Welsh Speed cameras

[dollywobbler]

Complaining about cameras seems pointless. If you're not speeding, it's just another piece of road furniture and of no concern at all. Sorry to say but I get seriously narked by folk ignoring the 30mph limit in our village. Usually because I'm having to walk in the road due to a lack of pavements (which I don't mind as long as folk actually pay attention). So yes, I do consider 35mph in a 30 too much.

[Mr Livered]

yes, I do consider 35mph in a 30 too much.

 

Does it depend on where the 30mph limit is at all? What the circumstances are, the traffic conditions, weather, presence or absence of pedestrians and animals? Time of day or night?

 

Is a blatant attempt to hide in a horse box catching motorists who haven't quite slowed down when the limit goes from 60 to 30 on a clear open road, the moral equivalent of catching people who speed past a primary school at kicking-out time?

 

I get "seriously narked" by people driving inappropriately and dangerously fast, too. However I also get seriously narked by people who believe that all rules should be followed with no application of common sense or reasonableness.

[dollywobbler]

No, I don't agree with all speed limits - they sometimes don't feel appropriate. I don't agree with all laws either, but that doesn't mean I break them. If you leave people to decide for themselves, then anarchy descends. Modern cars mask speed so effectively that people feel 40mph is painfully slow, and 30mph just impossible.

[Mr Livered]

I don't agree with all laws either, but that doesn't mean I break them. If you leave people to decide for themselves, then anarchy descends.

Did I dream it, or did you describe yourself as a hippy the other day? Not many self-described hippies of my acquaintance have that degree of willingness to toe the line!

[Slappy]

Not sure if the poster is on here like, but someone just posted this on the AS-FB page in a fit of OMGUsefulness, in case the plate was cloned rather than a typo.

http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/its-never-even-been-london-6876491

[Louise2cv]

I thought the horsebox was on a stretch of national, not in a 30. And anyway if the 30 is signposted in such a way that you can't slow down in time surely that could be addressed in court in your defence argument.

 

I'm just asking OH about this but he isn't sure... I wonder if the people in the horsebox were coppers and able to exercise discretion like a bobby with a speed gun or if this and the arrive alive vans are just normal flash everything cameras in a van?

[dollywobbler]

Did I dream it, or did you describe yourself as a hippy the other day? Not many self-described hippies of my acquaintance have that degree of willingness to toe the line!

 

I'm not your typical hippy. I like V8s and meat.

[Pete-M]

Correct me if I'm wrong but I thought all dibble traps have to be clearly visible - I.e not in the back of a horse box.

 

Brunstrom's lunacy regarding speeding has done untold amounts of damage to Wales and Welsh tourism. He pretty much killed rallying in North Wales when he banned a multitude of WRC drivers and persecuted anyone following the event. Just losing the Rally GB from North Wales cost at least £15 million in income just from the three days the rally GB used to be there.

 

I used to go to North Wales a couple of times a month, admittedly I'd have the hammer down on derestricted bits, Denbigh moors has a few of my favourite roads, but now is pointless going there if North Wales Dibble is out to get you for the slightest infringement.

 

I'd like to point out that at no point did I ever break the limits in towns or villages, that's just daft, even at 3am I'd do 30 or 40 when that was the posted limit. It was only the NSL bits where I'd open it up.

 

20 years ago every little garage in North Wales seemed to have a rally car or two secreted away. Now there's no point. That alone must put a big dent in the profits of small motor sport businesses.

[M'coli]

Some lightly-built-up area roads are a 30 limit in an attempt to get drivers to do 40 in them but it doesn't work.  Our estate is now a 20 limit which I can break on my bike!  The road that passes by the high school and a primary school is also a 20 but does it stop people doing 40-50? Not a bit of it.  What about when there's primary school children going to and from school?  Then it's usually the mothers doing 40-50...

 

I hate this 20mph bollocks - Scotland has it right, where it's a 30 unless the lights are flashing around the school, as that also reminds you there are free-range children and "adults".  There are 2 roads into our estate, both of them off the road past the primary - when it used to be a 30, I would take the long way home and sit at 30 to piss off any arsehole who thought that speed limits didn't apply to them.  Now I don't, because I can't deal with the boredom of sitting at 20 mph for that bit longer .

