I want to find out if people agree with me that SLOW drivers are more dangerous on the roads than speeders. I refer to people who drive on long open roads where for example the speed limit is 60, visibility is good and it is dry, and you are on the road for 20 or so miles with no good place to pass, a few windy bends but nothing major:
Who would you imagine be the more dangerous... someone doing 80 but managing to keep the car under control, or someone doing 30, followed closely by a long line of people who are either too scared to overtake, in a car they feel doesnt have the power to overtake, or too content to also do 30.

in my opinion its the slow driver, YOU are going to be late if youre stuck behind this moron/s for the full 20 miles, cue road rage! which will most likely only drive YOU to BECOME the speeder above as soon as the idiot is gone.

this also extends to motorway driving... if you want to drive at 60mph then FINE just GET OUT OF THE MIDDLE/FAST LANES! middle lane hoggers are one of my major pet hates... people should keep as LEFT as possible unless overtaking. if I can undertake YOU then its YOU who is in the wrong!! YOU should be further left so there isnt space to undertake!! and if youre going to overtake 2 trucks who are overtaking each other, you should be PREPARED TO SPEED UP! the highway code states you shouldnt enter a road if you will cause one or more drivers to reduce speed (if they choose to speed then they may be wrong but you cant cause them to slam on which is only likely to cause an accident) in which case if you move over to an overtaking lane and cause a mass of people (all be it speeding or not willing to do 60 like you!) to slam on which causes huge tailbacks and more road rage!


in my opinion speeding never killed anyone, stopping instantaneously killed people. if you can handle the car under the speeds and the conditions are fine for it then it isnt a problem if you dont crash. however driving painfully slow only delays people and causes a LOT of road rage and therefore encourages the bad drivers the government like to moan about so much!


you want to get rid of accidents so badly then punish the people who drive so slow as well as the ones who drive recklessly.


[end of rant]

magificent couldnt have put it better

I just love old people that do 20mph in 60mph limit winding country lanes, even at the proper speed you can struggle to react to them.

But if the government punished slow drivers then they wouldn't be able to collect their expenses (sorry, speeding fines) from the 'safety' cameras, yeah right, they put on the one bit of overtaking road in the 20 mile run.
And they won't be able to preach to us about keeping the speed down while being driven at speed (useualy excessive) in a police convoy 'for their own safety'. I wouldn't pi$$ on them if they were on fire let alone attack them so i'm not quite sure what they need protecting from

Have you ever thought that they might be going slow on purpose if you have just come screaming up behind them? I must admit that whist I normally drive at the speed limit if someone is up my butt my foot seems to mysteriously ease off the gas.

Haha. Loving how everyone hates slow drivers more.

Speeding i dont personally mind, as long as it isnt too fast and doesnt interfere with mine.

Speeders don't hold me up, old people do.
Anyone who knows Norfolk will know the A47 acle straight, its 7 miles with just one wide open bend in it, except for a few meters near the bend (where theres also a junction) its 60mph, however if you exceed 40mph you are lucky, its an accident blackspot, with regular fatalities because of overtaking, surely im not the only one who thinks that if everyone flowed along faster then there'd be less fatalities as there'll be a lot less overtaking. Oldpeople who do 35 in a 60 might think they're safe, but they cause more accidents than speeders. It is possible to fail a test for this, if you do go onto a national limit road. although you don't have to reach 60, you will have to show you have the confidence to do more than 30, if nots its a minor. If you don't speed up, and someone gets held up, then you can be given a major (instant fail) for obstructing other roadusers.
Having said that there are people who excessively speed, usually in german cars do need slowing down. In modern cars 80 or 90 is safe, 130 isn't.
Maybe we should try and get new laws, saying that if theres good conditions you have to drive at least 80% of the speed limit, you can't go on a road where your car can't reach the speed limit (increase all speed limits to 40 to make G-Wizz's and chavs on mopeds illegal!), and also make it illegal for lorries move out of the left hand lane.
O, and all horseboxes and caravans should be fitted with ANPR cameras, so drivers can identify and compensate anyone caught up in their inevitable traffic jam.

