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aj444 wrote:The A50 into Leicester is now a continuous 40 from Markfield to Groby, just half a mile remains between Groby and the A46 at NSL. To make matters worse it's a favourite haunt of the camera vans (even in the dark)....
Do they use camera vans in the dark?
When I've been setting record times between Belfast and Derry, I've relied on the fact that's been the middle of the night.
yup and they work too
I've no idea if they are type approved - having not (yet) been caught I've not asked.
New infra red lamps will be deployed on our mobile camera vans from Monday 23rd January to increase the ability to record excessive vehicle speeds on our unlit roads.
Leicestershire never toyed with using them at night. They just use panda cars in really random (i.e. rural) places. If that doesn't scare you into slowing down, I don't know what would.
Seriously, though. That means one less patrol car available for immediate assistance (though I guess they're also 'on the road' and ready to roll, if required).
Berk wrote:Leicestershire never toyed with using them at night. They just use panda cars in really random (i.e. rural) places. If that doesn't scare you into slowing down, I don't know what would.
which publishes the results of the first year of the Portsmouth 20mph scheme.
so report shows a small statistical reduction.
i could show a major reduction by bringing the man with RED FLAG back
sorted.
What you need to ask in a FOI request is how many roads now have average speeds over the limit, and what has been the effect on the fastest drivers on the roads.
fras wrote:Just what are all these speed limit cuts meant to achieve ? In the "Good Old Days", all urban roads were 30 mph, although there was no limit on country roads, and the old MoT introduced the higher 40 mph limit so that certain suitable roads in towns could be raised to improve traffic flow. There used to be a lot of 40 mph roads, and statistics showed this limit was the one with the highest level of compliance without enforcement.
So was the old logic wrong then ?
Well they're busier now, and I don't mind a 60 mph limit on non-dual country roads, but mostly it's the massively risk-averse and personal responsibility-averse nature of modern British society. Protecting fools from themselves and changing the world to do so no matter what else it does is seen as the only thing worth doing.
fras wrote:Just what are all these speed limit cuts meant to achieve ? In the "Good Old Days", all urban roads were 30 mph, although there was no limit on country roads, and the old MoT introduced the higher 40 mph limit so that certain suitable roads in towns could be raised to improve traffic flow. There used to be a lot of 40 mph roads, and statistics showed this limit was the one with the highest level of compliance without enforcement.
So was the old logic wrong then ?
Well they're busier now, and I don't mind a 60 mph limit on non-dual country roads, but mostly it's the massively risk-averse and personal responsibility-averse nature of modern British society. Protecting fools from themselves and changing the world to do so no matter what else it does is seen as the only thing worth doing.
By continuing to pour this "grit" into the system, I can't help thinking it is contributing to the appalling productivity of our economy compared to other nations. I don't think we can get away with no limits at all, but there needs to be some serious thinking and also use of some commonsense. The DfT speed limit circular of 2013 states that, for rural roads to be 60 mph their characteristics should be: -
" Recommended for most high quality strategic A and B roads with few bends, junctions or accesses."
Note the artful use of the word "strategic". This gives almost carte blanche for any highways department to reduce every road in their county to 50 mph or less. After all, it will be argued, Highways England is responsible for the strategic road network so, ergo, there are none in the local roads network.
Helvellyn wrote:
Well they're busier now, and I don't mind a 60 mph limit on non-dual country roads, but mostly it's the massively risk-averse and personal responsibility-averse nature of modern British society. Protecting fools from themselves and changing the world to do so no matter what else it does is seen as the only thing worth doing.
It is not just protecting fools from themselves but other people from fools as well. On more than one occasion I have had to do a crash stop and/or pull my car as far left as I could to avoid a fool who overcooked it on the bend of a rural road or worse still decided to overtake on the bend and exited on my side of the road. This spot was a favourite which is why they put in a 50 limit and double white lines after a particularly nasty head on fatal.
