Speed Limits Seen as Targets

[BIGDOG]

Must disagree with you and agree with Pontoneer on this.
I was in charge of a few drivers (all young) at work who apparently could not move unless the TomTom told them which way to go. I gave one an address to take some urgent fittings to the emergency team waiting on site, 20 minutes later I looked out the window and he was still sitting in the works car park. I went out and he explained the TomTom had been left switched on and the battery run flat he had plugged it back in and was waiting on the battery recharging to find out how to get there, but it was slow in accepting a charge. I have had that happen to me, so it was possible.
I told him, he knew the area well enough to get within a mile of the address, start heading there and the TomTom will have started working by the time he got near, or, get your smartphone out and look up the address on Google maps? He said, I didn't know you could do that!
I started work in an age when we had no A to Z maps books, let alone smartphones or sat navs, we headed in the direction we needed to go and if we couldn't find the address we stopped and asked someone. All the old guys when I started knew the district like the back of their hands, not only could they find most addresses without any help, they could tell you the what side of the street the gas main ran and what size it was!
Problem nowadays is young people do not need to retain any knowledge like this as they have so many other options which means they have basically stopped thinking for themselves.

In your example I’d say that the recruiting manager needs talking to about his screening and interview skills.

 

[Dryce]

I started work in an age when we had no A to Z maps books, let alone smartphones or sat navs, we headed in the direction we needed to go and if we couldn't find the address we stopped and asked someone.

I used to have a mid 1960s AA gazetteer and road atlas of England & Wales - and another late 1960s one of Scotland. And in the 70s had newer editions (my recollection is that they were smaller). These contained detailed road atlas and a reasonable amount of distance information marked on the maps.

AA Road Book of England and Wales. H/B 1965. Atlas/Itineraries/Gazetteer | eBay

Filled with itineraries and mileage charts. Fourth Edition. 616 pp Size: 19 x 25.5 cm.

www.ebay.co.uk

These predated the big floppy road atlases that seemed to take over by the early 1980s.

I can also recall touring maps - showing major roads but not enough detail for the minor ones.

 

[rf065]

In your example I’d say that the recruiting manager needs talking to about his screening and interview skills.

These guys originally worked for a contractor company that we took over and were all TUPE'd employees, so no interviews.

 

[rf065]

I used to have a mid 1960s AA gazetteer and road atlas of England & Wales - and another late 1960s one of Scotland. And in the 70s had newer editions (my recollection is that they were smaller). These contained detailed road atlas and a reasonable amount of distance information marked on the maps.

I'm not talking about finding towns or maps of the city centre etc, we're talking about specific streets, especially new build estates of which there were many which sprung up after the war years. Even today with all the modern info, you move into a new estate and it will be a nightmare getting deliveries as your street is not on any maps.

 

[chic0821]

What a great forum, every day is a skool day. I always thought the speed signs meant you had to achieve that as a minimum to keep the traffic flowing. Dose not say anywhere on the sign it's a maximum. I'm forever tooting at people doing under whatever the sign says

 

[BIGDOG]

What a great forum, every day is a skool day. I always thought the speed signs meant you had to achieve that as a minimum to keep the traffic flowing. Dose not say anywhere on the sign it's a maximum. I'm forever tooting at people doing under whatever the sign says

It’s been so long since I had a speeding conviction (yes, tempting fate) that I’m in the mind frame of just going as fast as traffic allows outside of known speed cameras. I quite rarely even look at the speedo.

 

[TC350]

These are usually warnings rather than limits. And the problem I have with them is that they are so conservative that people tend to ignore them. Which means that one of these signs place on the entry to bend where it is a 'real' warning then it is too likely to be ignored.

Reminds me of the time several centuries ago when a couple of friends and I rode our bikes up to North Wales for the annual Dragon Rally. As we approached the Welsh border every bend had chevrons displayed warning of the severity of the bend. Even though I was on a notoriously bad handling Bonneville it was soon apparent that the warnings were over cautious.

I was well in the lead when I sighted a left hand bend ahead without any warnings. It was obviously something to be negotiated with ease at speed. Oh no it wasn’t. I scraped a foot peg before drifting across a thankfully empty oncoming lane and sliding several feet down the grassy slope. All blind bends are treated with respect now.

 

[ALFAitalia]

I saw a proposal a while back (on a car forum so not official) that we stick to the 70 mpg motorway (or 3 lane DC) limit.....but make the outer lane a 70mph MINIMUM lane. Lets face it, until speed cameras, it pretty much was. Obviously we would need standards (easily policed by modern cameras with a little AI assistance) to control aggressive tailgating (personally I find the morons not moving over because "I'm already doing 70 so why should I let him pass" far more annoying than someone who wants to pass getting a bit close....just pull over and let him pass).....and Im not sure what the top speed allowed should be....say 85-90. No small/slow cars allowed....again easily policed by ULEZ type tech. Should help free up congestion a bit and keep things moving.

