Speed awareness course

Well, I'd like to think if the circumstances were presented accurately and understood however there *are* sometimes reasons why you appeared to ignore something, whether the court believes it or considers them to be mitigating circumstances or not.

Not quite ... "Sorry m'lud, I had just had to swerve to avoid hitting a child and didn't *then* spot that the lights had just turned amber in time."

No matter what it might sound like to someone not willing to believe / trust that that was a reason why your attention might have been distracted for the one second it might take to not spot the lights were changing (and / or react accordingly), such situations can and do happen. If they didn't and weren't 'accepted' by the law, *everyone* would *always* get done when suspected of causing or being party to causing an RTA.

Years ago when I was driving my Morris Minor van they were having a 'binge' on vans and I was stopped 6 times in as many weeks. The only one I was actually done for (4 of the other 5 were just pulls

*because* I was in a van and another because I was in a van, 'keeping up with the other traffic that was also speeding' ...[1]) was for doing 65 mph along a dual carriageway, in an otherwise 70 limit because I was driving something *constructed* as a 'goods vehicle'. The local nick said they ('Traffic') had got it wrong and it took a Sergeant friend of mine to go though the library at the Police College at Hendon (that I did regular discos at) to find out exactly how my, taxed and insured private vehicle, ... 'car derived van' constituted 'a goods vehicle' (In hindsight it may have been taxed as a 'PLG' but then I think my estate cars might have also been at the time?). [2]

In my case it was the lack of 'side widows, behind the drivers position of at least 2 sq feet each' (I had the required 2 x 100 sq inches in the rear doors), something I was genuinely unaware of. So, I was hardly in 'a goods vehicle' (as most people would consider it, including the local nick), I wasn't breaking the speed limit for the road, the conditions were clear, dry and the road empty and I wasn't driving dangerously or any risk to anyone. I very much resented taking the endorsement, fine and costs for a first offence and under those circumstances.

I'm not denying I did it and I appreciate that I was technically speeding but was I 'intentionally' speeding or even doing so because of a lack of care or attention and that 'ignorance' should be a defence in all cases? No, because I saw the police car following me but saw no reason to slow down because I was traveling at 7 mph under the speed limit for that road and my Mums Morris Minor saloon (or my Van, had I got side windows etc). ;-)

Cheers, T i m

[1] I would have happily taken a speeding ticket for that occasion because (along with all the other cars on that stretch of road nearly all the time) I *was* actually speeding (by ~7 mph). ;-) [2] Oh yes:

"Private and light goods (PLG) This is by far the most common tax class, covering almost 89 per cent of licensed vehicles. This tax class primarily consists of cars and light vans but can include other vehicles used only for private purposes ... "

And ...

"Goods vehicles Vehicles that have a gross weight of over 3.5 tonnes and are used for carrying goods are taxed in this class. Generally, the rate of tax payable depends on the maximum gross weight and the axle configuration of the vehicle. Since 1999 reduced rates have been available for vehicles that create less pollution."

Hardly likely to make me think that my car-derived van was speed limited at the time eh. ;-)

p.s. I'm not sure if it was different then but now:

"A vehicle qualifying as a ?car-derived van? or ?dual-purpose vehicle? has the same speed limits as a car."

Then that wouldn't be an appropriate time to be doing anything other than (less than) the prescribed 'limits'. ;-)

Similar when you are stuck at 50 mph for miles and miles of cones and no one is working anywhere. ;-)

Cheers, T i m

[...]

I don't.

;-)

Chris

The current breakpoint is car-derived and

"Swerving to avoid a child" is a confession of bad driving / unawareness of potential hazards.

Avoid the M60 ring road then. :-)

I sometimes encounter them between 11 and 11:30 pm, as they turn it into a 'smart motorway'.

Not necessarily. They can be fast-moving things, and they can come from places that you just cannot foresee.

Whilst it could be it in some cases it can't be in *all* cases.

ITRW, if everyone drove to consider ALL potential hazards (dogs / children coming out between parked cars etc) the traffic would grind (further) to a halt. So, the advice is that if we slow_down when passing parked cars ... and still hit a child then we are less likely to kill him / her? Why aren't we told to travel at such a speed that we can *guarantee* we will be able to stop and not hit them at all? Because such is impossible (or at best unrealistic) possibly?

Ok, I'm not advocating not 'driving without due care and attention' but there will always be limits.

I am a pedestrian, cyclist, motorcyclist and car driver and am very aware (especially as a cyclist and motorcyclist) that *every* vehicle I approach that is waiting to pull out of a side turning could pull out in front of me. So, how slow and how far away from them should you go to be able to avoid them when they pull out in front of you?

Do you not go out in the wind in case a tree blows down in front of you that you *might* swerve away from and hit something else?

Do you not go out in the winter (or only travel at 5mph if you do) in case you hit some black ice and run into something else?

Do you not go out on a sunny day in case a reflection temporarily blinds you and you crash into something?

