Hi All

We live in the fairly laid back county of Oxfordshire and this Sunday, had our first run out for the year to Stratford on Avon, who for anyone that knows is a great and classy bikers meeting place. However, watch out if you park on the newly rebuilt waterfront, as apparantly they take pics of the bikes parked on there and then very kindly post you a parking ticket for £70! BarStewards or what?

Anyway, on our quite quick round trip of about sixty miles, we were all quite upset to see that Warwickshire Council has been busy over the winter and has implemented 50 MPH limits all over the county! These are on fine large dual carriageways and on most of the main A roads we went on.

Becoming more and more frustrated with the slow pace of the traffic flow and mulling over why they had made this pathetic decision, I suddenly had a Eureka moment! No I didn't run down the Fosse Way naked, I just suddenly realised why this has been done, as get this, now every vehicle, including Trucks, Vans, Buses, Volvos towing Caravans, Honda 90's etc, apart from restricted 50's, can now all be nicked by Greed Cameras, with average speed cameras being fazed in as soon as possible, according to reports in MCN.

This is terrible and it spoiled part of the day.

On my return, I looked on the web and came up with the fact that Warwickshire Council ignored Police advice, who were opposed to the lowering of the National Speed Limit and just went ahead and did it anyway.

How do we complain about this unfair Warwickshire decision and of the totally unreasonable proposed 220,000 miles of UK roads that will have a 50 MPH limit, enforced by thousands of average speed camers! This will be the end of biking for fun in the UK?

Protest? You bet, where do I sign?

Cheers

Chris

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[/SIZE] "Live dangerously for as long as you can!"

Write to your MP. Alternatively, emigrate (the only options if you really don't like a country).

S

I'm down at the other end of Oxfordshire and I've been seeing this creeping across the county for years.

One local road has been 60 since I've lived here but about 5yrs ago one short stretch started to break up. The council slapped a 30 limit on the whole 4 mile length with notices saying it's for your own safety and left it for 18 months until we got used to it. After the repairs were done the limit was put back up to ... 50! That 50 section has now been used as the start point to extend it bit by bit along the rest of the road.

What is the common element in all road accidents? - speed.
They've got us...Their logic is irrefutable: to hit anything first you have to be moving....

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As I understand it, when altering a speed limit councils are supposed to go through some sort of statutory consultation process, notify the Department of Transport or whatever it's called, and use an objective set of criteria based on accident figures etc. If Oxfordshite CC hasn't followed this, they would perhaps lay themselves open to some sort of judicial challenge?

Speed limits - how they are set : Directgov - Home and community

The reason behind all this is that the government wants constant yearly reductions in road casualties. The early stuff, like drink-driving and seatbelts, was a sort of 'low hanging fruit'. But as time has gone on, it has become harder and harder to find measures that have any sort of impact - we are now firmly into diminishing marginal returns territory. Hence all these measures such as busting people for eating sweets while they're driving, or the proposed 50 mph national speed limit, that cause a lot of harassment and inconvenience to motorists but probably don't make that much of a difference - apart from revenue to HM Treasury.

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and there we have it!

I cut across the Peak District a few weeks ago, thinking it would be the nicest way of getting from Manchester to Leicester - same thing there, 50mph everywhere. No sign of cameras or cops, but then it was a weekday at the end of winter. Bet the vans will be out in force on sunny weekends...

My ex got caught speeding 3 times a few years ago, and for the 3rd was offered a theory-based retraining course instead of points. There were 10 of them on it, and when asked what the national speed limit was on single carriageway roads, only he and one other got it right - the rest thought it was 40mph!!!

Maybe teaching people how to drive from the start, including taking them on the motorway with an instructor rather than assuming a piece of paper makes you automatically capable of doing something you couldn't 10 minutes before, would be a better idea than slowing us all down!

Off to work on a road safety conference this week, they get cops & paramedics in to talk to teenagers and provide (rather graphic) details of why they should drive carefully, will be interesting to hear their opinions on the validity of reducing speed limits.

Laura

It's an industry. Think of all the people in casualty reduction partnerships, law enforcement, PR, local government and so forth doing their oh so important jobs, saving lives, keeping the paper mills open and stationary suppliers in business. If we start to admit that all cases of life so far discovered have been fatal they'll have nothing to do except turn the whole PR machine against anyone who says they are pointless.

As with most circumstances of this nature you'll struggle to find a pollitician who'll stand up and say enough is enough, it isn't worth thousands of man hours and tax payers pounds to reduce the number of injuries from 3000 to 2999. The safety clowns know their own jobs well enough to control the system and a massive UK disease is people who want laws to control other people.