I'm taking cover now....fire away!!

 

[markjay]

I saw a proposal a while back (on a car forum so not official) that we stick to the 70 mpg motorway (or 3 lane DC) limit.....but make the outer lane a 70mph MINIMUM lane. Lets face it, until speed cameras, it pretty much was. Obviously we would need standards (easily policed by modern cameras with a little AI assistance) to control aggressive tailgating (personally I find the morons not moving over because "I'm already doing 70 so why should I let him pass" far more annoying than someone who wants to pass getting a bit close....just pull over and let him pass).....and Im not sure what the top speed allowed should be....say 85-90. No small/slow cars allowed....again easily policed by ULEZ type tech. Should help free up congestion a bit and keep things moving.

I'm taking cover now....fire away!!

You've described a German Autobahn!

 

[TC350]

I saw a proposal a while back (on a car forum so not official) that we stick to the 70 mpg motorway (or 3 lane DC) limit.....but make the outer lane a 70mph MINIMUM lane. Lets face it, until speed cameras, it pretty much was. Obviously we would need standards (easily policed by modern cameras with a little AI assistance) to control aggressive tailgating (personally I find the morons not moving over because "I'm already doing 70 so why should I let him pass" far more annoying than someone who wants to pass getting a bit close....just pull over and let him pass).....and Im not sure what the top speed allowed should be....say 85-90. No small/slow cars allowed....again easily policed by ULEZ type tech. Should help free up congestion a bit and keep things moving.

I'm taking cover now....fire away!!

There appear to be far too many motorists already confused by our existing regulations. An additional one like this would render them even more of a hinderance.

 

[BTB 500]

No small/slow cars allowed....again easily policed by ULEZ type tech. Should help free up congestion a bit and keep things moving.

I don't think there are any cars on sale that won't do 70 mph ... think the slowest is actually an EV (Dacia Spring - 78 mph).

So if people would be allowed to do 71 mph in a 'fast/big' car then why not the same speed in a 'slow/small' car?

My mate Dave tells me that a 1.0 Citroen C1 will comfortably exceed the motorway speed limit, even up hills (without having to drop a gear either). Top speed is 98 mph, AFAIK all similar 'city cars' will do over 90.

Obviously we would need standards (easily policed by modern cameras with a little AI assistance) to control aggressive tailgating

The German autobahns have had gantry cameras doing that for years - my father in law got nicked by one

They're simply triggered if less than X seconds have elapsed since the previous car passed.

 

[ALFAitalia]

You've described a German Autobahn!

I don't think they have different limits for different lanes though......Of course although you can go fast, their advised limit is just 81 mph...130kph.

 

[Pontoneer]

What a great forum, every day is a skool day. I always thought the speed signs meant you had to achieve that as a minimum to keep the traffic flowing. Dose not say anywhere on the sign it's a maximum. I'm forever tooting at people doing under whatever the sign says

It is in the know your road signs section of the Highway Code .

As every qualified driver SHOULD know , a maximum speed limit is denoted by a circular sign , white background , red border and the maximum speed indicated in black figures .

A minimum speed limit is denoted by a circular sign , blue background with a white border and the minimum speed denoted in white figures .

 

[Pontoneer]

I feel a minor irritation when I read posts like this.
Young and old people have a different outlook on life, it doesn’t automatically equate that one is better than the other.
For balance it appears to be rare that a younger person will pontificate about oldies without provocation.

Incidentally, there are other reasons to use sat nav such as rerouting due to otherwise unknown traffic issues plus speed camera warnings, even pothole and broken down vehicle alerts.

I find my car radio pretty effective at advising me of traffic hold ups ahead , be they due to incidents or simply road works . As for speed cameras , I tend to comply with speed limits so don’t worry about them , only once in the last 25 years suffered damage due to a pothole , and that was because it was full of rainwater and looked just like a puddle . The one previous time was on a private road , long before satellite navigation ( but not before traffic information decoder , which I first had in 1976 ) , and which even today would not be covered by satellite navigation .

