[cite]Posted By: AFKA Bartram[/cite]The police do seem to process driving claims with alarmingly more efficiency than domestic crimes such as burglary, and that to me is wrong.
However, ring them up and tell them you've caught the burgular red handed, and he's now lying on your kitchen floor unconscious after a good shoeing, and the OB will be there in a flash... where you'll promptly be arrested for GBH!
;-)
No you wouldn't
I bet you would!
Bit of a different topic, but we've had issues with kids coming over our fence and into our garden. We've been looking into putting up barbed wire etc, and have found out that the law says that we're responsible for any injuries caused to persons entering our garden, even if they're uninvited. How does that make sense?
Spooky. Just been talking to my next door neighbour who has just got off the phone to the police (again). Last month they had their fence panels kicked in by youths and have now had the panels kicked in, them in their garden and smashing the greenhouse panels SEVEN times in the past five weeks.
Police got no interest whatsoever. But as some say on here, the youths aren't killing anyone like the motorist driving at 80mph on a motorway. This is just a pensioner, in his late 70s suffering from a very serious illness and now frightened to leave his house and living in fear.
Police couldn't give a damn mate. Might not of killed him, but I'd bet the stress is talking years off his life....
[cite]Posted By: Stu of SE7[/cite]Some cyclist do it, but not as many as people make out, and if it weren't for car and van drivers stopping in the bike section at the front of junctions, even less would.
If a light is red there is a good chance people will be trying to cross the road, trying to justify it by saying cars are in the way is pretty silly.
Squeezing through a yellow is wrong I agree, but blatantly jumping a red is far far worse.
Temporary lights outside Cannon St this morning - saw 3 cyclists go straight through on the red... add that to the 4 yesterday.... oh, and it hadn't just changed to red either.
[cite]Posted By: Stu of SE7[/cite]Some cyclist do it, but not as many as people make out, and if it weren't for car and van drivers stopping in the bike section at the front of junctions, even less would.
If a light is red there is a good chance people will be trying to cross the road, trying to justify it by saying cars are in the way is pretty silly.
Squeezing through a yellow is wrong I agree, but blatantly jumping a red is far far worse.
Squeezing through a yellow/red is bad.
I'm not saying cars in the way, it's cars breaking the law and and jumping the stopline, there's a reason for the green boxes, and that's safety, car drivers in the main don't give a f***
Stu, Rothko is a non-driving cyclist. Attacking drivers and defending cyclists is part of their constitutional laws :-)
I have my fag breaks at a busy junction in the City, and i reckon i see red lights jumped by around 4 out of 5 cyclists, and sadly on more than 1 occassion, resulting in cyclists fatally injured.
[cite]Posted By: WSS[/cite]i always have a stick on my being to deal with cyclists. stick it in their spokes as they jump the lights
yeah, 2 can play at that game. good to get your tyre pump and beat the obnoxious car driver with it, as he revs up and cuts you up as you pull away from traffic lights :-)
[cite]Posted By: WSS[/cite]i always have a stick on my being to deal with cyclists. stick it in their spokes as they jump the lights
I've stitched coarse grade emery cloth onto the backs of my cycling gloves, that's an effective way to deal with motorists! (I'm joking)
Actually what is good, is having strong Ribena in my drinks bottle, squirting that at drivers who are idiots, and watching it go cloudy on there side windows.
[cite]Posted By: WSS[/cite]i always have a stick on my being to deal with cyclists. stick it in their spokes as they jump the lights
I've stitched coarse grade emery cloth onto the backs of my cycling gloves, that's an effective way to deal with motorists! (I'm joking)
Actually what is good, is having strong Ribena in my drinks bottle, squirting that at drivers who are idiots, and watching it go cloudy on there side windows.
Ha ha ha. Ribena is expensive as well, you must feel strongly about it.