In fact between 2005 and 2105 there were 3 fatal crashes within a mile of each other on this innocuous looking stretch of road around the Larkins Road junction. Two of them were head on at one of the bends. The other was motorcyclist who lost it on the bend and was crushed by his bike when it went in to the ditch. There were also two injury accidents at the Larkins Road junction one of which left a driver as a quadraplegic and put his wife in hospital for 6 months. The road is actually very dangerous with poor sight lines due to hedges and dips in the road and its also rather unforgiving by virtue of the deep drainage ditches along the road side. Apart from the injury incidents the local tow truck gets a lot of business pulling cars and vans out of the ditches. The last I saw was a delivery driver who had driven on to what he thought was the verge to look at his map and suddenly found his van laying on its side. A weed filled metre deep drainage ditch looks just like a grass verge.
The road was downgraded from the A603 to the B1042 because Cambridge County Council wanted to discourage its use after the A428 and A505 were dualled. It didn't work, drivers have not forgotten the route which it still links the sections of the A603 at Wimpole and from Sandy to Bedford. It is also used to get to the A1 Southbound at Edworth thus avoiding the Black cat and the traffic congestion down the A1198 through Bassingbourn so is rather busier than your average B road as the Google Streetview shows. In fact having regularly used the road for over 20 years I would say it was busier than ever. All that downgrading accomplished was to reduce the level of maintenance and ensure a poorer road surface. The cats eyes that used to be on the road when it was the A603 have mostly gone and the white lines showing the road centre and edge have worn badly and not been renewed.
fras wrote:Just what are all these speed limit cuts meant to achieve ? In the "Good Old Days", all urban roads were 30 mph, although there was no limit on country roads, and the old MoT introduced the higher 40 mph limit so that certain suitable roads in towns could be raised to improve traffic flow. There used to be a lot of 40 mph roads, and statistics showed this limit was the one with the highest level of compliance without enforcement.
So was the old logic wrong then ?
Well they're busier now, and I don't mind a 60 mph limit on non-dual country roads, but mostly it's the massively risk-averse and personal responsibility-averse nature of modern British society. Protecting fools from themselves and changing the world to do so no matter what else it does is seen as the only thing worth doing.
By continuing to pour this "grit" into the system, I can't help thinking it is contributing to the appalling productivity of our economy compared to other nations. I don't think we can get away with no limits at all, but there needs to be some serious thinking and also use of some commonsense. The DfT speed limit circular of 2013 states that, for rural roads to be 60 mph their characteristics should be: -
" Recommended for most high quality strategic A and B roads with few bends, junctions or accesses."
Note the artful use of the word "strategic". This gives almost carte blanche for any highways department to reduce every road in their county to 50 mph or less. After all, it will be argued, Highways England is responsible for the strategic road network so, ergo, there are none in the local roads network.
Exactly so. Some ex HE roads are still regionally important, even if they've been detrunked. By that, I mean there is no other viable connection with the rest of the trunk network - so traffic levels tend to mirror those still on the trunk network.
That begs the question whether detrunking was the right decision after all...
A few years ago, they were proposing that the speed limit on the A690 in County Durham be cut from 70 mph to 50 mph. I'm not sure what became of those proposals, though.
Helvellyn wrote:
Well they're busier now, and I don't mind a 60 mph limit on non-dual country roads, but mostly it's the massively risk-averse and personal responsibility-averse nature of modern British society. Protecting fools from themselves and changing the world to do so no matter what else it does is seen as the only thing worth doing.
It is not just protecting fools from themselves but other people from fools as well. On more than one occasion I have had to do a crash stop and/or pull my car as far left as I could to avoid a fool who overcooked it on the bend of a rural road or worse still decided to overtake on the bend and exited on my side of the road.
Putting aside the question of them being the ones to ignore the limits anyway (what else do you do, really horribly over-engineer everything and make the country rather more dull and unpleasant to live in as a result?) the more you take away the need to act responsibly the less responsible people will become. The net result may still be less people being hurt, but what a dreadful mere existence that is. A lot of the time I'd rather take my chances with the fools.
Any measures that'll only specifically affect them, go right ahead.
A lot of roads round here currently have measurement strips in place. There are two strips about a metre apart so it could be either speed or volume. If it's volume then fine but they are positioned close to roundabouts which means if they're monitoring speeds then traffic will be travelling a lot less than the posted limit. Now the cynic in me suggests this is an underhand tactic to record artificially low speeds to legitimise a speed limit reduction. Anyone else agree?
How would you like your grade separations, Sir? Big and complex.
