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View Full Version : 50 mph limits on all single carriageway roads



Steve Toy
11-03-2009, 16:09
The proposed blanket 50 limit on all single carriageway roads is not about safety, it is about removing the glamour from motoring (fun from driving) and the aspirational element of car ownership. 60mph on such roads (where appropriate) is a reasonably stimulating experience from a driver's POV. 50 feels llike being a passenger at the wheel of a vehicle not making due progress. With the fun taken out of driving there is no incentive to drive a nice car. Thus the only remaining aspirational element to a better car will be status - i.e. a glorified posh handbag on wheels.

This is the agenda- a mealy-mouthed combination of socialism and environmentalism coupled with pompous authoritarianism. Only a really gullible fool would fall for the safety pretext.

Please click the link below and sign.

http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/noNSLreduction/

muffinman
11-03-2009, 17:44
Things like this make my blood boil.
Speed doesn't kill - bad driving / bad roadsense kills
If the govt. decided that for safety reasons that there would be a complete ban on alcohol - and went through with it, then i'd believe they actually gave 2 shits about personal safety and would have an iota of respect for issues like this.
I'm a train driver and recently people have complained that the level xings are dangerous!!!! - no, It's the trains that'll hurt you. The xing is there for protection. Many, many times i've been bearing down on a xing at 100mph with 400ton of steel behind me as some plank decides wether to take 3 steps back to safety or to run across to the other side (and possibly slip and fall). when this happens there is not a single thing i can do to influence the outcome.
If you can't figure it out then i'm afraid Darwinism kicks in :doh:

muffinman
11-03-2009, 18:02
Quick stat - last year 350 more people died from trips or falls than on the uk roads
If the speed limit was dropped that differential would be far greater
looks like the car is the safer place to be

Beechwoods
11-03-2009, 19:12
If the government were really serious about safety on our roads, they'd do something to enforce the speed limit on motorways (which is 70, not 85 as most people seem to think). And it would also be nice if the rules on driving while using a handheld mobile, parking on yellow boxes, and jumping red lights were actually enforced too. The sad thing is what few police there are are too busy chasing meaningless targets and filling in forms to do anything about the real problems out there :steam:

shane
11-03-2009, 19:26
It's not speed that kills on motorways, it's people crashing into each other. If the police were to enforce driving at a safe distance, or better still if "distance cameras" were introduced, no-one would die on motorways. If you are far enough away from the vehicle in front, you don't hit it and you don't die whether you're doing 50 or 150. Simple.

Off the motorway, outright speed rarely kills, although its not unknown for some hothead to lose it on a bend and wrap himself round a tree. Far more likely though is for someone to pull out in front of someone else, or not see a pedestrian or motor cycle. It's not speed that kills here, it's crap driving, lack of attention or downright stupidity. Unfortunately no-one's invented a prat camera yet, so speed cameras remain the best way to raise revenue from the driving public whilst appearing to be holier-than-thou safety devices dedicated to saving us from all those slavering monsters who so shamelessly enjoy the evil pass-time of driving.

Steve Toy
11-03-2009, 20:17
85 is the natural pragmatic enforced speed limit. 70 is outdated but raising it goes against government ideology.
I agree that distance enforcement would be more beneficial and would obviate the need for a speed limit just as in Germany where enforcement is effected via video surveillance within white markers. There is even a table for calculating fines for driving too close to the vehicle in front.

Marco
12-03-2009, 11:52
The same thread is interesting over on pfm. I'm still trying to fathom exactly what this means, though:


NuLab are overly bureaucratic post-Thatcherite neo-liberalism...


Come again? :scratch: :confused:

Could someone translate that into simple language for a politically ignornant numpty like me?

No offence if you're reading this, Tony!

Marco.

Puffin
12-03-2009, 12:59
The proposed blanket 50 limit on all single carriageway roads is not about safety, it is about removing the glamour from motoring (fun from driving) and the aspirational element of car ownership. 60mph on such roads (where appropriate) is a reasonably stimulating experience from a driver's POV. 50 feels llike being a passenger at the wheel of a vehicle not making due progress. With the fun taken out of driving there is no incentive to drive a nice car. Thus the only remaining aspirational element to a better car will be status - i.e. a glorified posh handbag on wheels.

This is the agenda- a mealy-mouthed combination of socialism and environmentalism coupled with pompous authoritarianism. Only a really gullible fool would fall for the safety pretext.

Please click the link below and sign.

http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/noNSLreduction/

Clearly they don't care about the dying car industry!

Mike
12-03-2009, 16:25
I'm limited to 50mph on single carriageways anyway... I think everyone else should suffer the same as me! :lol:

So I'm signing nothing! :ner:

Spectral Morn
12-03-2009, 17:03
It's not speed that kills on motorways, it's people crashing into each other. If the police were to enforce driving at a safe distance, or better still if "distance cameras" were introduced, no-one would die on motorways. If you are far enough away from the vehicle in front, you don't hit it and you don't die whether you're doing 50 or 150. Simple.

