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bloody knew it was going to happen, but the m4 has very quickly opened the floodgates to a rash of laser traps on the motorways. i've never seen such a police presence on the little parking spots - and every last one of the choadguzzlers has a little black hairdryer in their hands. funny how it hasn't been widely publicised even in the midst of the "go slow". what is going on? how can we fight this BS?

spotted on, so far:

A42(M)
M42
M40
M3
M27

in the space of a couple weeks.
OK I know that's a rather small spread to base such a statement on, but that's just my limited experience on roads where i've never so much as seen a copper before, let alone multiple sightings of jam sarnies holding speed guns. (not patrolling, looking for broken down drivers in distress or maniacs doing stupid stuff, just aiming the speed gun)

So far i've had the immense good fortune to not be near one, or at least in the same direction, when doing more than 75 (e.g. was cruising today for economy, they weren't about when i was caning it; just a matter of time though). If they're after a climate of fear however this might well be the way about it, because they're pretty hard to spot in the other direction before they can get a fix on you.

Maybe more protests and just wait for someone tailgating too close to the back of one to cause a pile up at all of 40mph or whatever it was. I dunno.

Trial basis my arse, you can't get any kind of definitive result back in the time the M4 "test" has been running. It was all a front to get guns everywhere. They were doing it using an excuse of what... 12 fatalities (or fatal crashes?) in 3 years...??? How do you prove that a 4 death a year average statistic (which out of millions of cars dwindles into pure stats insignificance as it is) has been positively affected by putting a camera in place for a duration of less than three months - or indeed, less than a good 3 years, if we're relying on annually compiled results?

I'd expect distracted people in the hot stop-start tailbacks on the m3 today to have caused about as much bother as that, and speeds didn't break 50mph for about 10 miles.

my old man got caught doing 94mph on the m4 they are just everywhere......not to mention the road was empty. the police in dorset also have a tendency to use the laser guns. Like you said they should really be preventing accidents by people tailing ect.

more money involved in catching people speeding i suppose.

Dave.

how slow were these go slows anyway

did the filth cheekily try to nab anyone for obstruction or blocking the hard shoulder?

be classic if the first accident they'd had in weeks was in the tailback...

saw a program on the autobahn on cable a few days back. amazing how they engineer it to handle high speeds and the like (and their variable speed limit sign system that responds to the weather - and imposes overtaking restrictions in some places! - is something we need, like, now)... there was one annoying little man who said something like, well, we've brought the national accident rate down from 20,000 to 6,000 since the 70s but we can't really say that's a good thing (nubbin!)... it's all that high speed driving on the autobahn. Conveniently not mentioning how many out of the 6000 were actually on the 'bahn.. considering it's europes safest motorway system, and very few even of britain's deaths are on the m'ways.

now if they were to be honest and say something like high speeds are tearing up the road surface so we need to fine the speedsters to repair it, or they're trying to encourage people to drive more economically (the consumption difference between 70 and 90mph is something like an extra 1/3rd if not more), fine, but the safety angle is just silly. they'd be far better to enforce safe stopping-distance gaps - and im sure we probably have the tech to do that now.

Tahrey1043 wrote:how slow were these go slows anyway

did the filth cheekily try to nab anyone for obstruction or blocking the hard shoulder?

be classic if the first accident they'd had in weeks was in the tailback...

saw a program on the autobahn on cable a few days back. amazing how they engineer it to handle high speeds and the like (and their variable speed limit sign system that responds to the weather - and imposes overtaking restrictions in some places! - is something we need, like, now)... there was one annoying little man who said something like, well, we've brought the national accident rate down from 20,000 to 6,000 since the 70s but we can't really say that's a good thing (nubbin!)... it's all that high speed driving on the autobahn. Conveniently not mentioning how many out of the 6000 were actually on the 'bahn.. considering it's europes safest motorway system, and very few even of britain's deaths are on the m'ways.

now if they were to be honest and say something like high speeds are tearing up the road surface so we need to fine the speedsters to repair it, or they're trying to encourage people to drive more economically (the consumption difference between 70 and 90mph is something like an extra 1/3rd if not more), fine, but the safety angle is just silly. they'd be far better to enforce safe stopping-distance gaps - and im sure we probably have the tech to do that now.

I watched that as well on that megastructures programme, we need a motorway just like theres if only people didnt sit in the middle lane or in the outside lane for that matter our motorways would be alot quicker.

Dave.

a ban on trucks overtaking during peak hours on the 2 lane bit of the m42 / a42 would really make my days a lot nicer, tell you that much! 70mph can be a luxury for a good half of the stretch. And i'm talking about going north in the morns and south in the eves, so it's not due to weight of traffic..... just due to some t*t in an arctic (or knackered old leyland / ford 7-tonner) who think they can somehow quickly get past the wagon in front without causing trouble. When all it is, is an effect of their tyres being less worn and so their limiter holds them to a fraction of an mph more. Even though they've got less power. So they pull out, lose the slipstream, hit a slight incline, and it's goodnight Burton. Two wagons side by side up the hill doing 56..... 55........ 53..... neither having the balls or the manners to ease off slightly and pull back in / allow the other to pass.

(except for, like, them having to pass the 35-40mph abnormal load that seems to be the norm almost every week these days - that's allowed, to avoid jamming up the left lane as well. it's just to try to cut out some of the selfishness of dropping about 100 people's journeys by 25mph so that you can add 1/2mph to your own... that probably won't count for crap once you take the next junction off or hit the jam further up)