Something like £3 for a bottle of Ribena i think. Shocking
but they would still need to check justin case people do creep over the limit by 1 mph! how else will they make all those millions of pounds for, ahem, road safety or whatever they use it for! its a money making scam, otherwise it would be points only then once you got 12 points, its see ya later license! Everything in this country is geared up to take your money, and this is one of them, it aint got fob all to do with safety!
Anyway suz, i actually was only joking with this quote
[cite]Posted By: MCS[/cite]
[cite]Posted By: suzisausage[/cite]i'm sorry for your neighbour and its terrible that the police are doing nothing
and do you no why they aint doin nowt, its cos thery spend all there time trying to catch drivers doin 32 in a 30!! ;-)
Me and my brother were driving up town and had a cyclist cylcle straight tinto the back of us. Went over the handlebars and everything. I got out to give him the mother of all beratings and the arsehole legged it. If that was a car driver.....
He got a woman to come and ask for his bike back, cheeky bastard. I near riot then almost kicked off as another cyclist stopped to have a go at me and the fella in the car behind because he thought WE hit the bloke.
A stand off ensued bang outside the ritz hotel in Mayfair as I waited for this hit and runner to come back and offer payment for the damage that HE inflicted to my motor, I wouldn't hand his bike back and in the end was told to by a copper who made no attempt to get any details insuarance-wise out of the cyclist and told me it's just one of those things when I asked him who was going to pay for the damage to my car! And I always look out for cyclists/motorcyclists so as to protect them whilst they pass me on either side.
Dont know about cyclists but motorbikes seriously piss me off on the road, law upon themselves.
Regarding speed limits I think there should be a total overhaul in this country.
When I drive to Charlton the A13 has a 40mph limit on a 3 lane carriageway with very little traffic on a Saturday other than when us and the Hamsters are at home. They have speed cameras at the bottom of a flyover so you are on your brakes as you come down as you naturally quicken up downhill.
Yet I can drive on windy country lanes, single lane at 60mph, how stupid is that.
I dont advocate speeding, especially in built up areas but like AFKA says, in this day and age on a clear motorway, doing say 80mph isnt unreasonable in my opinion (conditions allowing).
[cite]Posted By: Southendaddick[/cite] Regarding speed limits I think there should be a total overhaul in this country.
in this day and age on a clear motorway, doing say 80mph isnt unreasonable in my opinion (conditions allowing).
Very true- most modern day cars have breaking distance of between 60-70% of the Highway code figures. (Source Top Gear, to prove that i'm not a complete sado) IMHO- There is a good argument to be give for the abolishment of a speed limit in the first lane of the motorway if no other rules are being broken- Think about it. But speed limits in more dangerous areas need to be realistic and enforced- it's almost now as if the 40mph sign is up to get the average speed down to 45 and earn the Chancelor a nice few quid!
[cite]Posted By: MCS[/cite]
[cite]Posted By: Medders[/cite]Try brake fluid Rothko... makes a lovely mess of paintwork.... so I'm told....
;-)
be carefull not to get it mixed up with your ribeana tho dude, prob make a lovely mess of your insides too!
Chances of perdestrians on a 50mile an hour road is quite slim. The speeding ticket was all about making money. I agree about speeding on a built up area though, it's not on.
As a cyclists myself, I admit that they break the law more often than drivers, especially at traffic lights in the city.
but remember you can break as many laws as you like on a bicycle as there are people out there robbing houses which is worse and the police should leave all cyclists alone until they have solved all other crimes. or does that only apply to car drivers who can't read road signs and look at their speedos at the same time.
The trouble with increasing speed limits is that if you say 80 MPH then people will say, as proved on here, "90 is OK as it's only just over 80 and there was a mugging yesterday so I get off scott free"
[cite]Posted By: Henry Irving[/cite]but remember you can break as many laws as you like on a bicycle as there are people out there robbing houses which is worse and the police should leave all cyclists alone until they have solved all other crimes. or does that only apply to car drivers who can't read road signs and look at their speedos at the same time.
why do you always do that? try and belittle peoples opinions just cos they differ from yours? if its supposed come across as funny, it fails miserably.
