I was taught on a motorcycle to keep up with the speed of traffic even if it meant exceeding the speed limit.
This is safer than being pushed into the hard shoulder.
Am I reading this wrong?.
When you say hard shoulder, are you talking about motorways? If so then I doubt that excuse will get you off a speeding charge? (unless you have a very smooth talking advocate)
When teaching inexperienced motor cyclists to ride their bike, I would always advocate placing their machine in a safe position on the highway and never ride close to the kerb as this encourages car drivers to ignore the rider or overtake them far to closely.
Am I reading this wrong? I thought rovinghawk said speed was set by the council? (local government?) His point was they didnt specialise in road safety. .
I cannot see any mention of local government and a local council will have road safety committee's that deal with these very important issues.
Who should set speed limits if we do not allow local councils via their designated departments to do it? Internet warriors? Arm chair critics? Vigilante groups? The local rally club?
I am quite vocal about some limits but I accept the law is the law and perhaps it is far easier to criticise as opposed to legislate?
in this very important issue then who should set speed limits?
rovinghawk said:
Crap. They are set by government via local councils pandering to the wishes of road safety fanatics, many of whom won't be happy until the man with the red flag walks in front of cars again.
His post is total tosh and I say this with the greatest of respect.
We constantly read about local residents attempting to lower the speed limit for their specific area, but these so called
These 'fanatics'
take an awful lot of convincing and contrary to what is being suggested, altering speed limits is usually way down the list of options.... mini round-abouts, sleeping policeman and chicanes are all usually installed before limits are even considered.
On this forum we hear about local folks carrying out all types of demonstrations trying to get limits lowered, but it is very rare for a local authority to listen and when Portsmouth won their battle, it made the National TV, and the front page of the national press. Local residents were also in favour and not one of them talked about so called 'men with red flags'
After submitting my post I was thinking back to my instructor days and when taking the instructors course the 30mph speed limit was sacrosanct. We were constantly told that exceeding this limit by ANY margin would be an instant failure.... No crying to mamma, no saying:
Ah- rubber stamp 'justice' according to diktat rather than judgement and discretion; who needs thought and judgement?
In town then as an instructor I would ALWAYS encourage a pupil to keep up with the flow of traffic IF
a) They were competent enough to do so
b) it was safe to do it.
This advice MUST be given with a huge amount of discretion and to make it a blanket, or generalised statement is wrong.
This keeping up with traffic because it is breaking the speed limit seems to me to sound like one of those urban legend type claims but just like everyone else I have travelled along the North Circular in London and I fully accept that everyone may well keep up with the flow, but we run the gauntlet of being 'snapped' and if that happens then I doubt the courts will accept our excuse of 'keeping up with the flow'
I am no silly nor stupid and folks will always want to do wheelies, or break speed limits, but there is a time and a place
On an advanced course we learn to make progress in a safe, enjoyable, satisfying and very rewarding manner. I used to have students travel down from Bristol to join my courses and for the first few lessons it would not be unknown for students to be soaked in sweat from excessive nervous concentration, this training is not either dictatorial, nor boring, BUT I hope the standards are still maintained and the 30mph limit is strictly enforced? (question)
Whew.....
Regards
John the speeder
