New Penalties for Drivers

EricTheWeary

Thinking about the Rowan Atkinson sketch now where he went through a list of fatalities on the roads in Europe and at the end started shouting IT'S NOT ENOUGH!

Kebabkid

I, too, wonder how this will be policed and safety and cutting down on fatalities is paramount but the willy-nillyness of issuing penalty notices (PCNs), lack of signage or ambiguos signage really boils my piss. A lot of it is just money-making!

Whilst I've managed to have all but 1 of the 5 parking tickets I've ever received rescinded - my approach is that I pay the reduced penalty notice but send an accompanying letter stating why I shouldn't have got it, and this differs from going down the appeal route as if they reject the latter, you end up paying the full, heftier fine. I actually did the same yesterday for a PCN I received for having 2 wheels up on the kerb at 8.30pm on a Saturday night on a road barely wide enough to fit 2 average-width cars, let alone a van or lorry. Seems they can fine you in London for this but the law is still unclear for anywhere else in the UK, although the terse, agressive and unhelpful woman on the Civic office front desk (looked like someone had set light to her face and put it out with a spade & definitely inbreed) told me the law was now UK-wide.

Anyway, not hopeful on this one!

Fretwired

Heartfeltdawn said:

juansolo said:

Indeed I was on an autobahn recently where people were doing in excess of 130mph. Quite happily along with people pootling at 80-90mph and wagons doing 60. No one died that I could see. There was no righteous indignation. Just people getting to where they were going. Interestingly where the Germans do have speed limits, people seem to stick to them quite happily. Maybe if you don't treat the people like children, they're less likely to be disobedient when it actually matters. But again, this only makes any sense if road safety is actually your goal...

Germany population = 80 million. 

Deaths on roads in 2010 = 3,657

Death on the autobahns in 2010 = 430

UK population = 63 million

Deaths on roads in 2012 - 1,754. 

Deaths on the motorways 2010 = 118

Perhaps we're not as bad as many think. 

It's hard to have a life threatening accident on a motorway in a traffic jam. I have to venture on the A1/M25/M40 to visit a client and at 7.00 it's a car park.

VimFuego

that's not a speed or safety issue though, it's a result of 30 odd years of flawed economic and social policies that have forced more and more people to live in one relatively small area of the country. I was up visiting my mum on the weekend and driving East from devon and West back to it you really notice the difference in traffic volumes as you proceed along the M4 (though the Sunday evening exodus East along the M5 into Bristol did make us laugh (we were going West), I reckon it was 15 miles long).

Bellycaster

I'll have to add that my original comment was in reference to the Lane Hogging "Offence". I don't have a problem with laws for Driving with Mobile, Drink Driving etc.

@ICBM and @Kebabkid both sum up even further my cynicism towards this new law.

It will not make the M'way a safer place, tons of the worst sods will still get away with it and "John Law" will still nick anyone just to fill his quota for the day.

 

Evilmags

Just more taxes really. I would also note that Germany 's road stats are fairly good. Look at Portugal or Italy. I've done 170mph on an Autobhan and it was fine. The road was empty as it was 5:30am. I drive down here even though it is more dangerous and have driven in really dangerous countries. The UK is now well over the top in its persecution of drivers.

PolarityMan

Sporky said:

I got a speeding ticket when I was young and stupid.

I'm still stupid, but no longer stupid enough to get caught speeding. Though I did get pulled over a few months back for doing 60 in a 60 zone.

Fiendish!

Wolftone

blindlemonade said:

Some of the new "offences" seem to be rather arbitrary:

Pushing into an orderly traffic queue - Does that include motorcycles filtering to the front at the lights, or lane-splitting on a stationary motorway?

Being in the wrong lane at a roundabout - Well, I use a map book, not a SatNav. Sometimes the lane markings aren't clear, until you get on top of them (eg A3/M25 roundabout). So rather than switch lanes, will I have to do a complete loop of the roundabout to get to my exit?

The flashing headlights thing get's me. The purpose of flashing headlights is to let people know you are there. So, in lane three, I'm doing seventy, and up ahead is a driver doing sixty, can't I flash my lights at a reasonable distance to let him/her know, I'm there?

holnrew

The sooner there are no drivers on the road, the better for everybody imo.

ICBM

Wolftone said:

The flashing headlights thing get's me. The purpose of flashing headlights is to let people know you are there. So, in lane three, I'm doing seventy, and up ahead is a driver doing sixty, can't I flash my lights at a reasonable distance to let him/her know, I'm there?

The problem is that it isn't "letting them know you're there", it's an aggressive "get out of my way" gesture.

Even if you don't think so, I bet 99% of those who you do it to think it is.

VimFuego

holnrew said:

The sooner there are no drivers on the road, the better for everybody imo.

yeah, but if you turn up for the MOT with forward pointing phased plasma cannons in a 40 watt range, they really frown upon you.