That's your view but I don't think I "always" do it or that it is belittling people's opinions. I've tried to point out the flaws in the arguments throughout this thread and asked for proof of the "fact" that looking at your speedo was dangerous.
Anyway it's called reductio ad absurdum ie taking an argument to its absurd extreme to point out its flaws
in the town where i live speed enforcement is sub-contracted out to a private company, they photograph you, issue the ticket & collect the money - keeping a % for themselves & passing the rest onto the police etc - this is way more annoying than being done by the police as they are clearly in it for the money as opposed to the police who are also in it for the money, but have other duties to fulfill as well
we have no fixed speed cameras anywhere in Calgary or surrounding towns, it's all done by unmarked cars & cops hiding behind bushes with laser guns
give me the good old predicatbility of a fixed speed camera any day
When speed / safety cameras were first introduced one of the selling points was that they would allow the police to do "proper" police work and prevent crimes such as mugging, burglary, vandalism etc which concern ordinary decent working people. There is plenty of evidence that they are not doing this. Look back over this thread for example. In my opinion that is in no small part the cause of much of the resentment against speed cameras. People feel betrayed.
Another selling point was that speed cameras promote safety. If that is right, as others have said, why don't you ever see them outside schools and other heavily populated areas? If a road is genuinely dangerous and the cameras are really there for safety rather than financial reasons then they should be highly visible to remind people of the dangers; not hidden behind road bridges like at Falconwood on the A2 London bound or deliberately obscured by overgrown foliage like at Blackfen also on the A2. People don't like being lied to hence more resentment.
Another thing is the sentencing for genuinely dangerous, uninsured, untaxed, unMOTd drivers. It is derisory. The person who complies with the law in everything other than straying a mile or two an hour above an arbitary limit is often punished more severely than the other categories described. Result: more resentment.
Finally speed cameras are inflexible in that they take no account of prevailing road , weather and traffic conditions. I could legally drive at 70 MPH in thick fog on a motorway for example!
The Law can only be enforced with the consent of the majority of the people. If you alienate the essentially law abiding decent majority, which speed cameras seem to do, then potentially society has real problems in my opinion.
[cite]Posted By: Henry Irving[/cite]but remember you can break as many laws as you like on a bicycle as there are people out there robbing houses which is worse and the police should leave all cyclists alone until they have solved all other crimes. or does that only apply to car drivers who can't read road signs and look at their speedos at the same time.
The trouble with increasing speed limits is that if you say 80 MPH then people will say, as proved on here, "90 is OK as it's only just over 80 and there was a mugging yesterday so I get off scott free"
Not sure of the latin name for it but I'm with Curb-It and also think your posts regularly come across as patronising.
And to add my tuppence worth, I think that speeding is a pretty minor crime in a lot of circumstances. I'm on an empty motorway doing 80mph, take finances out of it completely is it really worth the police's valuable time collaring me. Answer; no. I'm not saying that if they did I'd have a leg to stand on, I know the law and am intelligent enough to know the risk I take in breaking it however that's a completely different argument to the one that you're mocking.
Police time is prescious and they need to prioritise - I think the point that people are trying to put across is that issuing tickets and penalties for minor misdemeanours gets bumped artificially high up on that list due to the financial gains that they make from it at the expense of preventing crimes which are indistiputably to the greater detriment of society.
And some roads are definitely set up in order to catch speeding drivers purely for profit. Roads with constantly switching speed limits despite no change in driving conditions. If they were that worried about safety and less so about profit then I think we'd see the 'average speed checks' across the whole motorway network. Personally I hope not - I'd much rather take my chances!
Curb_it, Len and PITL I'm glad you agree with me and I'm also glad you see that a lot of Henrys posts are patronising. In itself not a problem as this is a free board and people can say what they please. However it's a bit alienating when it's the fans representative to the board doing it.
Life would be boring if we all had the same opinions though eh?
Most of your posts on this thread have been patronising I think. I'm not going to copy and paste them all on this particular one however.