The twin tubes are usually used for traffic volumes.
Local authorities reduce speed limits without the need to fabricate evidence so any suggestions of conspiracies to fiddle data seem a trifle far fetched.
Bryn Terminally cynical, unimpressed, and nearly Middle Age already. She said life was like a motorway; dull, grey, and long.
Whilst the cynic in me tends to agree with you, these traffic monitoring strips are mainly used to measure traffic volume. At the moment they seem to be everywhere in and round Crewe and Sandbach. Of course, whilst many councils will deny it, their highways road safety departments do seem to have been captured by the 'Blob" in recent times. Why else are virtually all Derbyshire single carriagway 'A' roads now 50 mph for instance ?
Truvelo wrote: Now the cynic in me suggests this is an underhand tactic to record artificially low speeds to legitimise a speed limit reduction. Anyone else agree?
I'm not following that logic. Surely if someone was looking for an excuse to "do something", they would want evidence of traffic speeds being high, not low.
Truvelo wrote: Now the cynic in me suggests this is an underhand tactic to record artificially low speeds to legitimise a speed limit reduction. Anyone else agree?
I'm not following that logic. Surely if someone was looking for an excuse to "do something", they would want evidence of traffic speeds being high, not low.
I was thinking more along the lines of if the majority of the traffic is travelling well below the current limit then the relevant authority will use it to impose a lower limit. Most of the strips I've seen are on rural roads. Some are where the limit changes from NSL to 30.
How would you like your grade separations, Sir? Big and complex.
Helvellyn wrote:
Putting aside the question of them being the ones to ignore the limits anyway (what else do you do, really horribly over-engineer everything and make the country rather more dull and unpleasant to live in as a result?) the more you take away the need to act responsibly the less responsible people will become. The net result may still be less people being hurt, but what a dreadful mere existence that is. A lot of the time I'd rather take my chances with the fools.
Any measures that'll only specifically affect them, go right ahead.
I wouldn't class applying double white lines and a 50 mph limit on a dangerous series of bends as 'over-engineering' but your mileage may differ.
Truvelo wrote: Now the cynic in me suggests this is an underhand tactic to record artificially low speeds to legitimise a speed limit reduction. Anyone else agree?
I'm not following that logic. Surely if someone was looking for an excuse to "do something", they would want evidence of traffic speeds being high, not low.
If councils follow the guidance of speed limits being in line with the mean average speed, or the 85th %ile under the old regime, then carrying out speed surveys where drivers' speeds are artificially suppressed would give the council a good pretext for carrying out further speed reductions. (I'm not saying that is what is happening here, but that's the logic behind it!)
If drivers are typically driving above the speed limit and accident rates are low then that suggests that the speed limit is set appropriately or too conservatively, and so should not be lowered. If drivers are typically driving above the speed limit but accident rates are high then the drivers do not recognise the danger on the road, and so lowering the limit further will be ineffective – different measures will be needed.
The 2013 guidance is quite clear that speed limits alone are not sufficient where roads have a bad accident record. However the biggest change is basing speed limits on average speeds not the 85th percentile. This automatically reduces virtually all A roads to 50 mph, because of the lower limits for commercial traffic. As overtaking is almost impossible on SC roads during daylight hours due to the traffic, all traffic must, perforce, proceed at the speed of the slowest vehicles so basing on average gives false values IMHO.
Incidentally, the Guidance gives no intellectual back-up to this change of speed limit assessment.
Bryn666 wrote:The twin tubes are usually used for traffic volumes.
Local authorities reduce speed limits without the need to fabricate evidence so any suggestions of conspiracies to fiddle data seem a trifle far fetched.
Twin tubes are used for traffic volumes and speed measurement. Use them all the time to obtain volume, use class of vehicle and mean and 85th percentile speed of vehicles.
The reason, and wait for the irony, so many rural roads have been cut to 30 mph, that highway authorities will not accept Manual for Streets visibility splays unless the recorded speeds are under 37 miles per hour. I have had to put a DMRB splay in on a 30 mph road when the 85th percentile speed was 41 mph. When I queried why it is not being enforced the reply, not in writing, was it is a political environmental limit and the police will not enforce it. Worse offenders, Oxfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Hampshire, West and East Sussex
