[idiotzoo]

Hopefully.

 

[idiotzoo]

The way people slow down without warning or reason when there’s plod or camera alerts really pisses me off. Just don’t speed, and there’s no problem. I suspect most people have no idea what speed they’re driving at, hence the slowing down far too much when there’s a threat of being caught. It’s just shit driving. I always tap “not there” on police or mobile cameras when I’m using Waze because frankly I’m really happy with people being caught.

 

[idiotzoo]

I don't understand that. Surely, if someone in front is travelling beyond the limit and you are inside the limit then the gap between you will be increasing. Even if you were both at the same speed you must be at a safe distance so if that gap is increasing with every metre travelled then that safe braking distance will also be increasing. So why should the car in front slowing down to match your own legal speed cause any comment from you? Your own progress is unaffected and the gap between you is still there.

Of course, you may be complaining about someone who is travelling within the legal speed but reacts to a warning beep as they check that they are indeed inside the limit. That is quite common in areas where the limit changes frequently as it is very easy to be caught that way. That can be annoying but a follower driving correctly has enough space to react, especially as the unexpected slowing could be caused by an unseen incident in front and nothing to do with a speed warning. But such a driver is not speeding at all. Just making sure that they are not a victim of a 3mph infringement.

What I'm talking about is free flowing traffic on a dual carriageway with a 70 speed limit. I'll probably be doing about 65. I'll be passed by lots of folk doing 80... that doesn't particularly concern me btw. Then, when there's some sort of alert, people drop their speed to well below mine.

It's nothing to do with whether I, or anyone else, can react in time. It's not stamping on the brakes.... It's indicative of bad driving where people don't know what the speed limit is, don't know how fast they're going, slow down far too much because their car has gone "bing" as a pavlovian response.

In and of itself it's not a problem but I generally get irritated by people who will flash me to get out of their way because I'm not passing the lorry as quickly as they'd like, then they'll slow me down because they have no situational awareness.

It's a personal gripe and I'm a miserable git who will rightly be ignored.

I do have a problem with speeding in other circumstances though. It's endemic and a big problem imho.

 

[idiotzoo]

It would seem that you have developed a hyper sensitivity to this aspect of driving. That in itself can create tension when driving. Which should be avoided. My own military driver training focussed on observation and gap maintenance with a speciality of personal calmness and avoidance of allowing others actions to cause annoyance or anger. That is usually counter productive. Red mist in a driver constantly finding fault in others driving misdemeanours can lead to needless incidents.

People in a stream of traffic who are all driving a bit above the legal limit is actually far less dangerous than having one 'righteous' po-faced driver amongst them who insists on strictly observing the posted speed and causing them to bunch up and overtake at risky places. In that case the posted speed is wrong and the real life speed is safer. That is the problem there and not your 'endemic' claim that drifting a few miles over an arbitrary limit is a big problem. It just takes a brave politician to recognise that and increase the limit to reflect the performance of modern cars and their brakes. Faced with howls of disapproval from people who have not properly thought through the problem they prefer to keep their heads under the parapet.

Of course, the old argument about increasing the limit on motorways to the 80 mph that people actually drive at would just cause those people to drive at 90 mph, is then trotted out. I don't believe that many would do that. The German experience is evidence of that, even in places with no limit most just drive at reasonable speeds and of course none of that sudden braking syndrome happens as they never hear a limit alert on the SatNav.

The only place that 'speeding' as a sin is actually dangerous imho is in urban areas where cars mix with people, bikes and prams. On open roads exceeding the posted limit by a few miles per hour is far less dangerous and certainly not something for you to get all bent out of shape over if it causes you to be stressed.

Nah, you're right... We agree on this. It's one of the reasons I dislike the camera warnings because it artificially changes behaviour to create weird shockwaves in traffic for no good reason. I'd prefer a much more pragmatic approach to speed enforcement to be honest. Far more lenient on fast roads and quieter times, much stricter enforcement in residential areas.