Man of Honour
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Would you warn oncoming drivers of a mobile speed camera?
- Thread starter Gepetto
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That's fine. Personally I try not to pick what laws I obey, but it's a personal choice I suppose.
You'll never be a Frenchman
Surely you mean grossly over the speed limit OR over the speed limit [by any significant margin] outside a school or in a small town ?
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Man of Honour
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I thought that was inferred from what I wrote
But maybe I type it too quickly if my post doesn't make sense.How can you separate the act and potential consequences?
Many of the problems "caused" by drugs are down to the fact they are illegal in the first place.
I'm not disputing that they can be harmful, but legalise and legislate for quality etc. (in the same way as alcohol), and the crime/gang violence/risk of poisoning from a dodgy batch/etc pretty much all disappear.
Surprisingly enough, most dealers also aren't doing so with the intent to cause harm - killing off your customers is decidedly bad for business
Of course with any risky enterprise, there's always a risk that something will go wrong with fatal consequences - this is no different from speeding (yes, driving is inherently risky anyway, but why increase that risk for negligible benefit?)
That depends entirely on the situation. Someone growing a few plants for personal use and to share with their mates is harming nobody but themselves.
Yes, I do have a personal animosity to other people willingly putting me and my family at increased risk purely so they can get to their destination 5 minutes sooner or get a "buzz" from treating the road as a racetrack. It's not limited to speeding, the general standard of driving round here is utterly abysmal!
Man of Honour
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On that I have to agree - the standard of driving does seem to have lowered somewhat over the years. I don't mind people driving fast if they're driving well, but people are just so distracted and in their own worlds. That's more dangerous than speed alone in my opinion!
no one expects the Spanish inquisition
white oncoming astra flashed us coming South on nsl A10 N of LittlePort/Cambs , so scanned the horizon for police, turned out 100m later on bend there was a microwave size box fallen off a previous
vehicle in the middle of our carriageway , fortunately other side of road was empty to skirt around it.
Speed was fine, so my instinct had not been to reduce speed.
[ returning home and ringing 101 police answerphone options
1. want to to speak to a particular policeman on an investigation
2. About a recent motoring/speeding offence
3 speak to operator
WTF no option for report a problem - went for 1 initially (assuming I'd get to speak to a policeman - no reply), then 2 (it was motoring related - no reply)
3rd attempt speak to operator was the right answer
]
white oncoming astra flashed us coming South on nsl A10 N of LittlePort/Cambs , so scanned the horizon for police, turned out 100m later on bend there was a microwave size box fallen off a previous
vehicle in the middle of our carriageway , fortunately other side of road was empty to skirt around it.
Speed was fine, so my instinct had not been to reduce speed.
[ returning home and ringing 101 police answerphone options
1. want to to speak to a particular policeman on an investigation
2. About a recent motoring/speeding offence
3 speak to operator
WTF no option for report a problem - went for 1 initially (assuming I'd get to speak to a policeman - no reply), then 2 (it was motoring related - no reply)
3rd attempt speak to operator was the right answer
]
Rather contentious it seems, but I flash to warn. It's quite common where I live. I'm not going to warn a car that I can see is bombing along idiotically, but by the same token if I can relieve the police of the satisfaction of issuing a fine for someone going a little over the speed limit, so be it.
The whole reason I posted this thread was because a driver in front of me hammered on the brakes due to being flashed. I was doing 30, in a 30 and had to drop to 15 as that's how much he slowed. We then crawled along at about 20 until we passed the mobile camera ( operator standing on the pavement, dressed in fluorescent yellow from head to toe).
Once out of sight of the operator the twit in front of me booted it, very quickly pulling away, but still in a built up 30 zone. He was a couple of hundred yards in front of me when he hit the brakes very hard for a pedestrian crossing. I know that he didn't manage to stop for the crossing as it is on a raised hump and I saw the car rise up. There were people standing waiting to cross.
I don't warn oncoming drivers, I think it is deplorable to do so, and think it risks people's lives.
It's another symptom of the abysmal driving mentioned, and the problem with people driving fast is who gets to decide whether they're capable to do so, or not.
Keep to the flaming limit!
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I flash to warn people if I can. It's just a money spinner.
I agree with you and have upvoted your post, but I also think the limit should be made more obvious, particularly on 30mph primary route dual carriageways [and especially in the vicinity of speed cameras ! ]. The "30mph if there are street lights (unless signed otherwise)" is archaic and a relic of when there weren't as many street lights (or limits...) as there are now.
This (from Sabre) sums it up well :
The streetlights/no streetlights thing was a very elegant and simple solution to enable the 30 limit to be instituted in 1934, when many thousands of new signs would be needed to mark boundaries and waiting for them all to be erected would take too long. It also enabled the idea that a competent motorist could look around and determine the limit from their surroundings, which is admirable - both the law and the motorist are aided if it's possible to work out the correct speed limit no matter where you are. But that was all predicated on there being two possible states for a road (lit/not lit) and two possible limits (30/none).
When local limits came along that could override those defaults, they were bolted on to the existing system with as much elegance as could be achieved through the use of repeater signs, maintaining the principle of the competent motorist looking around and working it out. But as time has gone by and speed limits have become more complex the whole idea has been stretched to breaking point.
We are now in a situation where we already have several developments that mean a competent driver can't really rely on reading their surroundings at any given moment. There's the 20/30 disparity between Wales and the rest of the UK, but before that we had the change of rules around repeaters that reduced the requirement to one somewhere within the limit rather than enough to make them visible throughout. Many years back Scotland decided that the lights = 30 rule did not apply on classified roads, so there you need to know whether you're on an A or B road before evaluating the lighting levels and calculating the limit. And before even that the decision was taken to exempt motorways from the rule about lighting, so you also have to know whether or not you're on a motorway.
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Sometimes it is and sometimes it isn't.
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I can't judge if an incoming car is doing exactly 60 or 55 or 65. So warning them from my perspective is slowing them down and making them aware or more conscious of their speed. The reality may be different of course, but that's the way I see it. Similarly warning them about horses or tractors on the road, they can ignore it if they want but I feel I've done the right thing.
If someone is driving recklessly I'll capture it on dash cam and submit it to the police which I've done a couple of times.
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This makes no sense. If it was the case you may as well just flash all oncoming vehicles to 'make them more conscious of their speed' regardless of whether there's a camera.
You're simply warning them of the camera, so don't try to justify it any other way.
Yet if you didn't flash them and they were going too fast and got caught, arguably getting invited along to a speed awareness course or collecting a few points would make them more conscious of their speed generally rather than just the next 30 seconds, having a potentially much greater overall wider and lasting impact vs the very localised and immediate impact flashing will have.
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I am. I'm not justifying it at all. If I've gone past a camera, horses, a tractor or anything else I warn people. I'm fine with it. No big deal for me.
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That's a fair argument. But hey, I feel I'm putting a little bit of good out in the world so makes me feel a little better. I guess it depends on where you live as well it's quite common here for people to flash for horses and tractors, so being flashed about a hazard is second nature, I don't see a police van being any different.
Horses, tractors, large roadkill, stopped vehicles etc. is all good, those are things that might need a driver to slow down beyond a 'normal' safe speed to avoid an active hazard, unusual situation etc. that is made demonstrably safer by reducing speed and being extra observant. I expect almost everyone flashes to warn people of things like this.
Speed cameras aren't the same though in my opinion, they're not an active hazard, they're not in the road, they don't require any action out of the ordinary, so nobody needs to be warned about them being there really. The same way I wouldn't flash people to tell them there are traffic lights further down the road or something - it doesn't require any unusual action, so no need to warn people of it.