Rant

Another question then, do the average speed cameras when set up permanently like on the A14 between the A1(M) and the M11, actually register your speed and can they note if you are speeding & you will therefore be prosecuted? I have never known if it is merely a scare tactic or if they actually do something!

drewf said:

About an hour on the train from your place into 'London', isn't it?

It's just over an hour to London from either of my houses mate, and I don't have to live in the overcrowded expensive south. Skiing or empty rolling countryside - it's a tough one.

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I can sense your smugness from here.

To be fair I don't often have to head south on the M1 and there aren't any cameras in the Dales when a Sunday morning [hoon] I mean drive is called for. I was just thoroughly wound up about it last night.

I run into a section on the A9 south of Inverness which is 50 mph average speed fixed cameras, and they are a real nuisance. The way they work as i understand it, is they detect your number plate, and measure the time between you passing the cameras. If the time between the cameras means you were on average over the limit then you get done. so you can do 200mph up to the next camera and sit and have a cuppa at the road side and it will be ok as long as the time between the 2 cameras is long enough. make sense?

LincsOSCA said:

Another question then, do the average speed cameras when set up permanently like on the A14 between the A1(M) and the M11, actually register your speed and can they note if you are speeding & you will therefore be prosecuted? I have never known if it is merely a scare tactic or if they actually do something!

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So I guess I need to be using my cruise control, cheers Davy

LincsOSCA said:

Another question then, do the average speed cameras when set up permanently like on the A14 between the A1(M) and the M11, actually register your speed and can they note if you are speeding & you will therefore be prosecuted? I have never known if it is merely a scare tactic or if they actually do something!

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Apparently, the cameras on the smart motorway on the M62 between Huddersfield and Leeds can be turned on and will do you if you are doing more than about 77 (10% plus 2 rule) even if the warning signs are not activated i.e. the national limit applies. However, they aren't always on so it's pot luck - I always slow down. A guy I work with lives that way and he has seen the cameras flash even when the warning signs are off.

I understand the new smart motorway on the M1 south of Leeds will be the same and no doubt elsewhere in the country eventually so more money to be generated from the motorist.

Doohickey said:

I can sense your smugness from here.

To be fair I don't often have to head south on the M1 and there aren't any cameras in the Dales when a Sunday morning [hoon] I mean drive is called for. I was just thoroughly wound up about it last night.

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Got to keep these "southerners" in their place mate - but on the whole they seem to choose to stay in their overcrowded spendy places, rather than enjoy the beauty of Yorkshire. This is good

Doohickey said:

Apparently, the cameras on the smart motorway on the M62 between Huddersfield and Leeds can be turned on and will do you if you are doing more than about 77 (10% plus 2 rule) even if the warning signs are not activated i.e. the national limit applies. However, they aren't always on so it's pot luck - I always slow down. A guy I work with lives that way and he has seen the cameras flash even when the warning signs are off.

I understand the new smart motorway on the M1 south of Leeds will be the same and no doubt elsewhere in the country eventually so more money to be generated from the motorist.

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The cameras are also sometimes set to flash but not take photos. This is supposedly to frighten the motorists into slowing down, yet not incur the 'just milking us for money' wrath that comes from the NIP for 78mph arriving in the post. It's not too far from mental torture if you think about it.

It all amounts to having to keep your wits about you so much more than you used to but also avoid motorways where possible, they're hardly fun places to be despite being necessary evils

safrane said:

Dem.

The red circle speed signs are legally enforsable so if a camera is on the gantry it can clock your speed and is linked to the road sign.

There is some debate if the signs are off or indicate the national speed limit apples round circle with a slash across it. It is also known for these camers to be active when only the NSL applies.

The caution signs in the central reservation are not enforsable for speed but can be used for cases of due care and attention prosecutions.

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Thanks Peter

Will slow down then when going past these signs.....the scary thing is the fact that they can be "on" for the NSL.....so no more 70+

davy83 said:

If the time between the cameras means you were on average over the limit then you get done. so you can do 200mph up to the next camera and sit and have a cuppa at the road side and it will be ok as long as the time between the 2 cameras is long enough. make sense?

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200mph - that's an awesome idea! Try explaining that to Plod - whilst having a cuppa!

Think that cuppa would be in a plastic cup, with your shoes devoid of laces in a small room with limited natural light!

On the subject of legal enforcement of overhead signs, there is a problem with the font of some of the signs, meaning some are no longer used for enforcement. The fact that the signs between the M40 and M1 on the M25 have now been modified gives some credence to the fact that the rest of them are not currently enforced. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-21719322

Obviously anyone who tests this theory does so at their own risk!


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Law is an ****... so the font is wrong so let then off... how would anyone who looses a love one feel if the drive got away on that technicality... ok if it was in size 8 ok but just a bit thin/tall!

If the guy got a 6 month ban he must have been travelling so it's not right that he should get off on a technicality like that.

On the same theme, York Council just had to repay thousands of pounds in fines for people using a bus lane because their signs were in the wrong font or the wrong size or something.

I post this to prompt a discussion if anyone is interested to....

I suspect like many I drive at 50mph through roadworks (don't get me started, I live in Loughborough and have business in Leeds and London. Hellish), but otherwise I drive at the prevailing speed. I qualify this by saying I generally drive during business hours rather than weekends when the character of the traffic is very different.

Driving at the prevailing speed with other 'professional' drivers feels entirely safe, whereas driving through contraflow congests traffic far beyond safe stopping distances. Weight of traffic unavoidably generates this situation and at this point I also introduce the articulated lorry.

I enjoy driving. I don't listen to music, I don't pay any attention to my phone, but rather I enjoy the engagement of driving my car, whichever one it is, and so driving isn't something I do in the gaps when I'm concentrating on something else and yet contraflow is, to me at least, inherently dangerous.

I don't have an answer, but I do wonder whether the blunt instrument that is the enforced speed limit regardless of the prevailing situation is actually the problem rather than the solution.

Discuss?...

Emtee said:

Discuss?...

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so, this 200mph idea......!

MAF260 said:

so, this 200mph idea......!

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can you flesh it out a bit? As an alternative strategy it has promise, but lacks detail......

Just drive at 200mph everywhere and hope the cops don't have a helicopter!

At 200 mph you would be out of the contraflow on the M1 in say less than 8 mins... so reducing the time spend in danger...I can see the appeal.

MAF260 said:

Just drive at 200mph everywhere and hope the cops don't have a helicopter!

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They wouldn't need helicopters, wherever you've been they'd hear the sonic boom and they'd just check the local petrol stations for an exhausted banana. ;-p

The one I really like at the moment is the new lorry speed of 60! Now it takes them even longer to crawl passed each other.
I am not certain but I think on the A19 on Friday it was an impressive 3.2 miles before the 2 in front of me finished there ballet of cut and thrust. I was in awe to the point I nearly missed my turn off!