Time to stir it up a bit.

In my opinion it doesn't matter whether the car is now deemed capable of taking road conditions at a higher speed than in the past (and indeed a higher speed than the legal limit). All cars are still driven by human beings, none of which are infallible, all of which are likely to experience moments when concentration is impaired; take the simple sneeze for instance and work out how far you can travel at 70 mph whilst partaking in such a natural occurance. Maybe not so bad on a quiet stretch of motorway but consider it when driving on a twisting A Road with traffic entering and leaving your lane.

It may be said that speed in itself doesn't kill, although it proportionately accentuates the effects in a traffic accident, if not being a cause (reduced reaction time etc). Remember, despite your own feeling of being in control of your own car, you have no control of those around you (vehicles, pedestrians, wildlife), and I would expect road speed limits take all this in to account.

There's no doubt been occasions when most of us have felt we're the best driver on the road and any one in front is just an inconvenience, if not an obstruction. These are the times for a reality check. It's not that much of an embarrassment to sit back in such a car and follow the slower vehicle in front (in fact there are times when it does the opposite of stressing me out and gives me time to chill a bit).

My view is be thankful for the licence you have and look after it as you'll probably not appreciate it until you lose it. Speeding being one way of amassing the points required to hand it over.

the motorway speed limit should be adjusted depending on traffic and weather conditions. there i no reason why on an empty motorway with good conditions that 130 isnt safe aslong as the driver can control the car at those speeds.
motorways with new adjustable speeds limits have much better traffic flow aswell.

dual carriage ways and many country roads, can also be safe driven at high speeds.

also agree that faster sports cars are safer. cars without a sports set up feel so unstable and there limits feel much lower which is dangerous.

at the same time though country roads wouldnt be set at 60mph if it wasnt safe to do so, at least in parts. if the government or councils found one TINY reason that 60mph wouldnt be safe then it would be down to 40 before you could even ask why. so a road that has been deemed safe to drive on at 60mph is surely safe to do 60, so why are so many (mostly old people lets be honest) so insistent that 60mph is far too dangerous and 30mph is the fastest safe speed?
im sorry but if youre too scared to drive on certain roads at the speed limit then in my opinion that equates to being unfit to drive on them. in the last few days ive had to anchor on when doing 50 on country roads round my girlfriends way that i know well to be safe as houses to do at least 60 on, because people pull out of a junction into my road and wont accelerate past 35. now come on if that isnt dangerous what is?
since having my licence ive had to do trailer licence (b+e) as a requirement for a signals technician in the army. this is done by bsm so it was back to driving to test standards after - at the time - 3 years of driving, and remarkably i only got praise form the instructors for driving to proper standards... however i was advised because i was towing a trailer to do 29mph on the test as the examiners HATE squaddies for speeding, so i did.
now in my main test years ago i got 2 minors, on my trailers test i got 9... 8 of which were for "TOO HESITENT" because i was doing 29mph.

now im not talking about people who wanna do 130 on the motorway, thats just ridiculous. i think if the motorway limit was raised to 80 or 90 people wouldnt go much faster, theyd just not be breaking the law. i dont think people that massively speed think "im going to do 40mph over the limit so il do 110" as over 30mph above the limit its licence gone anyway, i think they just want to do 110 lol.
i mean speeders as in 10 or 20mph over the limit where its not reckless to do so but its socially taboo, despite the fact so many people do it. i just hate the fact that the government find it so easy to say "anyone who speeds in any circumstance is dangerous and all accidents are their fault" rather than really look into what causes accidents.