[Micrashed]

The last time we were in Wales (holidaying in Tenby) we drove through Wales up to the N. coast for something or other ( it was in the days when the Mother in Law insisted on coming with us...) and I saw a crazy amount of cameras, both vans and roadside.

 

Ive been lucky so far, though I think I may have been caught doing 35 ish in a 30 zone last week whilst getting lost going from Preston to Todmorden via Rochdale (yeah, thanks for that Google bloody directions). It was on a dual carriageway but whilst I didnt see any signs I assume it was probably a 30.

 

If Ive been caught Ive been caught and there is no point in bleating about it, the annoying thing for me is I have to tell both my employers. Which is a bit of an arse, because if I dont it will flag up on my next security check and I'll get a royal bollocking for not notifying them. 

[Pete-M]

The 20 limit thing is madness.

 

Liverpool's lunatic Labour Commie Council is trying to make every residential Street a 20 limit. City wide. Now the thing is, they've done it in some areas already, one local main road to me is now a 20 because it passes two schools which is fair enough but it's a 20 for about a mile either side so by the time traffic is passing the schools the limit allegedly protects everyone has crept up to 35 anyway.

 

The Road I live in is by a school, it's a 20 limit at the end away from the school and 30 as it passes the school.

 

They've also gone mad bringing all the NSL semi rural roads down to 30 for no good reason as well.

 

This behaviour just makes a mockery of common sense and is an insult to the motorist.

[CortinaDave]

^^ WHS. In Fife, they made every non-main road a 20 zone five or six years ago and covered the whole lot with speed bumps.

 

 

Lunacy.

 

Its because setting local speed limits was allocated to councils a few years ago who all immediately went on a speed limit lowering rampage purely to be seen to be doing something.

[Slappy]

Portsmouth was one of the trial areas for this I believe. Living here, I can kind of see why, narrow terraced streets with parking on both sides.

 

And then Hants Police pointed out that they weren't going to be enforcing it. "Oh" said everyone, and carried on as per. Seems to have spread now because Chichester have done the same, despite there being acres of visibility everywhere, thanks to some militant cyclist mother called Sarah who likes to push her kids around in some rickety box trike thing, and even then got told just last week where to get off because Chi's Georgian streets couldn't accomodate her whims...

 

Worthing is next under the Consultation scope down here, though going by the local rag there isn't much support for it.

 

Funnily* enough back in Portsmouth, fatalities actually went up bucking the national trend in the wake of the 20 zones going in, but to be honest it's probably too small of a sample size to get a true statistical picture.

[dollywobbler]

Yup, I agree with pretty much all of that Pete. 20mph past schools is sanity. Doing it everywhere just isn't. Perhaps we should go back to people waving red flags? Oxfordshire does my head in with all of its 50mph rural speed limits too. Like, everywhere! Still doesn't slow down the twats who never pay attention to speed limits anyway, just pisses off those who adhere to such things.

[wuvvum]

I have to say I tend to ignore speed limits on rural roads and drive to the conditions - especially in places where the speed limit has recently been lowered.  If it was safe to do 60 there last year, then it's still safe to do 60 there now.  If it wasn't safe to do 60 there last year, then why was the limit set at 60 in the first place?  This works both ways though.  There's a very dodgy junction that I pass on the way into work - it's a turning into a village which has a large industrial estate so there's plenty of heavy traffic turning, and the junction is just after a blind crest in one direction and a blind bend in t'other.  The speed limit is 50, but at busy times it's not safe to do more than about 45, or even less if the weather is bad.

 

In town I tend to stick more or less to the limits - too many unpredictable kids, dogs, cats, and teenagers with an inflated sense of entitlement who think the whole planet should grind to a halt so that they can cross the road.  I ignore 20 limits though - they are almost universally stupid and the local plod have more or less said that they won't bother enforcing them.  They may make sense past schools at chucking out time, but I'm in work then anyway.

