Why do people think it acceptable to break the Speed Limit.

Gepetto

Gepetto

Gepetto

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Deepest, Darkest, Essex.
I feel very strongly about this, and I feel we need a change of mindset in the UK. Speed is responsible for more than 40% of Killed and Serious Injury incidents in Essex.

The only larger factor is Driver Inattention, or put more plainly, idiocy.

The councils can specify speed limits, and the Police have to enforce them, but the Police cannot do anything about the idiots, as we simply do not have enough of them to cover every idiot, every day.

I feel we need much, much stiffer consequences for speeding, better education in schools, better assessment of driving abilities as we get older, more eyesight tests etc.etc.

Thoughts?
 
More needs to be done to combat the extremely bad drivers, that think the rules of the road don't apply to them, and drive recklessly.

It needs more traffic Police, and much greater consequences for reckless driving, like longer jail sentences.

Better mechanisms for the public to report reckless drivers would also be good. I'm not sure what the present situation is with dash cam evidence, but it needs to be easy to do.

I guess it's a political issue at the end of the day, and takes campaigning and money to improve matters.
 
I think humanity on the whole is getting more selfish and people really don’t like being told what to do.

Admittedly myself I don’t abide by speeding laws because the law tells me to, but simply because I don’t want anyone to come to harm and see the clear connection between speed and accidents, just like I never grab my phone whilst driving, and don’t even drink the 2 unit limit if I’m going to be driving later on.

It absolutely needs greater consequences imo.
 
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Gepetto said:
Speed is responsible for more than 40% of Killed and Serious Injury incidents in Essex.
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Surely speed is responsible for 100% of them? If speed = 0m/s then what injury could possibly occur?

On topic though - maybe if the government/police didn't use it as an endless pot of money then the general attitude towards speed enforcement would change. The entire messaging is wrong, the focus is wrong, the enforcement is wrong. There's never a focus on places where accidents occur, "We put a camera here because people speed here and made £200k in a month" -- Cool, how many accidents happened on that road before the camera went up? How many happened after the camera went up? Did you actually improve safety or did you just increase the budget for the policeman's ball?
 
Howling said:
Surely speed is responsible for 100% of them? If speed = 0m/s then what injury could possibly occur?

On topic though - maybe if the government/police didn't use it as an endless pot of money then the general attitude towards speed enforcement would change.
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Really? That's your opinion? Not much hope there then.

Think about it from the reverse. If nobody exceeded the Speed Limit, the Government wouldn't make any money. Seemples.

The money from fines does not go to the Police.

And I thought the Policeman's Ball was a raffle?
 
So I can spend less time on my phone, whilst I'm driving.

Are we talking about the "allowed" speeding, where the defacto speed limit is really +10% and a couple of mph? or those more than that?

Pretty sure the issue is "excess speed" which is driving too fast for the conditions (something like 60% nationally of fatalities), compared to something like only 20% were actually people driving in excess of the speed limit. The issue is really just bad drivers, rather than speeding. Speed limits are really just set for the lowest common denominator, a road near me had the speed limit reduced along it's entire 4 mile length from 60 to 40 because people were always crashing at a "bad" corner - aka they didn't have the brains to slow down at a tight bend and you also had people driving the entire length at 40 due to the bad bend rather than just slowing down at the bend.
 
Penfold101 said:

Most borderline NIP ever?

79 in a 70??? Didn't think they bothered with that. Guess I'm off for reeducation as to how a baby was just about to step out in front of me on the motorway!
forums.overclockers.co.uk forums.overclockers.co.uk

This thread should entertain you no end.
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I'm not even going to start, as I'm sure it will just annoy me.

If anyone thinks 79mph is acceptable in this country, they haven't been on a Speed Awareness Course.
 
If we're going to go there with why people think it's acceptable to break the speed limit, can we also go with why people think it's acceptable to drive too slow?

Looking at people who do 40 on a 60 mph road when there is no reason to drive slower (e.g
bad weather), forcing everyone else to overtake, therefore also increasing risk.
 
Gepetto said:
Really? That's your opinion? Not much hope there then.
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How do you think I, and doubtless I'm not the only one, got to that opinion?

Gepetto said:
If nobody exceeded the Speed Limit, the Government wouldn't make any money
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Address literally any of the points about messaging and enforcement? You going "just obey" is clearly not going to work (as shown by the fact you're complaining people aren't obeying); at least my response is constructive in addressing why there's an issue and how things got to the point they are. Fixing it is a case of addressing what the issues were in the first place. (I didn't even mention having sensible speed limits in place, but that's probably a lesser issue than my previously addressed grievances). You started the thread and asked for thoughts so.....
 
Armageus said:
If we're going to go there with why people think it's acceptable to break the speed limit, can we also go with why people think it's acceptable to drive too slow?

Looking at people who do 40 on a 60 mph road when there is no reason to drive slower (e.g
bad weather), forcing everyone else to overtake, therefore also increasing risk.
Click to expand...

Or people who enter motorways at 50mph, expecting everyone to move over and adapt from them.
 
Armageus said:
If we're going to go there with why people think it's acceptable to break the speed limit, can we also go with why people think it's acceptable to drive too slow?

Looking at people who do 40 on a 60 mph road when there is no reason to drive slower (e.g
bad weather), forcing everyone else to overtake, therefore also increasing risk.
Click to expand...

Ah bro, this too. But more specifically, an example that happened to me just yesterday infact that got my blood a bit boiling.

On a slip road to join a main A road (70mph limit); the car in front was doing FORTY. That meant that he wasn't up to speed (he wasn't getting any quicker either) and it also meant that I, and the cars behind me, couldn't get up to speed. And on the main road we were joining, there were 3 cars who had to dodge out of the way to the right lane, and one car already in the right hand lane who had to break sharply to let them, to allow this plonker doing 40 to join. Luckily it all worked out - but this **** put his own car in jeopardy, along with me and 4 others, all because he couldn't find his accelerator.

Yes, speed kills -- a lack of it kills too.
 
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