Sorry guys; get used to it, it's going to get a lot worse before it gets better.

Anyone got a few million quid to start a political party that believes in small government and personal responsibility for the UK?

Andy

You start it and I'll join - as long as I can claim expenses!

Good points, thanks S but moving isn't one of them, as I happen to like living in this country.

The point of this posting is to see if anyone agrees that lowering the national speed limit to 50 MPH from 60 MPH is a blatant scam and isn't for safety and accident reduction, but for increasing the number of vehicles that are able to break the over 50 MPH speed limit by millions hence it's purely for revenue collection.

I think with all the extra time needed to travel, there will be more accidents due to bored drivers doing even more texting, phoning, lap top watching and sat nav fiddlng, which is where the real dangers are, plus I have always believed that tailgating is the real cause of many unavoidable accidents and more training in this area would have much more effect on saving lives then speed reduction.

Chris

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[/SIZE] "Live dangerously for as long as you can!"

Speed limits always have their place but this will be the thin end of the wedge I'm sure.

I am lucky to live in that rural backwater called Lincolnshire and still have roads that as long as you think past the next corner and remember there could be a tractor or some mud then you can push on of you want and to be honest I feel the biggest problem on our roads is the lack of roadcraft so many drivers seem not to have. Accompany that with the total lack of manners and sense and a whole generation that has never had to drive through a full winter and it is a recipe for disaster.

Most of us on here probably started gaining our road skills at 16 with a moped of some sort and then progressed to 125's and 250's because we couldn't afford to buy a car and then when we did it was probably a beaten up old Escort, Mini or Marina and these cars teach you how to drive and if you wanted to drive them quickly you soon learnt car control or crashed. But we now have drivers that have a very new car as their first car with all it's bells and whistles of ABS, traction control and very grippy tyres and such a quiet cabin the speedo is the only way of assessing how fast your going so when it all goes wrong it happens very quickly with very little chance to save it.

There are also a huge number of 'Bikers' that seem to be on the roads later in life due to a surplus of income and with a lack of roadcraft as they have gone straight from a CB500 to the latest WSB machine and use a sports bike as a way to gain an adrenalin rush with total disregard to other road users.

OK, before you all jump down my throat here I realise that what I have said is a very sweeping statement and I am not really trying to tar everyone with the same brush. But I think it is high time that the education of new drivers / riders is reassessed rather than reducing the speed limit. As stated earlier, motorway driving should now be part of the test as should skid pan training and my own personal view here but I have always thought that it should be compulsory to log 12 months on two wheels before you can move onto 4 wheels.

No such luck, unfortunately . The fine people of this Sceptred Isle don't have the history of mass protestation that our French colleagues enjoy, and even if we did the Governmental Class wouldn't take any notice anyway . Just get used to it, i suppose - but then 50 is a good cruising speed for most singles, and the juice goes further .

Thats ok then. Good job I own a single. Most people don't - they drive cars that are hardly ticking over at 50mph and they welcome the reduction in accidents and additional safety that reducing the speed limit brings. Or at least that's what I'm told by the council's press releases in the local newspaper - the vast majority approve of these measures to improve road safety. If I don't I must therefore be in a small minority of little consequence and the police will soon make me see the error of my ways.

Recently signs have been appearing locally telling me that "twenty is plenty"
What sort of bike should I buy when the "vast majority" thinks that this is a sensible measure to improve road safety?

I too live in Lincolnshire and find that my biggest bugbear is drivers tootling along a decent length of A road at 45mph. Drivers, and riders, become frustrated at the lack of progress and attempt to overtake - problem is a lot of Lincolnshire roads follow old Roman roads so are straight but with amny dips and hidden hollows. It was suggested a year or so ago that speed accounts for only 15% of road accidents - the majority of the other 85% are cause by poor driving skills and poorly maintained roads.
Bringing a blanket 50mph limit is a cheap way of bringing the accident rate down by making vehicles travel slowler - false assumption? I think so.

Travelling at 50mph on a perfectly safe road is going to lead to greater frustration - people travel on roads to get to work, get home, shopping trips, days out and time is a very precious commodity. People will still overtake but will now be getting points on their licences as councils will not be prepared to put more police on the roads but will enforce this with series of average speed cameras.

Another way to shaft Mr and Mrs Public in the UK.

Reason 92938 to leave the U.K

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Did some trips.
Rode some bikes.
Fix them for a living.
Can't say anymore.