M4 average speed cameras trap 6,500 in south Wales

[DaveB]

My Range Rovers had adaptive cruise control. Spooky stuff but it worked once you learned to trust it.

Volvo have it as an option on most of their cars now as well. Test drove an SC60 with it a while back and your right, it is very weird. Especially when it speeds up without you telling it to when he car in front gets out of the way!

I didn't have the balls to test the collision prevention

[Peoplesoft bloke]

Regardless of the merits of speeding cameras and fines, surely getting caught speeding in an average speed zone deserves a permanent ban for stupidity? It's not as if there's a lack of signs saying "Average Speed Camera Zone" or similar and the big yellow overhanging cameras aren't exactly hidden behind bushes like the old pre-yellow GATSOs.

I don't mind putting my foot down occasionally and if I get caught then I accept my fate with a sigh and call to the insurance company (9 points over the last 15 years) but to get caught in one of these new average speed zones is surely just daft and throwing money and points away.

Totally agree - you must be a special kind of moron to get done for speeding in a camera average zone

Don't you feel pressurised to conform to other motorists speeds and general motorway madness? Well, you must do if you are encroaching a car in front, but even in the slow lane there's a great deal of pressure to close gaps and to increase speed if a juggernaut starts tailgating. I'd feel uncomfortable using cruise control.

No - if they want a speeding fine that's their lookout. I usually ignore tailgaters but particularly bad cases usually result in me slowing down quite a lot.

Lorries won't tailgate if you do the speed your sat-nav shows rather than your under-reading car speedo

Bollocks. There is a significant proportion of lorry drivers, who like BMW and Audi prats, will taligate anyone under any circumstances at any time. It's just they way they drive.

I generally use my adaptive cruise set at 8-10mph over the indicated to allow for the optimistic speedo issue.

[d000hg]

My Range Rovers had adaptive cruise control. Spooky stuff but it worked once you learned to trust it.

That's nothing: BBC News - Google tests cars that drive themselves

[doodab]

The variable ones do my fruit in! Last week on the M42 at 9pm they had 2 signs on slowing the traffic to 50 and then 40. There was nothing there - no accident, nothing!! All they did was slow an empty motorway down.

Quite often when I used to drive back on a Thursday night the variable speed thing would be set to 60 when the outside lane was empty due to the motorway being quiet. Are they on a timer?

Traffic jams & congestion propagate similarly to sound waves. They often aren't caused by an accident or similar but are more akin to a "sonic boom". By slowing you down to 40 a few miles away from where the "compression wave" is they are eliminating or reducing the probability that you run into the back of it and have to slow right down or stop.

[DaveB]

Traffic jams & congestion propagate similarly to sound waves. They often aren't caused by an accident or similar but are more akin to a "sonic boom". By slowing you down to 40 a few miles away from where the "compression wave" is they are eliminating or reducing the probability that you run into the back of it and have to slow right down or stop.

WHS. This is why it takes so long for jams to clear even though the cause has long since gone.

When the obstruction has cleared the whole queue doesn't start moving simultaneously, each vehicle has to wait for the one in front to start moving. In a long queue, with traffic still arriving at the back of it and and stopping as it does, it can take a long time for the moving 'front' to reach the back.

By slowing everyone down behind the queue before the arrive at the back you stop it growing faster than it can disperse and everyone moves faster than they would have done otherwise.

[Clippy]

Volvo have it as an option on most of their cars now as well. Test drove an SC60 with it a while back and your right, it is very weird. Especially when it speeds up without you telling it to when he car in front gets out of the way!

I didn't have the balls to test the collision prevention

Good job you didn't.

[DaveB]

Good job you didn't.

I know, I didn't see the tests where it failed until after I'd driven one!

[Clippy]

I know, I didn't see the tests where it failed until after I'd driven one!

Merc's just as crap too.

[BoredBloke]

Traffic jams & congestion propagate similarly to sound waves. They often aren't caused by an accident or similar but are more akin to a "sonic boom". By slowing you down to 40 a few miles away from where the "compression wave" is they are eliminating or reducing the probability that you run into the back of it and have to slow right down or stop.

I'm fully aware of that - I'm also aware that at 7/8pm each thursday night when I used to drive from london to the North West, there was never any traffic jam anywhere on the route I used, yet these variable speed limits were still in place. This isn't some kind of high tech mechanism to keep the small amount of traffic flowing freely, it's because nobody thought to switch them off after the rush hour finished long ago.

Last week they had them on 2 signs up, one slowing to 60 and the next to 50 and then one lifting the restictions. As you approached the 50 one you could see the one in the further along lifting the speed restriction.

As I said, often they would have the speed set to 60 or 50 and there would be sod all in the outside lane due to the lack of cars on the motorway at that time.

[doodab]

Perhaps you should think to yourself "hey I drove home and didn't see any congestion, aren't these traffic monkey's clever" rather than second guessing them?