When the Economy is Shot, Bash the Motorist

The economy is in the doldrums, and in my opinion us in Great Britain are suffering more than most other nations due to a decade or more of governmental short-sightedness.

So what does the government do? Introduce plans to try and further curb one of the few areas of independence left to the ordinary citizen, no doubt hoping to deflect attention away from the thunderclouds overhead.

What a waste of time.

Schools

Firstly, the idea of introducing a 20 mph limit around schools is laughable. In my town many parents will drive their precious offspring in their Mitsubishi L200’s the few dozen yards to the school gate - and if they can’t park within an inch of the gate because other inconsiderate parents have taken their place, they go ape. For me, to be able to drive at even 5 mph past a school would be pleasant, instead of trying to manoeuvre past an obliquely parked 4×4 (because the parent can’t reverse-park so has to go in front first leaving their tail end to obstruct all and sundry).

Rural

Secondly, in many rural roads it is not possible to drive at the national speed limit of 60 mph. To try and drive at even 50 mph is often nigh impossible, and often 40 mph is pushing it due to bends and the nature of the road.

Revenue Generation?

Some time ago I was driving down a bypass near Newark on my way to Lincoln and used this stretch of road. It’s the A46 and you have a single carriageway, then pass two roundabouts, continuing north-east on a lovely safe relatively straight dual carriageway, with crash barriers to keep the traffic separate. The single carriageway has the national speed limit, where I think I averaged 45 mph - a reasonable speed for that particular road. The lovely safe dual carriageway has imposed on it a 50 mph limit and I was in no hurry as I was early for my business meeting, so poodled along at 45-50 mph.

Fortunate for me that I did, for within a mile of driving on this road, over the brow of a hill I spotted a traffic constable with his LTi 20/20 Laser gun, popping drivers as they came into vision. In the next layby were four motorcycle outriders parked waiting for the radio call pointing out their next victim.

The moral of the above is that speed limits set often have bear no relationship to safety. To have driven at 60 mph on the single carriageway would have been suicidal; at 70 mph on the latter would have been a safe and reasonable speed - albeit unlawful.  To do so would have invited penalty points, increased insurance premiums plus a small fine. An outcome that seems decidedly unfair to me.

This entry was posted on 28/04/2009 at 06:33 pm and is filed under Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.