Back in Somerset there was a lot of evidence that the speed limits were set by who shouted the loudest. The road through the village of Somerton is NSL even though it is twisty, has high walls and trees on both sides to restrict visibility and houses fronting right on to the road; but at the other extreme just a mile up the road there is a 30 limit along a long, straight section bordered by low hedges and fields with a few houses all set way back from the road. You can’t help wonder whether any of the occupants of those properties have anything to do with the decision making process.
Hi Cath, yes, as you have seen, I can become quite animated over cameras, although I don’t universally detest them (**1). The probable reason most drive at 60 on your road is that it is a natural speed, one that people feel safe driving at, whilst on that stretch. I would guess you feel safe doing so too. And yes, time and time again a few drivers will prove they are not sensible. The inexperienced and the young will also make all too frequent errors of judgement. One thing that annoys me is that the fines/points will be applied regardless of past record, no lenient magistrates as for the first time vandal, the first time burglar or mugger. No one to quote your previous unblemished record.
A friend had 38 years driving without so much as a parking fine, no accidents, nothing. He was flashed at 36 in a 30 zone. No compassion, no consideration of his clean record by the police. I donned my amateur barrister hat and got him off the hook in the magistrates court. It was fun! I believe that for such first offences, or for a small excess over the limit (say up to 40 in a 30 ) there should be a system of stroppy warning letters first, recognising that factors such as I mentioned in the earlier post do exist. Thus treating the motorist in a similar way to other offenders.
It is hard not to see cameras as cash raising machines, when, as reported in news just yesterday, one camera took 22,000+ pounds in just 4 hours. In round figures at that rate it would have totalled a million pounds in a week. One “idiot” every 36 seconds?..or was the area perhaps signed badly or inappropriately?
BBC: “A single speed camera caught nearly 400 speeders in just four hours, clocking up more than £5,000 an hour in fines.”
**1: there is ONE camera I detest. I sometimes stay with friends: some of you may even know them : John and Zyllan: both ride unicycles. They have a GATSO camera outside their house which constantly flashes through their front bedroom window. I hate that one: really messes up my sleep when I stay.
I do agree on some of your points. My next door neighbour got ‘done’ and has had to attend a 3 hour ‘school’ on the dangers of speeding. I think she was doing 35 in a 30 limit.
Yet in some places I believe that the speed limit is not low enough. They show horrendous adverts of a ‘kill your speed not a child’ that show how much better it is to hit a child at 20mph than 30, yet streets where children play rarely have an official speed limit of 20mph.
As this thread is now discussing UK speed limits I thought I’d just mention that a vehicles speedometer is typically only within 10% accurate. This means that, as I understand it, there is some leniency in speed cameras i.e. if the speed limit is 40mph then you should only get a ticket when your going 45mph and above. Of course you can’t just go 44mph and think you’ll be OK as your speedometer could be out by 10% and you’ll be doing more than 48mph. This has another side effect, you could be driving behind someone you think is going slower than the limit and they think they’re going faster than the limit yet you’re both going spot on the speed limit!
From my experience when I use my GPS in my vehicle the speedometer always shows a lower speed (typically 10%) than the GPS which, according to Garmin, with a good signal ought to be accurate to about 0.5mph.
I’ve got a clean license and I’d like to keep it that way so I try to drive within the limits but most of all I try to drive safely. I do use my GPS with a camera database when I’m driving somewhere I don’t know so that I don’t make a mistake. Heck I spell correctly most of the time but I still use a spell checker!
It might be worth getting it checked , cos they’re supposed to only read up to 10% over the real speed, and never below the real speed. ie. It should never be possible to be flashed if your speedo says lower than the speed limit. Although to be honest it’s probably more likely to be the GPS that’s high, I believe our ones at work don’t give very accurate current speed readings for some reason.
Going back on topic, have you used your wrist mounted GPS for navigation on unknown routes as opposed to just seeing where you’ve been? Any idea how well they work for that?
This or the cheaper 205 are quite nice but aren’t quite the kind of thing I want in a GPS; the screen is rather tiny and it seems to have loads of “training” functions that I don’t really care about. If they make a version of the eTrex with this new chip in it they will probably get my money, but until then I shall remain unconvinced.
Just noticed a pair of new Garmin GPS with SiRFIII: GPS Map 60C and GPS Map 76C- might be worth looking at…but they’re expensive and US-only…Then again, water-proof and they float…very nice.
My usual pattern with gadget buying is that I have a little look around for what I think will meet my needs and is not so expensive. Then I use it, decide which feature I like and don’t like and what extra features I would like and use it until I get fed up with the features I don’t like, or christmas comes or something and then I buy a more expensive one which is exactly what I want and then I use it til it wears out or (more likely) someone releases an even more super dooper model that I have to have.
Yes the better recievers sound better. And floating - fantastic. Just US - a bit of a problem. I was looking at the garmin 60xc originally. Now I would love colour and a bit of fanciness but at the moment I’m a bit low on the cash. Roll on christmas.
Hurrah, new toy has arrived.
In my initial burst of enthusaism and learning about things GPS, I was wondering if anyone had any waypoint data bases or data bases of routes for good off road unicyling?
I wrote ‘lower’ when I meant ‘higher’ - I’ll show you tomorrow.