What I am suggesting is there will always be those situations that are, by all reasonable standards (and laws luckily) 'unavoidable' to a good extent. Living has a risk of death after all. ;-)

Everything could be avoided with hindsight of course and I'm not including 'if I wasn't sending that text', or 'smoking and dropped the thing in my lap' as two of them (as they could both be easily avoided). ;-)

Cheers, T i m

p.s. Is all the above is said by someone who has stepped out in front of a moving vehicle and been over the top of it.

Like any hedge lined private drive on any country lane (I've had the cr*p frightened out of me when avoiding runaway footballs etc).

Whilst it's great to be able to expect the unexpected, you would simply be driven off the road if YOU tried to do so these days. ;-)

There have been many occasions when we (people who normally like to make 'good progress') have pulled over to allow some tailgater to overtake, simply because we didn't feel comfortable with them trying to push us on (or us holding them up if the conditions favoured them, like when we are riding a fully loaded motorcycle towing a camping trailer in the wet and being followed by a sports car).

Cheers, T i m

Or where the footpath emerges onto the lane here, f'rinstance. About a foot above the surface of the lane, right on the crest of a serious roller-coaster with zero visibility, at a point where both mirrors are tickling the shrubbery simultaneously.

I was a rear-seat passenger in my father's car once when we were driving along somewhere in the East End, and as we came alongside one shop, in a streetful of shops, a small child ran out and literally bounced off the side of the car. My Dad was, to put it mildly, quite shaken. The child was unhurt, at least by the car; how it was after it got home I can't say. This was in the days when "Wait 'till your father gets home" really meant something. Absolutely nobody could have predicted that that child would run out like that, I can still remember it, and it was many years ago.

On Mon, 28 Dec 2015 18:05:18 +0000, T i m wrote:

Not too different from my first ( out of two) speed convictions .

Dual carriageway approaching Arundel in Sussex, Police car in a lay by indicating his wish to come out so I move from lane 1 to lane 2 so he could do so. Seconds later I'm also about to come up to a tractor and trailer in the days when they only moved at about 15mph so I would have moved into lane 2 anyway and pulling over and decelerating rapidly to 15 mph to get out of the way of the police car which meanwhile has done a racing car start from the lay by and is sitting about 4ft from the rear doors of my Escort Van doesn't seem sensible so in order to not impede his passage I increase speed until clear of the tractor and then pull back into lane one. Instead of disappearing up the road on some urgent business his rapid departure would seem to indicate the bastard pulled me over and said he was reporting me for doing 60mph in a Van while saying " I'd have done you even if you were driving a Mini Van because they are limited as well". This was a matter of months before the limits for car derived vans were altered to be the same as cars so I reckon the sod wanted to have one example for his collection. That incident changed me from being a broad supporter of the Police with no convictions other than the speeding offence or even hostile interaction with any Police to someone who still only has two speeding offences as convictions and nothing else but who since then would not Piss on a Policeman if he was on fire. Fuck em all.

G.Harman

Ok ...

With you so far ...

Lovely.

You never know.

Yup, and whilst I know how you feel, my experience (1 in 6 stops in 6 weeks, 'taken further') still allowed me to generally be supportive of them and their role, even if not quite so pro-actively (like I might previously have stopped at an RTA to offer assistance I didn't bother from then on), which is a shame.

;-)

Cheers, T i m

My dad was taken to court for speeding on the M11, the Police that stopped him claimed he was travelling at 110 (quite likely) they also wrote down that he was in a Sierra, when he went to court and pointed out that it was an Escort (turbo, of course) The case was dismissed after he pointed out that if they could not identify the car correctly then there was a good chance they got other stuff wrong too.

Yup, and if it's somewhere you have traveled regularly and never seen anyone ...

We live on an urban back street cross roads where a straight ahead bit (off the main road as such) is a short dead end. So, there is very little (but not 'no') traffic *from* this dead end so the locals get used to it being clear 'all the time' and often just pull out. ;-(

A non local wouldn't know it was lightly used and stop because it was a crossroads (and has the markings for such).

Cheers, T i m

In pushing 45 years of driving I have had one camera flash me.

19 shit years of owing/driving taxis, 14 years of working nationwide. HA!

Oooerr!

I bet.

I remember those days.

Yup, these things do stick in your mind don't they ... like when an animal effectively commits suicide in front of you ... nothing you could have done but it's still not nice and difficult to 'just forget' (the bigger the animal the longer it takes).

And that's another example of where no matter how careful, slow you are moving or observant you are, these things can (and do) still happen. ;-(

Cheers, T i m

And that's the point isn't it, whilst I feel a bit sorry for the poor Police person(s) (and the system) for having to let another one 'get away', it's very very important in the name of justice that such errors do get thrown out.

What if it wasn't his car that was speeding that they stopped ...

In my Dads case it was 'if they can't get their duty start time right within 30 minutes, how likely are they to be able to accurately judge time in seconds (even though ITRW the two things are completely different).

Cheers, T i m