Speeding and magistrates court attendence

[Peoplesoft bloke]

I dont believe in speed limits for expereinced drivers - they are just a money making scam.
Good drivers know what speed is appropriate for the road and conditions, and so naturally drive at an appropriate speed. Thats not to say we all drive at 100mph everywhere, as even in a 30limit, a good driver will often drive much slower due to hazzards, visibility, people/children, livestock etc..

IMO speed limits should be advisory for anyone whos been driving more than X number of years with a regular annual millage of Y. young driver, or low millage drivers should still be restricted to spped limits as they wont have the experience to judge correct speed for road conditions.

Afterall, If the accident rate was proportional to the amount of times we break the current speed limits, then im sure many members of this forum alone would be crashing on a daily basis...
Motorists are just an easy target when it comes to collecting taxes...

A nice theory - but who decides who is a "good" driver - doing a lot of miles for a lot of years doesn't make you any good. I have a mate who is totally unable to control himself who drives about 40k most years and has done for the last 20. He always speeds, tailgates and drives aggresively. He served a 6 month ban under totting up about 10 years back because even after he got to nine points he was unable to slow down.

You would also get the "I am a brilliant driver" Mr Toad types who you'd class as "good" getting annoyed because they were being held up by drivers who had to stick to the limits (even worse than currently)

If you think speeding fines are a "tax" then slow down a bit and practise "tax avoidance" - sticking to the speed limit is easy to do and it sticks one to the Police and evil government etc as well as saving a bit of fuel.

[Joeman]

A nice theory - but who decides who is a "good" driver - doing a lot of miles for a lot of years doesn't make you any good. I have a mate who is totally unable to control himself who drives about 40k most years and has done for the last 20. He always speeds, tailgates and drives aggresively. He served a 6 month ban under totting up about 10 years back because even after he got to nine points he was unable to slow down.

You would also get the "I am a brilliant driver" Mr Toad types who you'd class as "good" getting annoyed because they were being held up by drivers who had to stick to the limits (even worse than currently)

If you think speeding fines are a "tax" then slow down a bit and practise "tax avoidance" - sticking to the speed limit is easy to do and it sticks one to the Police and evil government etc as well as saving a bit of fuel.

Undertand your point, and obvioulsy my idea needs a bit of work, but does your friend ever crash or run people over? if not, then hes a good example of someone who speeds regularly, but never has an accident... proof that there is no direct correlation between speed and accident rates

[Churchill]

To the OP, I'd suggest that your dear old mum takes a couple of driving lessons after her ban to ensure that she's fit to drive/boost her confidence/give her a refresher.

[darmstadt]

Things have changed a bit since I last got caught in the UK which was about 1C years ago. My first one was a 6 week ban and 30 quid fine for no license, no insurance, no tax and speeding (107mph being followed by a police bike who I thought was another bike wanting a bit of a race!) Mind you it did get worse but we won't go into that here...

[Peoplesoft bloke]

Undertand your point, and obvioulsy my idea needs a bit of work, but does your friend ever crash or run people over? if not, then hes a good example of someone who speeds regularly, but never has an accident... proof that there is no direct correlation between speed and accident rates

No - but he does rely on other people a lot to take avoiding action, react much more quickly because he's coming at them twice as fast as everyone else, speed up or move over when he's intimidating them etc. Like many selfish aggressive drivers he keeps getting away with it because other people don't want a crash or a confrontation, not because he's safe.

[northernladuk]

Undertand your point, and obvioulsy my idea needs a bit of work, but does your friend ever crash or run people over? if not, then hes a good example of someone who speeds regularly, but never has an accident... proof that there is no direct correlation between speed and accident rates

<Yawn>

EU - Road safety - Speed and accident risk

This is the direct correlation..

[bobspud]

I got banned for a first offence in 1998. My advice to you is this: If your mum has money and a licence and insurance she's fcked. However should she be a shag head from the local council estate with none of the above and on benefits she should be good with a £30 fine paid at £5.00 a month...

She has already entered a plea so she has lost. Its just going to be a case of by how much...

When she gets to court they will invite her in to see the prior case so she can see what happens then they will try her case.

When I went to court, it turned out that the prior case to mine was a chav from the local estate. She had been taking her other half to the pub (because he was banned for DD the previous week), it turned out that the flaw in her plan was that she could not drive, and thus did not have a licence or insurance and was driving a car without any road tax... She hit a brand new Audi A4 while trying to change the tape over and managed enough damage to ensure the vehicle was written off. Felt sorry for the other driver because it was a new model and he would have had to wait for 6 months to get the car in the first place...

The penalty was a £30 fine no points (due to no licence and no ban for the same reason...) she had already been up infront of the magistrate for shop lifting so she was already paying a fine... thus reduced to £5 over 6 months.

My first offence on an empty road netted me a months ban, £500 fine and insurance premiums in the thousands for a few years after. Incidentally when a foreign **** ran into the back of my brand new Saab 93 the following year. It turned out that he worked at a local garage and had taken a customers car without consent. He was on a joy ride with his scabby bird. No fine or penalty because the police could not be bothered to round the oily little tulip up and the garage owner claimed that he had ran off back to Turkey . However the garage in question did spontaneously combust shortly afterwards, and the guy driving the car at the time of the accident turned out to be far easier to find than our boys in blue thought and somehow ran into a metal pipe and broke mostly every bone in his body. (I found this out when the local plod turned up on my door step to ask it it was my work...)

I am guessing that the rather large african guy that lost his spotless 325i in the accident didn't take the news so well...

[DodgyAgent]

BTST Radar Detector

Subscribe to this - lots of very useful tips. I have got out of 10 speeding summons over the last 5 years.

[DodgyAgent]

<Yawn>

EU - Road safety - Speed and accident risk

This is the direct correlation..

If you banned driving altogether then there would be no accidents so why not go the whole hog and either ban it or set a speed limit of say 20 mph on all roads. Why is doing 31 mph dangerous and 30 mph isnt?

[northernladuk]

If you banned driving altogether then there would be no accidents so why not go the whole hog and either ban it or set a speed limit of say 20 mph on all roads. Why is doing 31 mph dangerous and 30 mph isnt?

But we couldn't get to gigs and earn you shed loads of cash if that happened!