?

I suspect that for most people there's a comfortable level where the trade-off between speed, concentration required and risk is acceptable and that may be at a higher speed limit than now but in changing a policy on this you'd have to be quite careful about the potential for unforeseen consequences.

 

[Sliver]

Where is a line drawn?

The line is drawn by the law.

If you set the speed limit to 90 then will more people start to drive at 120 instead? The levels of concentration required at higher speeds are greater I believe so it becomes tiring more quickly and would people be aware enough of this and the risks attendant to that?

It works in Germany so why not here ?

I suspect that for most people there's a comfortable level where the trade-off between speed, concentration required and risk is acceptable and that may be at a higher speed limit than now but in changing a policy on this you'd have to be quite careful about the potential for unforeseen consequences.

Again, we have plenty of data from Germany. I believe that increasing the motorway speed limit provides little if any increased risk. Is crashing at, lets say 90mph, really any worse than crashing at 70mph ? Chances are you're screwed either way.

 

[semi-pro waster]

The line is drawn by the law.

Do rhetorical questions need an answer? Maybe I should have said "why draw the line at 90mph, why pick that arbitrary limit instead of the current arbitrary limit?".

It works in Germany so why not here ?

It might work here but it's been a very long time since we've had roads with unrestricted speed limits, there could now be a cultural element which means that it is less likely to work here. It may also be that we need a different policing strategy for motorways should there be a change in the law and that is one of those knock-on effects that needs to be considered in advance.

Again, we have plenty of data from Germany. I believe that increasing the motorway speed limit provides little if any increased risk. Is crashing at, lets say 90mph, really any worse than crashing at 70mph ? Chances are you're screwed either way.

Crashing at 70mph vs crashing at 90mph may well be equally terminal but realistically people will tend to try and slow down if they can before any crash so if you're driving at 70mph and realise you're going to crash you might be able to scrub off say 30mph so actually you hit whatever it is at 40mph. If you are driving at 90mph then the same 30mph reduction would see you crashing at 60mph and that's discounting the fact that at 90mph your window to react is smaller because you are covering more ground every second despite the fact your sight horizon doesn't also increase with the speed.

It would be interesting to see how the risks alter with speed and whether increasing the speed limits do in fact increase risk. Motorways may indeed be more infrequent than town driving but as you note it's also more likely that any crashes will happen at higher speeds and the consequences are often quite severe. Of course with town driving you are more likely to hit an unprotected pedestrian so the risks for them are much greater of severe injury.

I think it makes for a good discussion but there are potential drawbacks to changing the status quo, just as there are drawbacks to doing nothing.

 

[platypus]

Top Gear talked about speed limits recently. They pointed out that modern cars can stop far far quicker today and as such the speed limit was out of sync with modern motoring. Still, the law is the law, but I do feel that motorway speed limits should be increased. Germany has it's Autobahns and their roads are as safe as ours if not safer.

Germanys roads are not as crowded as Britains. And lane/road discipline in Germany is generally a lot better (in my experience), so its usually ok for someone to be doing 150mph in the fast lane.

 

[Sliver]

Germanys roads are not as crowded as Britains. And lane/road discipline in Germany is generally a lot better, so its usually ok for someone to be doing 150mph in the fast lane.

My point is, if it works there we can make it work here. German drivers and German roads are essentially no different than UK drivers and UK roads. Also Germany, roughly the same size as the UK has 82 million people, the UK, 65 million. So how you estimate that Germany has fewer drivers baffles me.

 

[kitfit1]

As a car driver and a motorcyclist, the biggest problem for me isn't our speed limits but the state of our road surfaces. By and large the surface on our motorways is good and on a par with anything in Germany. As soon as you exit the motorways in the UK, it's complete pot luck what sort of road surface you are driving/riding on. I'm not talking about pot holes here, that's a subject all on it's own. What i'm talking about is the complete ad hock way our councils decide to surface (or not surface) our roads. You can run from tarmac to concrete, back to tarmac and then to stone embeded tarmac all within a couple of miles on the same road. A huge proportion of roads have the top layer of tarmac missing in patches (before potholes appear ). This makes for dangerous road surfaces, especially for motorbikes lent over going round bends. This simply does not happen in France, Germany, Switzerland, Spain and Portugal. Italy is just as bad as us on this, but there you can put it down to corruption, because it is down to corruption........................................maybe ours is as well ?

 

[platypus]

My point is, if it works there we can make it work here. German drivers and German roads are essentially no different than UK drivers and UK roads. Also Germany, roughly the same size as the UK has 82 million people, the UK, 65 million. So how you estimate that Germany has fewer drivers baffles me.

Germany at 357k km squared and the UK at 243k, not to mention the amount of space taken up by for example Scotland which is considerably more sparesly populated, and given the majority of the concentration of the population is in England which covers 130k.

You consider over 100,000 sq kilometres in the case of Britain vs Germany, or 230,000km in the case of Germany and England a difference that is roughly the same size?

 

[Sliver]

You consider over 100,000 sq kilometres in the case of Britain vs Germany, or 230,000km in the case of Germany and England a difference that is roughly the same size?

Yes I do, when you factor in Germany's larger population. I'm talking about the UK not just England. I've driven through Germany and their 'traffic' is no less or more than ours in my estimation.

 

[platypus]

Yes I do, when you factor in Germany's larger population. I'm talking about the UK not just England. I've driven through Germany and their 'traffic' is no less or more than ours in my estimation.

I drive through Germany regularly and you're wrong. Still you can rightly point out that I'm being anecdotal. Except..

Except if you look at the figures by the European Conference of Ministers of Transport, admittedly a few years out of date now, they show that Germany developed significantly fewer Trucks but marginally more cars, and not only proportionally do British people have more cars, there are over double the number of cars per square kilometre in the UK than there is Germany. Significantly more road surface has been developed in Germany, and the available road length to a vehicle in Germany was 285 metres compared to 117 in the UK all go to show that the uk roads are more congested.

 

[Sliver]

I drive through Germany regularly. You're wrong.

LoL. Ok I imagined it then. Douche.

 

[Castiel]

As it was only a month ban he should have been given it, the impact on his business and personal life could have easily been managed without the need for public transport during such a short time.

 

[platypus]

LoL. Ok I imagined it then. Douche.

You imagine an awful lot.