i had a crash last year, my own fault for buying an mg i suppose lol, i was bombing down an open straight country road when i sneezed, foolishly i had my foot over the brake and the jerk of sneezing had me stamp on the brake and it spun (one wheel locked as the abs decided to try and kill me) and i went backwards into a tree. all the police saw was a young driver and even TOLD ME that the reason i crashed was because i went round the "corner" too fast and lost control.... the "corner" in question i passed about 500m previously, i crashed on a straight section of the road, it was just an accident by any other name. ok i was doing 70, in the same circumstances i would have still crashed at 60 but like i say, all they care about is "speeding" and hope that they can justify having another camera put in to make more revenue.
yet i dont considder what i was doing to be dangerous at any point, i was under complete control until i stamped on, which even at the time i thought "oh no what did i just do!?" but in the end im glad because i lost the mg and got a coupe so speeding is surely good hahaha


but seriously my point is that mild speeding doesnt slow people down, mild speeding doesnt cause road rage. ok it gives you less reaction time, but taking into account braking distances were worked out on ancient cars with paper maché brakes, the overall stopping distance is probably the same, maybe still a little less. im not asking for the s[peed limits to be raised, i think people some people will still speed regardless, and noone will ever agree to the changes anyway. all im asking is that people ACKNOWLEDGE the fact that slow drivers are AS dangerous if not MORE SO by indirect means.

Like your point on braking distances. Does anyone know whether the highway code has considered a revision based on improved braking performance or is it still too soon due to a number of older cars still in existance or cheaper end production cars still not demonstrating significant difference from the previously published statistics ?

no,not many people do cos not many people ever read the highway code after they passed their test.
i recently went for a coach driving assesment for the first time in 20 years.
after about 2 minutes the examiner said-"what sign did we just pass daz"
i hadnt a bloody clue.
we really do need a driving assesment forced on people when they have accidents or the police deem it prudent.for example i recently followed a silly old duffer(in coach)doing 34mph in a sixty zone.now that sixty zone is 50mph for me.i was'nt up very close on him or pushing him in any way but i needed to get to canterbury and i was feeling myself urging him on.got a clear stretch of road,and thinks "ey up"foot down" gearbox drops 2 cogs to 10th off i shoots overtaking him.whats he do? only speeds up to about 45.i drops foot right down drops to 8th and starts to overtake.truck comes round bend at end of straight.now im halfway past but does he slow up?no keeps going.i gets in front-with a slightly less than reasonable gap to the truck and whats the old fart do? starts flashing his lights and waving fist out of window.i ignores and keeps going.comes onto a straight and guess what? he comes up along side doing about 55,and cuts me up to get in front and shoots off.im thinking dickhead.but when i get round the next bend im behind him again doing 34mph.slow drivers cause flustration and accidents.if you want to tootle about thats your perogative but pull over and let others who want to go fast go past you.never mind all this "look at this f ing truck driver right up my arse"-why is he there-cos your holding him up!!!! get out of the sodding way then you can tootle along to your hearts content.sometimes i drive slow-i have to on sightseeing tours etc-but i constantly pull over and let traffic past so as not to annoy anyone.as for all you "slow drivers are the safest" out there-you imagine how flustrated you feel when you follow a jcb thirty miles down a winding road-thats how we feel when we follow you.

soon you wont be doing any more than 70 on the motorway anyway.ever noticed all those nice gantrys they are putting up everywhere for variable speed limits? same as the m42 they are working on the m6 now.they ALL have speed cameras every mile.so all they have to do is turn them on to say national speed limit.when the signs are on the digital cameras operate at whatever speed shows on the signs.speeders are now officially being made a thing of the past

I know what you mean about the habits mate ... thankfully my driving instructor really was brilliant and instead of teaching me he drummed out the bad habits before he started teaching me lol! Took ten lessons to do but worth it now I suppose, wouldn't of passed without.

thankfully neither of my parents took me out, which i hated at the time, but it ment any habits i did learn were either of my own accord or from my driving instructor. it wasen't my intention to upset or belittle anyone i just thought it was a good example of how bad habits form, evolve, worse and kill

can i just say at this point if you had seen tris gorgeous girlfriend in the flesh and you was an examiner...........you wouldnt refuse her a license either!!!!
she's gorgeous!!
now him.........he's just........ok i suppose

tris thats a shame but there you go.the fact is mate..........somebodys got to be ugly.just keep amy away from specsavers