[Closed] What's annoying you currently? (Complaining now banned)

Exactly the same here in Catalonia. Variable speed limits.....screw them, just another poor excuse to fine as many drivers as possible.

No shit Sherlock.

The problem is that people agree with me but still go out and do it and we let them get away with it to a certain degree. Case in this argument. Soccer mom, three kids, and on the way to pick them up had two glasses of wine (under the blood alchohol limit) strikes down and kills a 70 year old woman crossing the street. She tried to stop but couldn't. Did the small amount of alcohol impair her just enough? She did no time and still drives. I think the law is wrong.
Thomas

You could go round and round(abouts)* on this argument but Steven just made some very valid points. The driving test doesn't teach you how to drive on Britains roads and speed sign are often in places that lead me to think it's no more than a stealth tax.

*sorry

No argument with that. It's wonderful that attitudes have changed so much over the last couple of decades, but there are still some morons who drink and drive. They should certainly get automatic jail time. And using mobile phones (and for that matter smoking or eating or reaching into far corners of the car to retrieve a CD or something) is frighteningly distracting to drivers and I wish those laws were actually enforced.



I entirely agree with your desire for people to drive more responsibly - I think my disagreement is with your assumption that driving faster than the speed limit means driving less safely. Speed limits on Britain's roads were generally set immediately after the second world war. They're just not appropriate any more. If you're going to have strict enforcement, then you've got to make sure you're enforcing sensible speed limits. There's a two-mile stretch of road near where I grew up which had a 30mph limit despite having no houses on it, no school, no parks, hardly even any bends, no pedestrians (it basically just links one trunk road with another) - yet it did (of course) have two speed cameras on it. 60mph was an appropriate limit, not 30mph - and the culture of speeding being acceptable comes from that type of road, where the actual speed limit is so absurdly low.



So many people over here think it's a neat little cash-cow, but as with anything relating to public services in this country, there is so much inefficiency built into the system that I'm sure it ends up costing considerably more than it raises.

Another thing to consider when talking about speed limits and the speed at which you drive is that the faster you drive the less time you have to react to the idiots on the road that we sometimes come across.

I remember when seatbelts were made compulsory in the UK there was someone adamant that they would not wear a seatbelt because they were good enough drivers that they would not get themselves into the situation where they would need to be restrained. They failed to consider the behaviour of other road users.

Keeping speeds down gives you a better chance of reacting in time to whatever happens on the road - though driving within the speed limit may still not be enough to react to what's happening on the road.

My girlfriend probably feels the same about me.

^
Get ploughing then boy

We're all in such a hurry today.
Thomas

But break the law and you should suffer as opposed to a slap on the wrist.

...which is why you should only allow sensible people to drive.

Yeah, that's the dream.

To go off topic for a moment, I remember reading once that North Korea had built the world's most expensive road (through some mountains) and there was an interesting article in a magazine about it. Then right at the end of the article, it mentioned in passing that cars are banned in North Korea except for top government officials.

Frankly I think it's about time we had a North Korea section to the board, not just one thread.

Get a cat Tom, much smarter than mousetraps