Off the motorway, outright speed rarely kills, although its not unknown for some hothead to lose it on a bend and wrap himself round a tree. Far more likely though is for someone to pull out in front of someone else, or not see a pedestrian or motor cycle. It's not speed that kills here, it's crap driving, lack of attention or downright stupidity. Unfortunately no-one's invented a prat camera yet, so speed cameras remain the best way to raise revenue from the driving public whilst appearing to be holier-than-thou safety devices dedicated to saving us from all those slavering monsters who so shamelessly enjoy the evil pass-time of driving.


Going too fast gives crap drivers less chance to correct for their crapness. I think the penalties for dangerous driving should be increased...vehicle death should be split into manslaughter and murder...with the last carrying a 20 year sentence. People flout the law because it has no teeth.

The other option would be "EXTERMINATION " http://i549.photobucket.com/albums/ii364/davros124/daleks.gif


Reagards D S D L----Neil

Steve Toy
13-03-2009, 03:12
The same thread is interesting over on pfm. I'm still trying to fathom exactly what this means, though:



NuLab are overly bureaucratic post-Thatcherite neo-liberalism...

Come again? :scratch: :confused:

Could someone translate that into simple language for a politically ignornant numpty like me?

No offence if you're reading this, Tony!

Marco.

It's not for me to comment on Tony's reasoning over here other than for me to paste here what I wrote over there:

Nulab have many elements of socialism, certainly in their quest for social interventionism and reverse discrimination, not to mention a higher education policy steeped in the politics of envy where graduates are effectively taxed on their wealth before they even have chance to earn it, unless that is, they come from a suitably underprivileged background. Equality of outcome reigning supreme over equality of opportunity defines their continued socialist outlook for me.

It takes more than abandoning Clause IV, embracing corporatism as a means of creating wealth in place of failed Marxist economics (as distinct from capitalism or private enterprise in the hands of many individuals) and fighting an illegal war alongside some Neo-cons from the other side of the pond to convince me that they have completely abandoned their socialist heritage.

Their transport policy is socialism at its most extreme and they have made an unlikely alliance with the environmentalists in order to strip ordinary folk of their aspirational freedom of mobility, i.e. the freedom to go anywhere independently, enjoying ever reducing reduced journey times in style and in comfort. They've turned such notions of progress on their head in pursuit of a new social order based on collectivised transport for the masses and all its limitations reminiscent of the former Soviet Bloc. Except that they've forgotten to give us the extra buses and trains needed for this modal shift policy to actually happen...

The 50mph limit on single carriageway roads is not about taxing the motorist. The proposed method of enforcement (average speeed cameras covering longer distances) will be 100% effective. This is not about revenue (which can only be raised when enforcement is sufficiently ineffective for drivers to want to risk trying not to get caught). It is not about saving the planet from climate change either - Drax Power Station chucks more carbon into the atmosphere than every single car in the UK put together but they have no plans as yet to replace it with anything 'greener.'

It is about control, oppression and shifting people away from the glamour of private, independent transport.

Ali Tait
13-03-2009, 08:42
Drax burns 28,000 yes twenty-eight thousand tons of coal a day.

Spectral Morn
13-03-2009, 09:35
Excellent reply Steve....I agree totally.


Regards D S D L---Neil

Steve Toy
30-09-2009, 16:36
http://www.number10.gov.uk/Page20803

The response from Downing Street. They've shifted their stance ever so slightly over the last few months so instead of a blanket 50 mph limit we will see even more localised speed limit reductions along the same lines as the ones weve seen over the last 12 years - the ones that have done nothing to actually reduce road casualties!

It isn't as bad as we feared but it still exceeds a threshold of acceptability and this policy is still being pursued for reasons other than safety.

Themis
26-10-2009, 21:04
if you drive a car - I'll tax the street;
if you try to sit - I'll tax your seat;
if you get too cold - I'll tax the heat;
if you take a walk, - I'll tax your feet.

Macca
26-10-2009, 21:27
Nulab have many elements of socialism, certainly in their quest for social interventionism and reverse discrimination,

It takes more than abandoning Clause IV, embracing corporatism as a means of creating wealth in place of failed Marxist economics
It is about control, oppression and shifting people away from the glamour of private, independent transport.

The Taxmans taken all my dough
And left me with no place to go
Lazing on a summer's afternoon

They are Communists - not socialists (thin line I know) or to be more exact - Trotskyites. That is what the whole global warming agenda is about - helping to make us satisfied with less. (Don't worry, the ruling elite will still have cars).

'Carbon is bad and has to be taxed' - its the biggest con trick ever perpetuated; proving a certain Nazi propagandist exactly right twice:

'The bigger the lie the more people will believe it'
'If you repeat the lie often enough people will come to believe it'

Just my two cents;)

Beechwoods
27-10-2009, 22:19
I don't think your average Trot would consider New Labour 'comrades'. The Labour Party don't conform to any political standard; they're unprincipled opportunists. They have no scruples. Like J Edgar Hoover was to homosexuals, New Labour are to the unions and the working class. They've finished what Thatcher started. :steam:

Themis
27-10-2009, 22:22
The Labour Party don't conform to any political standard; they're unprincipled opportunists. They have no scruples.
It's very often the case with two-party systems... opportunism is the missing ingredient to get the "central" voters and form a majority.