 

[Pontoneer]

Must disagree with you and agree with Pontoneer on this.
I was in charge of a few drivers (all young) at work who apparently could not move unless the TomTom told them which way to go. I gave one an address to take some urgent fittings to the emergency team waiting on site, 20 minutes later I looked out the window and he was still sitting in the works car park. I went out and he explained the TomTom had been left switched on and the battery run flat he had plugged it back in and was waiting on the battery recharging to find out how to get there, but it was slow in accepting a charge. I have had that happen to me, so it was possible.
I told him, he knew the area well enough to get within a mile of the address, start heading there and the TomTom will have started working by the time he got near, or, get your smartphone out and look up the address on Google maps? He said, I didn't know you could do that!
I started work in an age when we had no A to Z maps books, let alone smartphones or sat navs, we headed in the direction we needed to go and if we couldn't find the address we stopped and asked someone. All the old guys when I started knew the district like the back of their hands, not only could they find most addresses without any help, they could tell you the what side of the street the gas main ran and what size it was!
Problem nowadays is young people do not need to retain any knowledge like this as they have so many other options which means they have basically stopped thinking for themselves.

Further to that , apart from the possible brain damage caused by holding a microwave transmitter next to your brain , often for prolonged periods of exposure , the other mentally debilitating effect of mobile phones is that no one can remember telephone numbers anymore .

While we may have had lists in our diaries or Filofaxes back in the eighties or earlier , it was pretty normal for any business people , or others who regularly used telephones , to retain phone numbers not only of friends and family , but dozens if not hundreds of phone numbers of business contacts .

These days I don’t commit phone numbers to memory , because I don’t have to ; the downside of this is , if my mobile phone runs its battery flat , if I drop it or lose it , I have no way of finding numbers I need ; there are hardly any public phone boxes anymore , and of the few that remain , I doubt you will find a telephone directory in them , besides it being the case that many people opt to be unlisted , and many more don’t have landlines , so wouldn’t be listed anyway .

Sometimes change is a step backwards rather than progress

 

[Pontoneer]

I saw a proposal a while back (on a car forum so not official) that we stick to the 70 mpg motorway (or 3 lane DC) limit.....but make the outer lane a 70mph MINIMUM lane. Lets face it, until speed cameras, it pretty much was. Obviously we would need standards (easily policed by modern cameras with a little AI assistance) to control aggressive tailgating (personally I find the morons not moving over because "I'm already doing 70 so why should I let him pass" far more annoying than someone who wants to pass getting a bit close....just pull over and let him pass).....and Im not sure what the top speed allowed should be....say 85-90. No small/slow cars allowed....again easily policed by ULEZ type tech. Should help free up congestion a bit and keep things moving.

I'm taking cover now....fire away!!

The limit is still 70 on DCWs , unless signed otherwise , regardless of how many lanes they have .

 

[ALFAitalia]

??? Never said it wasn't. Biut I don't think my proposal would be a good idea on roads with less than three lanes.

 

[Pontoneer]

??? Never said it wasn't. Biut I don't think my proposal would be a good idea on roads with less than three lanes.

The way your post was formatted , it reads as though the limit on DCWs is 70 only if there are 3 lanes .

 

[ChrisPDuck]

Sometimes change is a step backwards rather than progress

I respectfully disagree with regard to mobile phones. Remembering a phone number is little use to me if my phone's battery is flat, and on the rare occasion that it does go flat I can usually find a way to recharge it long before I need to make a call or I can find a phone box.

Anyway, apropos of nothing, I was googling 'Luddite', and I found this gem in the Wikipedia entry: "Mill and factory owners took to shooting protesters...". Those were the days eh - when we could just shoot protesters! I guess that's another example of change that isn't progress. (just kidding, obviously)

 

[MSG2004]

I respectfully disagree with regard to mobile phones. Remembering a phone number is little use to me if my phone's battery is flat, and on the rare occasion that it does go flat I can usually find a way to recharge it long before I need to make a call or I can find a phone box.

You can have a dead mobile but often there is someone else around with a mobile. TBH, I can't recall any mobile number as I'm a landline man.
Recently, about a year ago we had our landline number changed because foolishly I accepted a tv/bb/landline deal - they did not make clear re change of number and on the day it was too late. It took me a while to memorise that. I've had my mobile number for 26/28 years can't recall it nor of my children or Mrs M's . The landline I can recall inc the previous one and the one's from the previous two homes we lived in.

In tv soaps, yes they are soaps I get it but when a lag calls from prison on a landline I'm surprised they can call the mobile number of the person they are call or when they've lost their mobile or dead battery they borrow someone else's phone and start dialing

In the old days, I never really got lost using a map as it was a planned trip. Now, with a satnav, I have missed turnings on roundabouts even when travelling a bit slower than usual and a few times missed an exit on a motorway. Now, with Mrs M as co-pilot, we are okay. She keeps track of signs and speeds, especially those narrow country lanes heading to Eastbourne from London and the variable speeds.