Speed camera detectors

yangreen · Post by **yangreen** » 29 Mar 2005, 23:11

You missed the fact that Ms Castle didn't even drive!
Perhaps as part of the driving test, people should be made to get up to 70mph on a track and suddenly find a cardboard road crash over the crest of a hill. When they discover that they don't have a chance in hell of stopping, they may feel a little differently about blatting along on the motorway at 100mph!

Kowalski · Post by **Kowalski** » 30 Mar 2005, 00:09

They do headlights that go around corners now, I wonder when they'll do them that can go over hills too....

FrenchLeave · Post by **FrenchLeave** » 30 Mar 2005, 00:36

Kowalski is right, of course; Drivers' eyesight hasn't improved. The human eye was presumably designed to operate on closing speeds of 30mph (2x15), so let's have all speed limits set at 15mph. Better still, let's have a man walking in front with a red flag. But we have learned to look well ahead and, hopefully, interpret what we see.
It is accepted that most traffic on motorways drives at 80+ and yet there are very few motorway accidents. There are also very few blind hills on motorways with cardboard road crashes ahead of them. The secret is, and I repeat for your benefit, to travel at a safe speed. Certainly I regularly used to travel the 200+ miles between Paderborn and Aachen on the Autobahn at a steady 90mph in safety in 1969.
If you want to improve driving standards, then throw away the seat belts and drivers airbags and have a large spike sticking out of the steering wheel hub aimed at the driver's chest. As they say in university exams - discuss.

yangreen · Post by **yangreen** » 30 Mar 2005, 00:59

You don't need a spike on your steering wheel. Just buy a 2cv! You'll never break the motorway speed limit and you'll work bloomin' hard to avoid having an accident! People really do seem to place an awful lot of trust in modern cars with their safety systems but as Fifth gear proved, hit something solid at 70mph and an airbag is sod all use.
Has anyone else heard of that state in America that repealed the law that bikers had to wear helmets? Biker related deaths dropped. We need something like that hear to stop bikers driving around like such loons although I'd've though the lack of any sort of protection other than a hard hat would make me ride sensibly! I'll stick to four wheels...

uhn113x · Post by **uhn113x** » 30 Mar 2005, 14:11

<blockquote id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Originally posted by yangreen

You don't need a spike on your steering wheel. Just buy a 2cv! You'll never break the motorway speed limit and you'll work bloomin' hard to avoid having an accident! <hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote">
If a 2CV cannot exceed 70mph, there is something wrong with it [:(]
Having driven thousands of miles in various countries in A-series, I never had the impression that I was working hard to avoid accidents - no more than usual, anyway.

bxbodger · Post by **bxbodger** » 30 Mar 2005, 20:35

<blockquote id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">If you want to improve driving standards, then throw away the seat belts and drivers airbags and have a large spike sticking out of the steering wheel hub aimed at the driver's chest. As they say in university exams - discuss.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote">
Regarding steering wheel spikes and airbags,have a look at this, on the ABI site, comparing road death rates from 1966 to now-
http://www.abi.org.uk/Display/File/364/ ... h_2005.pdf
Deaths have more than halved!!!The ABI put this down to safer cars, as driving standards and attitudes haven't changed, but the cars have, and they should know-its their members who make the payouts.
I would not dream of letting my kids bounce around the back of a car or sit in the middle on the front bench like I used to- it was normal then, there were no rear belts, or front in a lot of the cars we had!
Now, in 1966 the steering column was more or less a chest height spike, and there were no airbags-I rest my case, m'lud!!
A bad driver is a bad driver wether he's driving a fully loaded airbagged pretensionered abs etc new car or a Morris Oxford- he will still drive badly, he will still crash, but he will now survive rather than die.

Kowalski · Post by **Kowalski** » 30 Mar 2005, 21:47

Darwin's theory of evolution didn't take into account cars with airbags, pretensioners, abs etc....

turbolag · Post by **turbolag** » 30 Mar 2005, 21:49

<blockquote id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Originally posted by FrenchLeave

If I remember correctly, the 70mph dual/60mph single carriageway speed limit was introduced by the red witch, Barbara Castle, in 1967. At that time most cars' max speeds were no more than 80mph with chassis performance commensurate with their speed. <hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote">It was introduced as a bit of knee jerk 2 2 seperate incidents. In the first, a car magazine tested an Shelby Cobra 427 at 180 mph on the motorway. Then, as if people weren't aghast enough at that, some eejut has a crah in an E type on the M1 near Luton and lays down skid marks something like half a mile long, such was the speed at which they were belting.
There was allegedly some science behind the 70/60 limit as it was allegedly determined to be close to the upper limit for human reactions in the event of the unexpected occuring. Whilst modern vehicles may have compensated for this somewhat with better brakes and active safety systems, the psyche of the modern driver has in turn detraced from this with more bad driving habits and practices than ever, no doubt in part to there simply being more cars than ever, and hence making the driving regs even more important to adhere to.
I hate some speed limits as much as anyone else, and some do seem truly barmy, but I stick to them for the sake of a clean licence and keep my thrashing tendencies in check for track days.
People always whine on about empty motorways at midnight (though i'm out at all hours and the only empty ones i've ever seen have been on Christmas night, or following a closure) but the unexpected can and does occur, like the blowout thatnearly killed my brother at a relatively pedestrian 70 on the A5 (dual carriageway) in Milton keynes, or the or the elderly lady that inexplicably ran out in front of my Dad on the M40 some years back, whom he mowed down and nearly killed. Not his fault, be he still shows angst when it's mentioned now. Hed he been doing 10 over, instead of 10 under the limit (he was slowing to come off) there can be little doubt she'd be pushing up daisies, and it's a miracle she lived as it is.