[tooSavvy]

If Ive been caught Ive been caught and there is no point in bleating about it, the annoying thing for me is I have to tell both my employers. Which is a bit of an arse, because if I dont it will flag up on my next security check and I'll get a royal bollocking for not notifying them. 

well....yes, M8

 

It was pointed out, in the Speed Awareness Course jibber, that unless an Employer/Insurance Co. SPECIFICALLY ask if you have had a 'run in' with speedo points - then having 'got off', with Speed Awareness, does NOT HAVE TO BE DECLARED.

 

My company [hiring the van] must have had to send the bizzies my name to find the driver/offender. We have a 'let us see your licence' event annually.... I haven't said I was on a course, ergo >> IT.. DIDN'T.. HAPPEN!!

 

the LaW 

 

 

TS

[tooSavvy]

They should make speed limits higher outside schools, these kids might be less likely to run out into the road if everyone was tear-arsing past at motorway speeds.

 KIDS DON'T LooK  !!!

 

I was creeping up past a local shop, cars parked both sides, 2" mirror space either side - usual $hit - as I tried to not whack a car.... a KID shot out of a backlane (200MPH, looking over his shoulder at me) and disappeared between two cars    .

 

I just thought '$hite.... lucky I'm doing 6 inch/hour!!'

 

Kids + Dead is like the Lottery (but in reverse) >> YOU lose!!

 

 

TS

[meggersdog]

In the village where I live there is both a primary and secondary school.There is traffic calming which are triangle curbstones and give way to the oncoming traffic jobbies and also 20mph.This village is almost a no go area at the start and end of school.Pushbikes wobbling along three abreast,kids just randomly walking in the road and the  mummies collecting their little darlings stopping where ever they like.

The secondary school is the opposite  side of the village near the bypass.There is a footbridge over to a tiny two car lay-by.I mistakenly drove down this road today at kicking out time, what a shambles, must have been 25 cars parked, double parked, abandoned and causing traffic tailbacks.

[CortinaDave]

They could do with bringing back the green cross code.

 

Last weekend I was driving along a main road into town. Noticed a couple and toddler wandering along the side of the road. Couple were engaged in chat with each other so toddler was running amok around them. Sensing he might run out on the road I slowed to 15-20 mph on approach.

 

Sure enough the kid suddenly ran straight out. I stopped immediately, and well clear of him and beeped the horn to alert the parents who hadn't even noticed.

 

The dad ran out and grabbed the child, shook his fist at me and screamed abuse.

 

What else could I have done exactly?

 

I hate driving past schools, as the kids give not a shit and tear out into the road without a care... But if you hit one, regardless of circumstance, you'd be all the bastards and jailed.

[Bren]

Brunstrom was committed to driving bikers out of N Wales

I personally know 2 bikers who rode around a corner to be confronted with the Police helicopter hovering just over the road

He was also responsible for putting hidden cameras in the back of a horsebox parked at the side of the road,and allowed a full view picture of a decapitated biker to be used Without the families knowledge in a "scare-mongering" campaign

Most of north wales budget must go on fuel for the helicopter - the bastard thing is never on the ground.

 

Whenever I go camping at rhos on sea all you can hear is the drone of the thing as it follows the A 55 .

 

Apparently all the smackheads on the coast call it " the rhyl lighthouse." Not saying much really as it Rhyl has been christened "the place junkies go to die."

 

Can vouch for the A 5 personally - you really have to be careful if you are on two wheels. For a time the police used a horse box trailer to hide the camera.

[STUNO]

Nothing is different here. Also while in Blandford Forum for some time recently, there was a 40 mph limit outside schools at kicking time. But why were the signs always still going at 4.45pm.

One of the busses where I last worked came into contact with a 12 year old boy, the newspaper headline read "bus hits child in city" The truth was that the idiot ran out from the curb without looking and hit the bus about amidships.

And yesterday.... I just could not help thinking "look at the side ossifer, the bloody side".

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/rotorua-daily-post/news/article.cfm?c_id=1503438&objectid=11234436

 

Enjoy yourself Nigel !

[gtd2000]

The dad ran out and grabbed the child, shook his fist at me and screamed abuse.

 

What else could I have done exactly?

 

 

 

The chances are that I'd have stopped and explained that he was a f@rking @rsehole at the very least!