Maybe it comes under what you described as reductio ad absurdum where you are taking an argument to the extremes that I found it patronising.
Making sweeping generalisations about a group of people (drivers with points on their licences) is very harsh. Especially when you admitted to straying over the speed limit on occasions and just having the good fortune not to have been caught out.
I don't think I made a personal dig at you, I mentioned the fact that you were (are you not) our representative to the board and perhaps should bear this in mind a bit more at times. Personally i like you, but disagree with SOME of your mannerisms as times as I find them condescending.
By me saying MOST of your posts perhaps I meant most of your posts on this particular thread.
Comments
Police couldn't give a damn mate. Might not of killed him, but I'd bet the stress is talking years off his life....
how about if people stopped speeding by 3 or 7 mph then the police wouldn't HAVE to waste time dealing with them?!?!?!?
how can you still think its ok to commit a lesser crime, to a major crime and get away with it? its still a crime?
i'm sorry for your neighbour and its terrible that the police are doing nothing
Temporary lights outside Cannon St this morning - saw 3 cyclists go straight through on the red... add that to the 4 yesterday.... oh, and it hadn't just changed to red either.
Squeezing through a yellow/red is bad.
I'm not saying cars in the way, it's cars breaking the law and and jumping the stopline, there's a reason for the green boxes, and that's safety, car drivers in the main don't give a f***
I have my fag breaks at a busy junction in the City, and i reckon i see red lights jumped by around 4 out of 5 cyclists, and sadly on more than 1 occassion, resulting in cyclists fatally injured.
and non cycling drivers think it's there constituional right to drive like front bottoms
and do you no why they aint doin nowt, its cos thery spend all there time trying to catch drivers doin 32 in a 30!! ;-)
exactly mcs, so if everyone drove 30 in a 30 zone then they wouldn't have to!!!!! ya get me???????
yeah, 2 can play at that game. good to get your tyre pump and beat the obnoxious car driver with it, as he revs up and cuts you up as you pull away from traffic lights :-)
I've stitched coarse grade emery cloth onto the backs of my cycling gloves, that's an effective way to deal with motorists! (I'm joking)
Actually what is good, is having strong Ribena in my drinks bottle, squirting that at drivers who are idiots, and watching it go cloudy on there side windows.
Ha ha ha. Ribena is expensive as well, you must feel strongly about it.
Something like £3 for a bottle of Ribena i think. Shocking
Anyway suz, i actually was only joking with this quote
you must of missed the smiley thingy!
Ribena is cheaper in Makros, two litre bottles for about £2
;-)
be carefull not to get it mixed up with your ribeana tho dude, prob make a lovely mess of your insides too!
He got a woman to come and ask for his bike back, cheeky bastard. I near riot then almost kicked off as another cyclist stopped to have a go at me and the fella in the car behind because he thought WE hit the bloke.
A stand off ensued bang outside the ritz hotel in Mayfair as I waited for this hit and runner to come back and offer payment for the damage that HE inflicted to my motor, I wouldn't hand his bike back and in the end was told to by a copper who made no attempt to get any details insuarance-wise out of the cyclist and told me it's just one of those things when I asked him who was going to pay for the damage to my car! And I always look out for cyclists/motorcyclists so as to protect them whilst they pass me on either side.
Regarding speed limits I think there should be a total overhaul in this country.
When I drive to Charlton the A13 has a 40mph limit on a 3 lane carriageway with very little traffic on a Saturday other than when us and the Hamsters are at home. They have speed cameras at the bottom of a flyover so you are on your brakes as you come down as you naturally quicken up downhill.
Yet I can drive on windy country lanes, single lane at 60mph, how stupid is that.
I dont advocate speeding, especially in built up areas but like AFKA says, in this day and age on a clear motorway, doing say 80mph isnt unreasonable in my opinion (conditions allowing).