ActivaV6uk · Post by **ActivaV6uk** » 30 Mar 2005, 22:03

Going back a bit, the comment about making learner drivers drive on a track with hidden obstacles is a good one. After writing off a vectra (and my BX estate) on a blind corner 10mph under the speed limit I can tell you it would have made me thing twice about travelling in fast in directions i cant see in...
Andy

np · Post by np » 31 Mar 2005, 01:27

Well,what a can of worms i opened up here![:D]
Tend to agree with ALL the comments on here.I`m not saying i speed everywhere,but so many speedlimits have been reduced.A lot of the A roads on my way to work at the mo used to be 60 mph,now there 50 mph.Nice straight roads,no blind junctions,bends etc.
If speed camera`s reduce road deaths/accidents,i`m all for them.But it seems to be a lot of them are put on dead straight roads,with no history of accidents.[V]
I like the scheme that some police force`s are doing.If you get done for speeding,you can do a road safety awareness course instead of getting a fine/points.Looking at pictures of accidents/being lectured to is proberly more affective than a fine.(hence why they do the course).[:)]

FrenchLeave · Post by **FrenchLeave** » 31 Mar 2005, 01:58

One interesting thing about the before and after discussion is the fact that braking distances on dry roads haven't reduced. Without aerodynamic downforce, the maximum deceleration is still 32.2 feet per second per second (9.81 metres/s/s). Wow, half mile skid marks. That's 280 mph on a dry road!

turbolag · Post by **turbolag** » 31 Mar 2005, 18:45

It's actually in the Guniess book of records as the worlds longest skidmarks (cars, not underpants). Bear in mind that crossply tyres of the 60's had all the adhesion of a well lubed piece of ice and you can see how mad the driver was to be travelling at any real speed at all. Indded, may fast cars of that era were renowned for their aerodyanic lift over 80 mph - The Miura, Pantera, Griffo, and XKE were all prone to this.

weety · Post by **weety** » 01 Apr 2005, 01:08

now it seems to me that the thing about speed cameras is you cant really put them anywhere but long straight bits of road.......imagine if they put cameras halfway round bends for instance.... everyone panic braking mid corner etc etc etc......as long as the average drivers reaction to seeing a camera is to brake hard best give him somewhere safeish to brake......cant say i like them but with the amount of money they raise i cant see them ever disappearing

fastandfurryous · Post by **fastandfurryous** » 02 Apr 2005, 18:18

<blockquote id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Originally posted by FrenchLeave

Without aerodynamic downforce, the maximum deceleration is still 32.2 feet per second per second (9.81 metres/s/s).
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote">
Not necessarily. This assumes that the maximum co-efficient of friction is 1, but that isn't the case. To get a co-efficient of friction higher than 0.8 is quite hard on a concrete road, but it's entirely possible to have ultra-soft compound tyres, on a hot sticky tarmac road and have a co-efficient of friction of say 1.2. Conversley, if you're on ice, the co-efficient might be 0.15
If you have aerodynamic downforce, the frictional co-efficent stays the same, but because the normal reaction from the surface is increased to counter both the mass of the vehicle, and the downforce, then the maximum accelerative force is increased.

FrenchLeave · Post by **FrenchLeave** » 03 Apr 2005, 00:04

Oh dear! I didn't want to get into "when I was a lad" mode but here we go. Reference Turbolag's comment about slippery sixties tyres, way back in the early fifties road test cars were regularly recording stopping distances of 30 feet from 30 mph - and that equates to 1g deceleration and a coefficient of friction of 1. This was, of course, on dry roads. The problem with braking from high speeds wasn't tyre grip, it was brake fade. This was overcome by the introduction of disc brakes. I remember that J.K.L.Setright did a series of articles on tyre developments in, I think, "Car", in 1968. He concluded that the best road tyre around was the Firestone F1. I fitted them to my then car and found them to be much more responsive than any others I tried - but the braking performance was no better. The major differences between those tyres and modern ones are in their wet weather performance and tyre wear.I don't read modern car magazines because they seem to be interested in appearance rather than technical information (form over function), but I will be amazed if your modern road cars can stop from 30 mph in less than 30 feet.
Concerning Fastandfurrious's sticky tyres with a CF of 1.2, presumably this is due to the "cogging" action caused by tyre deformation into the interstices of the road surface. But I thought we were discussing road cars where tyre wear is important. AS for a CF of 0.15 on ice (you should be so lucky!), anybody who doesn't know that ice is slippery stuff shouldn't be driving. Incidentally, has anyone tried wet wood blocks?