Axe_meister

I pretty much drive for a living (about 30k a year) so what gets my beef.
It's not the BMW flashing it's head lights in the fast lane. I just pull over no problem. I see them coming a mile off.
It's the guy who sits in the middle lane at 60 because they feel safe with lots of space either side. It's the young driver in a custom Saxo driving like a twat weaving in and out the lanes.
In town it's the company transit driver and taxi drivers who think they own the road.
Or the plod who sit at 69mph in the middle lane daring anybody to overtake.
Worst if all are the European truck drivers.

juansolo

ICBM said:

Wolftone said:

The flashing headlights thing get's me. The purpose of flashing headlights is to let people know you are there. So, in lane three, I'm doing seventy, and up ahead is a driver doing sixty, can't I flash my lights at a reasonable distance to let him/her know, I'm there?

The problem is that it isn't "letting them know you're there", it's an aggressive "get out of my way" gesture.

Even if you don't think so, I bet 99% of those who you do it to think it is.

If there's space for them to pull into and they're just merrily plodding along paying no attention I'll give a quick flash of the lights. If I get no response I undertake them as they're not gonna move. But I'll try and do this as non-aggressively as possible... God you don't want to piss people off on the road these days, there are some proper psychotic idiots who consider either of the above tantamount to raping their cat or something.

The right hand lanes are for overtaking. When you're not overtaking, keep left. It's a simple concept to grasp.

stickyfiddle

I've got no trouble with a single flash of the lights well in advance if a car is closing fast, by so many do it when you're still faster than everything in lanes 1 & 2 and you have no gap to move into. That is aggressive and unnecessary.

bertie

Axe_meister said:

Or the plod who sit at 69mph in the middle lane daring anybody to overtake.

got to say, never seen that.  

If we're going to get into specific middle lane hoggers.  IME tend to be  petrified middle aged women with hands so tight on the steering wheel you can see the pain,  very OAP men with wife in their Rover,  or Saxo driving  "just past my test" young girls chatting chatting chatting

musicegbdf

Interesting comments so far.
I think the big one is uninsured drivers. A £300 fine is useless when the premiums for the people who do not insure are often in the £'000's.   but I do like the idea they take the car away and if not resolved and fines paid they crush it. Get more old heaps off the roads if nothing else.

Emp_Fab

I've never seen a traffic cop sitting in the middle lane at 69mph unless he's part of a rolling roadblock.  I've seen them driving in lane 1 at 69mph.  I can't say you can call that 'daring you to overtake' though !  I don't know if it's just my age, but if I approach that scenario where there's a cop doing 69mph and everyone is hiding away behind him, I see it as a challenge to get past him without getting pulled, so I overtake... very slowly... and never looking at the copper.  My logic is that as long as I don't go over their prosecution threshold (i.e. 10% +2mph) then they're not going to waste their time pulling me for an offence they can't successfully follow though.  I've never been stopped for this yet.

My big hate is people (sorry to say this, but it's 70% women) who hog lane 3, completely oblivious to anyone behind them, when lane 2 is clear.  I'm convinced they do it because there's less traffic in front of them in lane 3.  I've seen traffic cops in full 'blues and twos' mode, lit up light a Floyd concert, sirens blaring, driving just feet away from some of these retards, flashing every light they've got to get them to get out of the fucking way, and they're still tootling along.  How can anyone not see a Volvo estate with strobe lights on when it's up your arse ?

Oh... and women again.... who have the rear-view mirror permanently tilted so they can look at themselves and not the road behind.

OilCityPickups

It's been my own experience that everybody thinks they are a good driver ... and therein lies the problem. Our own definitions of good differ wildly.
I used to love driving and car ownership ... witnessed by my posts on the 'classic car' thread ... but now I positively hate it (apart from small country roads). I'd abandon the car completely if the infrastructure was there to get to and from where my horses are stabled without setting wheel to tarmac, but it doesn't.
The motorist has become the cash cow for every parasitic industry and government agency under the sun ... and the driver, seen as being as antisocial as the public cigarette smoker. Manners and consideration have evaporated from the motorway, A road and town centre ... and you are as likely to get stabbed for some perceived slight to another road user as get the rude sign you might have got twenty years ago. You are sandwiched between loony Clarkson-esque petrol heads and tree hugging eco-twats.
I'm not sure motoring as we know it will be around in another twenty years ... and I'm not sure if I'm sad.
My plan is to move out to the country in a couple of years ... living on site with the horses ... use my 4x4 on waste oil ... and only on my own property ... and keep a shotgun handy for anyone who doesn't look 'local'.

holnrew

I don't like the term "the motorist", it's always used when drivers act like victims. Most people drive cars, I could hardly call them marginalised.

The fact that everyone thinks they're great drivers is why I think they should be off the roads, replaced with cool futuristic pod shit.

Evilmags

I believe the Tories would have cupped the motorway limit to 80. The they saw what the leftist harpies of mumsnet thought of that...