Very true- most modern day cars have breaking distance of between 60-70% of the Highway code figures. (Source Top Gear, to prove that i'm not a complete sado) IMHO- There is a good argument to be give for the abolishment of a speed limit in the first lane of the motorway if no other rules are being broken- Think about it. But speed limits in more dangerous areas need to be realistic and enforced- it's almost now as if the 40mph sign is up to get the average speed down to 45 and earn the Chancelor a nice few quid!
LOL.
As a cyclists myself, I admit that they break the law more often than drivers, especially at traffic lights in the city.
The trouble with increasing speed limits is that if you say 80 MPH then people will say, as proved on here, "90 is OK as it's only just over 80 and there was a mugging yesterday so I get off scott free"
why do you always do that? try and belittle peoples opinions just cos they differ from yours? if its supposed come across as funny, it fails miserably.
Anyway it's called reductio ad absurdum ie taking an argument to its absurd extreme to point out its flaws
we have no fixed speed cameras anywhere in Calgary or surrounding towns, it's all done by unmarked cars & cops hiding behind bushes with laser guns
give me the good old predicatbility of a fixed speed camera any day
When speed / safety cameras were first introduced one of the selling points was that they would allow the police to do "proper" police work and prevent crimes such as mugging, burglary, vandalism etc which concern ordinary decent working people. There is plenty of evidence that they are not doing this. Look back over this thread for example. In my opinion that is in no small part the cause of much of the resentment against speed cameras. People feel betrayed.
Another selling point was that speed cameras promote safety. If that is right, as others have said, why don't you ever see them outside schools and other heavily populated areas? If a road is genuinely dangerous and the cameras are really there for safety rather than financial reasons then they should be highly visible to remind people of the dangers; not hidden behind road bridges like at Falconwood on the A2 London bound or deliberately obscured by overgrown foliage like at Blackfen also on the A2. People don't like being lied to hence more resentment.
Another thing is the sentencing for genuinely dangerous, uninsured, untaxed, unMOTd drivers. It is derisory. The person who complies with the law in everything other than straying a mile or two an hour above an arbitary limit is often punished more severely than the other categories described. Result: more resentment.
Finally speed cameras are inflexible in that they take no account of prevailing road , weather and traffic conditions. I could legally drive at 70 MPH in thick fog on a motorway for example!
The Law can only be enforced with the consent of the majority of the people. If you alienate the essentially law abiding decent majority, which speed cameras seem to do, then potentially society has real problems in my opinion.
Not sure of the latin name for it but I'm with Curb-It and also think your posts regularly come across as patronising.
And to add my tuppence worth, I think that speeding is a pretty minor crime in a lot of circumstances. I'm on an empty motorway doing 80mph, take finances out of it completely is it really worth the police's valuable time collaring me. Answer; no. I'm not saying that if they did I'd have a leg to stand on, I know the law and am intelligent enough to know the risk I take in breaking it however that's a completely different argument to the one that you're mocking.
Police time is prescious and they need to prioritise - I think the point that people are trying to put across is that issuing tickets and penalties for minor misdemeanours gets bumped artificially high up on that list due to the financial gains that they make from it at the expense of preventing crimes which are indistiputably to the greater detriment of society.
And some roads are definitely set up in order to catch speeding drivers purely for profit. Roads with constantly switching speed limits despite no change in driving conditions. If they were that worried about safety and less so about profit then I think we'd see the 'average speed checks' across the whole motorway network. Personally I hope not - I'd much rather take my chances!
Life would be boring if we all had the same opinions though eh?
Maybe it comes under what you described as reductio ad absurdum where you are taking an argument to the extremes that I found it patronising.
Making sweeping generalisations about a group of people (drivers with points on their licences) is very harsh. Especially when you admitted to straying over the speed limit on occasions and just having the good fortune not to have been caught out.
I don't think I made a personal dig at you, I mentioned the fact that you were (are you not) our representative to the board and perhaps should bear this in mind a bit more at times. Personally i like you, but disagree with SOME of your mannerisms as times as I find them condescending.
By me saying MOST of your posts perhaps I meant most of your posts on this particular thread.