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I don't mind saying I was happy to more or less let your post ride up to the part above. You, don't know me at all, I understand that, and we have never yet met. 'Misguided' is not a term I really appreciate. That in itself is to me the very definition of rendering a discussion personal where it just isn't nescessary and why, frequently I palm my head in dispair when browsing forum nonsenses.
Nevermind. I'll continue because I always believe there is hope.
Traditionally when (for example) one sets out to study lets say, a roadcraft inspired advanced driving course often one of the first things you come to appreciate is that everything in the highway code particularly that refers to speed, is simply not working for you as a driver from here on out. ADI Instructors used to say the very words 'forget everything you may have learn't in the highway code'. I selected Roadcraft based as one example of many. There are a few such as Rospa, Cardington etc etc but they all cite the same with regard to the highway code (the book which suggests thou shalt not 'speed!'). By this I am making a deliberate delineation for you, just to help push my point above, that what I was (albeit in a round about forum chatty kind of way) above suggesting is that there are distinctive states of mind with domestic drivers behind the wheel. The drivers who seek not to further thier skills or aims any further, by tacitly agreeing they are good enough, thier function of passign the test has served. Complacence helps them begin to forget more than they learn't the moment they tear up the L plates having passed the test. There is nothing more to learn... Woooo! And, that speed limits work by virtue of the fact that the accidents Mr and Mrs (no need to learn no more) suburban dreamer get involved in tend to occur at speeds that thankfully do not kill or maim. Those accidents occur and more often than not speed has little to do with the cause, lawful speeds limit damage while lack of due awareness create them. It is a veritable bubble beyond which many drivers rarely venture.
Out of town the situation changes dramatically, and there are a stack of pretty good video's on youtube on the mildly stimulating subject of advanced driving, things change as does situational awareness. You can see those things happening as you watch. The bubble is largely non existant here. Before I go any further I would like to say that I don't like the term 'advanced driver' a great deal. In fact I dislike it. It isn't entirely appropriate, but somehow we have to establish some kind of definition and it seems to work. So, anyway I speak from several perspectives and refrain from using that horrible self absorbed term. As a former rider of fast bikes, as a keen racing driver, as a lifelong learner and as a keen understudy of efficiencient progress in a safe and comfortable manner I speak. I combine all my experience into driving. We all should. Yet that doesn't happen does it, clearly not. Each and every single one of us have the capability and capacity to be that bit better and roll all previous things we have learned into every single moment of forward (and occasionally backward) motion in a vehicle.
Motorway speed cameras are absolutely a cash cow for they do not distinguish at all. And that to me speaks volumes about the nature of society today and the government that makes rules for it. There are many places on public roads where speeds in excess of 180+ mph for example would be perfectly safe, that is absolute fact. Sure, they are few and far between but that fact remains. There are plenty of situations and roads where 100_ mph travel would be every bit as safe as the current speed limit implies. We are however all somehow clubbed into this same place of speeding criminality by the lens of the digital average speed camera, gatso etc. That right there is fundamentally wrong and something I find unfortunately represents life on the roads today so perfectly. We are sheep, we are happy to be buried in the domicility of driving to the shops or going to work. We are perfectly non thoughtful about why the speed limits remain the same twenty four hours a day every day of the year in all conditions.
I take exeption to being called 'misled' when I have come this far and had thankfully so few incidents. In particular when I base my 24 years prior experience into my progress second by second, minute by minute and hour by hour on any given road in any given situation and condition... when I make a post based upon that in what I feel was an honest message I mean it. I will not make counter assumptions of you, but I do respectfully ask that you take that word and delete it from your mind. I will avoid labelling you in mine. Thanks.
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