Got caught doing 38mph in a 30 zone: £100 fine?!?!

38 vs 30 in a built up areas could be the difference between seriously injuring someone and life threatening injuries / death. A difference of 8mph at motorway speeds will make very little difference to injuries suffered as everyone involved is generally in a protective cage, excepting bikers of course. As cj says, there are no pedestrians, abundant road furniture, bicycles etc, so the amount of accidents resulting in serious harm are much fewer - motorways are the safest roads in the UK. That said, the higher speeds and concentration of traffic make for messier results in the event of an RTC.

38 in a 30 is, IMO, not acceptable. The main thing my speed awareness course has affected is my speed in 30/40 limits. What brought it home was being asked to list all the victims in a RTC involving a pedestrian, including bystanders, and the impact of being involved on them personally, their families and their friends. Try it. It's actually pretty terrifying if you start from the premise you could kill someone, which of course you can be jailed for.
 
I do try to stick as close to 30 in a 30 limit but 38 in a 30 is not the worst thing in the world.
You have to consider the type of road the 30 limit is on.
There are a lot of roads that are 30mph limits even though there are multiple lanes or are in the middle of nowhere.
The very first time I was caught speeding was in a 30 mph speed limit. The road had 3 lanes going each way seperated by a grass strip.
Granted I was speeding (I dont want to say what speed I was doing though :o ) but in my opinion the road should not have been a 30mph limit.
I was lucky it wasnt nowadays as I only got a £32 fine and 3 points.
 
markeg said:
The one's that I don't understand are the cars going through the average speed camera sections (especially on the M62) who travel at "excessive" speed, then slam on the brakes for the cameras, then speed up again. What part of "average" is so difficult to understand?
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All of it, if you're innumerate.
 
Bing said:
38 vs 30 in a built up areas could be the difference between seriously injuring someone and life threatening injuries / death. A difference of 8mph at motorway speeds will make very little difference to injuries suffered as everyone involved is generally in a protective cage, excepting bikers of course. As cj says, there are no pedestrians, abundant road furniture, bicycles etc, so the amount of accidents resulting in serious harm are much fewer - motorways are the safest roads in the UK. That said, the higher speeds and concentration of traffic make for messier results in the event of an RTC.

38 in a 30 is, IMO, not acceptable. The main thing my speed awareness course has affected is my speed in 30/40 limits. What brought it home was being asked to list all the victims in a RTC involving a pedestrian, including bystanders, and the impact of being involved on them personally, their families and their friends. Try it. It's actually pretty terrifying if you start from the premise you could kill someone, which of course you can be jailed for.
Click to expand...

Just to add to Bing's comment, the majority of fatalities on motorways are pedestrians - often from stranded cars.
I did a Speed Awareness Course for 41mph in a 30mph zone. I was flashed by one of the new red light cameras that measure speed of traffic crossing the junction as well as nabbing those who jump the lights. The road is a six lane duel carriageway that historically was 40mph and I accelerated through the junction because the light changed from green to amber. All good excuses but that wouldn't have resuscitated any pedestrian who found themselves in my path.
I found the speed awareness course quite interesting, especially the effect on stopping distances. They showed a video of a car stopping from 70mph then a second stopping from 100mph. Both cars started braking at the same spot. The second car was still travelling at over 70mph as it passed the point where the first car stopped! Perhaps excessive speed on the motorway isn't quite so safe as we perceive...
 
BMWZ4MC said:
Bing said:
38 vs 30 in a built up areas could be the difference between seriously injuring someone and life threatening injuries / death....
Click to expand...

Just to add to Bing's comment, the majority of fatalities on motorways are pedestrians - often from stranded cars.
I did a Speed Awareness Course for 41mph in a 30mph zone. I was flashed by one of the new red light cameras that measure speed of traffic crossing the junction as well as nabbing those who jump the lights. The road is a six lane duel carriageway that historically was 40mph and I accelerated through the junction because the light changed from green to amber. All good excuses but that wouldn't have resuscitated any pedestrian who found themselves in my path.
I found the speed awareness course quite interesting, especially the effect on stopping distances. They showed a video of a car stopping from 70mph then a second stopping from 100mph. Both cars started braking at the same spot. The second car was still travelling at over 70mph as it passed the point where the first car stopped! Perhaps excessive speed on the motorway isn't quite so safe as we perceive...
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+1 to that.

The big takeaways from my speed awareness course a few years back are:

1) It's the car drivers responsibility to make the roads safe - it doesn't matter how brain-dead the pedestrians are, you've got to be able to stop (and yes, there was a muppet on our course who argued with the copper that if a pedestrian jay-walks it's their own fault if they get hit. Sigh)

2) If you drive whilst actively look for dangers ahead, you will naturally stay at or below the speed limit. E.g. in a built up area, drive looking for things like kids feet behind cars, people opening doors, etc, you'll usually end up at about 23-26 mph. I do this a lot, especially in urban areas.

:thumbsup:
 
walker1c said:
markeg said:
The one's that I don't understand are the cars going through the average speed camera sections (especially on the M62) who travel at "excessive" speed, then slam on the brakes for the cameras, then speed up again. What part of "average" is so difficult to understand?
Click to expand...

All of it, if you're innumerate.
Click to expand...

:D :lol:
 
Speeding :D always good for a discussion ............ lol

Something I noticed after I got my 6 points for 101 mph on the M8 ............

There seem to be 2 types of drivers (generally speaking) out there ..........
There's the folk who drive just over the limit all the time ......... and there are those that drive 5 mph under the limit all the time.
I used to find all those "slower" drivers quite annoying hahahahhaha

.......... now I realise they are probably folk like me that have a "ripe" licence and cannot afford anymore points :rofl:


And to finish off ........ learned a good expression when I was living in Holland ............ if you divide the total cost of your speeding fines by the amount of actual times you break the speed limit ....... its really not that bad :D
 
You missed one category - those who drive at the same speed regardless of limit or conditions. 45 it is - village or open road...

Agree re the cost of tickets divided by miles. If folks were honest with themselves then the times they get caught is probably way under 1% of times they exceeded the limit.
 
cj10jeeper said:
If folks were honest with themselves then the times they get caught is probably way under 1% of times they exceeded the limit.
Click to expand...
Mine works out at once every 1400 days - so about 0.072%
 
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