Dame Sarah Storey calls out "entitlement" of speeding drivers — "too many 'my driving offences won't cause harm' attitudes"

El Tim wrote:

What I dislike about the current obsession with speed...

Who's obsessed with speed?  People driving!  Or rather we all seem to be frightened of the ire (or worse) from other drivers if we fall below the posted minimum speed limits!

Who is not obsessed with speed at all?  Police, councils, politicians ...

El Tim wrote:

...is as follows:

1. Decent rural ‘A’ and ‘B’ roads given reduced 50 limits due to lazy councils’ box ticking exercises, whilst keeping the national speed limit on back roads - the ones I am more likely to be cycling on. Derbyshire are a particularly bad culprit and have a nice racket going with vans deployed on the sections.
2. The vast majority of 20 limits in towns on the better sighted roads. Now I am jostling for road space with vehicles that should really have gone past me and be on their way
3. Away from the places where I cycle, the poor lane discipline and positioning on motorways and dual carriageways especially where there are cameras. The main risk is from lane changes where people don’t check blind spots correctly, often where there is a bunch of traffic all scared of breaking the limit, but driving too close to each other.

The number of dangerous driving incidents I have seen within the speed limit vastly outnumbers the incidents where odd driver is travelling over the posted limit.

The whole point about higher speeds is that they bring a whole host of issues: less time to react (for given distance travelled), reduced ability to do something (e.g. break to a stop, danger of entering a skid and losing control entirely).  In a collision higher speeds have an exponential impact on damage done because physics - especially to any vulnerable road users involved.   (Since you passed your test cars have got much safer - for those inside).

I'd agree our LAs / the highways agency make some arbitrary decisions in both directions - although I'd suggest they mostly go with "too high".

I find your point 2 a bit odd.  Urban areas are where there are the most interactions (especially between motor traffic and vulnerable road users).  Given the marked difference in outcomes from driving into a pedestrian at "somewhere in the 20s" (what is mean in practice by maximum 20mph limit) and "north of 30" (30mph limit) urban areas need more of these, not less.  TBH given the average speed of traffic in urban areas you'll always be "jostling for space" with cars - until we get round to building the cycle infra needed to get some of those drivers out of their cars...

Point 3 is even odder.  If the problem is poor driving, how's less restrictions / enforcement going to improve the standard?

TBH the whole thing sounds like "people would drive sensibly with fewer restrictions and less monitoring".  I can't agree given there is currently very little monitoring, minimal enforcement, mild punishments (and you can make an excuse) and a substantial number of people still can't control themselves!

Hirsute wrote:

I remonstrated with a driver today - 48 in a 30. He braked to a halt to see what the problem was "It's 30 mph and you were doing at least 45" "No I weren't," Then he drove off. It was a windy road, no pavement and the section is used by walkers and dog walkers. I doubt his behaviour will change as he clearly had no idea of his speed.

It's weird:  I mean, on my (very) old car, there's this round, clock-shaped thing on the dashboard (just below my eyeline if I'm looking ahead).  It indicates how fast I'm driving, giving me fair warning to change my speed if I'm going faster than that marked up as the "speed limit" on big steel painted signs at regular intervals along the side of the road.

It can't be that different on modern cars, surely?

Forgot to say it was a wankpanzer so rules don't apply.

Forgot to say it was a wankpanzer so rules don't apply

One thing the WP drivers have learned, in addition to the 'accelerate out of trouble' mantra, is to confidently state blatant untruths- they are unrepentant liars. This one simply declared that he had 'given me 1.5m' when I caught up with him at temporary traffic lights just beyond, before threatening to 'fucking flatten' me and to knock me off my bike.

Hirsute wrote:

Forgot to say it was a wankpanzer so rules don't apply.

Sorry but it isn't just wankpanzers.  Almost everyone that drives picks and chooses which bits of the law apply to them, and when.  Whether its speed limits, driving tired, doing a 3 point turn just round a bend, stopping on double yellows for a couple of minutes, having a couple of pints, putting off the service til next month, not replacing worn tyres, we all know the problems and their excuses.

The police are too busy to have proper traffic cops any more, or a decent number of them.  They sympathise with minor offenders.

If cases ever get to court, judges and juries sympathise too, because they have done it as well, and can you imagine not being able to drive somewhere?!

I know, because I have been guilty of this in the past when I have been driving.  I'm trying to improve.

Daveyraveygravey wrote:

...I know, because I have been guilty of this in the past when I have been driving.  I'm trying to improve.

Honest comment and good point.  The problem with general low standards is it also means that people who're mostly better than them (probably everyone, in their estimation) then gives themselves a pass at "being a bit naughty" or letting things slide every so often - "I never normally do this ..."

Mostly there are no lasting consequences.

Robert Hardy wrote:

I can quite understand why a senior public figure might request a private course, those of us who have been offered such a course have not had to contend with a mob of reporters outside the testing place nor the security detail that would inevitably accompany such a piece of theatre.

Not really applicable anymore. Since Covid every provider is offering remote courses by Skype/Zoom/whatever, AFAIK. No security needed.

Pretty clear that her only motivation in trying to arrange a private course was so no-one would be able to verify the reports that she'd been caught, and she could keep sending her taxpayer salaried special advisors to flat out lie to the press about whether she'd been speeding.

the little onion wrote:

Simon Jenkins wrote an attrocious comment piece in the guardian that straight-up lied that locla councils push for lower speed limits, so they can fine people and increase their revenue.

 

Spoiler - the revenue doesn't go to them. It goes to central government coffers.

That's true if a fine has been given (either via FP or court), but the excess revenue (minus costs) from the driver awareness courses goes to the local camera partnership, which in most cases, comprises of the police, fire service, local council, etc.

I did an online speed awareness course a couple of years ago. I thought it was appalling because the instructor assumed that we all felt we had done nothing wrong, and implied that he agreed with us. (For the record I was mortified that I had been doing 38 in a 30 in a neighbouring village, and felt very fortunate that the only consequence of this was spending 3 hours on a course).

When the intervention that is supposed to improve driving actively reinforces that speeding isn't too serious and you are just unlucky to get caught in the "money making" system we have no hope of things getting better.

That's unfortunate. I attended an awareness course several years ago and the instructors on that cause made a very good case for the effects of excessive speed. It definitely made me sit up and think about my driving.

Too true, as is demonstrated by all too frequent giving of exemptions from a ban to people on the grounds that it would damage their livelihood, despite often three previous recent speeding convictions which should have served as severe warnings to amend their behaviour.

Indeed, given that I rarely see mobile speed enforcement, to get caught 4 times for speeding in the relevant period you have to be either monumentally stupid or monumentally reckless.  When the safety of other people is at risk, either of those "qualifications" should be sufficient to justify a ban and the hardship is a) one you have brought upon yourself knowingly; and b) far less hardship that will be felt but the person who ends up on the receiving end of you accident waiting to happen!