I think ultimately me and you arent gonna agree on speed laws Moto so I will hold off for the sake of us pointlessly bashing our heads together.

That Towcester road is a bit of a beast, I know it well, I will admit it makes 70 seem a bit of a joke even during the day, suprised you got away with 140 though lol.

Are you from around the Towcester area?

I get ya.

And yeah, plenty of dangerous drivers going the speed limit let alone speeding.

Moto70 wrote:

I'm a firm believer that there is a massive difference between speed and careless driving, any fucker can get on a bike or a quick car and go fast but it shocks me just how many think that makes them a good driver.

You are wrong and if you need to be told why, you shouldn't be allowed behind the wheel at all.  No wonder you've been banned, though it seems you haven't yet learned your lesson.

EDIT: Admittedly, I'm blowing off steam a little as I was forced into making a 15 mile detour today when a wanker in a BMW decided to undertake a whole bunch of people, then cut me up and forced me to miss my m'way exit.

I always obey proper lane discipline.  There was a slow-moving middle-lane camper in front of me who wasn't helping matters, but that's no excuse for undertaking.

Excessive speed (fast or slow) is only one part of bad driving, sure - though, if UK RTI statistics are to be believed, excessive speed was a factor in 25-30% of fatal collisions in recent years, iirc.  Quite possibly the person that was driving too fast sometimes wasn't the one that performed the stupid manoeuvre or ran the red light or etc that caused the collision to occur.  Fact is though, if the fast driver had been going at a sensible speed, not only might the collision not have had fatal consequences, but they might have had more to react and been able to avoid the collision altogether.

That aside, the main issue is that people can be astoundingly careless, lazy, rude, impatient, aggressive, unaware and generally lacking in intelligence and common-sense.  Then they go out on the roads and all sorts of shit happens as a result.  I see all sorts of stupendously bad driving every day too but all I can do is drive as defensively as possible and hope that I can thus avoid getting tangled up in potential clusterfuck.

I'm sure I'm by no means a perfect driver but I try at all times to be as responsible, courteous, law-abiding and intelligent about it as possible, whilst trying not to get too pissed off with other people's stupidity and rudeness.

If anybody is line for some breakdown cover I've just gone with Start Rescue, just under £60 for full cover inc. Personal Cover (you are covered for any vehicle you are travelling in) and they have an app where you don't even have to ring them, just hit the button and let your iPhone's GPS do the rest...

When I say good driver I am not talking about setting blistering times from A to B or being able to drift the local roundabout, I am talking about being aware of your surroundings and anticipating the actions of others so in that respect I do think I am a good driver. I am also not that stupid that I don't realise most people class themselves as a good driver but 4 drivers I saw on the schoolrun this morning made me wonder exactly what their test incorporated.

Moto70 wrote:

... I am talking about being aware of your surroundings and anticipating the actions of others so in that respect I do think I am a good driver. ...

You might want to add "obeying the rules of the road" and "low probability of causing a fatal accident" to your list of qualities of a "good driver".

I'd welcome a reform of driving test that makes everyone resit a test every ten years or so and which makes the initial qualification much more demanding too. I'd suggest that before anyone can get behind the wheel on their own for the first time, they have to pass a DVLA-set course of instruction and be examined in a modular fashion rather than the one-off test that is required now. You have to pass all of the individual modules within say a couple of years to be issued with a full licence.

Watch you don't go getting in any of those metal-tube things then. I hear they fire you across the Atlantic at ridiculous velocity.

djchump wrote:

You might want to add "obeying the rules of the road" and "low probability of causing a fatal accident" to your list of qualities of a "good driver".

I will when you show me somebody that has always obeyed the rules of the road.

Would you be kind enough to give me your opinion on this. When I was banned for speeding the first time it was in a car, I broke the law and was punished for it, rightly so, with the removal of the licence for the vehicle I was driving but this also included the removal of, in effect, a second separate licence. One for which I sat a different test. Is this fair. You will probably say yes. So for breaking one of the highways laws but causing no distress or injury to anybody or thing I had 2 licences removed from me. Yes I know that had I stuck within the law this would not have happened so I really have no argument to put forward, and the only reason these laws are there is to protect people. That's it. They're not to stop us enjoying ourselves, they're not to raise revenue, they are simply for our own protection.

Fast forward a couple of years and I was riding down our seafront on a 125cc scooter I had at the time with a work mate on the back. We were taking advantage of the lovely weather we were having to go and eat some chips down the harbour during our lunch break. As is usual with me in built up and heavily pedestrianised areas I was riding within the speed limit and taking note of everything around me.

I was riding with my lights on even though it was daytime, which again is something I always do, I had noticed the car parked illegally on double yellows on my left, I had noticed the coach dropping of its passengers further to the right, the family with small children near the kerb I was especially wary off as you never really know what children will do, my mirrors were showing me there was nothing behind and I noticed a car waiting to pull out of a side road. I kept watching the car waiting to pull out until I saw eye contact, and even then this was still my main focus with quick skirting glances to make sure everything else was as I expected.

Within 12 feet of the car and travelling at just under 30mph the driver pulled out, I had absolutely no time to react other than a quick grab of the brakes but the levers had barely moved before we hit the car. We hit the car just behind the front wheel. My passenger was thrown over the top of me and through the windscreen, upside down and backwards so his rucksack took the brunt and left him with just a few small cuts. I meanwhile firstly hit the front part of the bike with my legs taking most of the force before I too was thrown upwards and headfirst through the windscreen. I suffered severe lacerations to both legs and a fracture to my right tibia, my arms suffered just minor cuts.

The police and ambulance arrived and I was carted off, I was subsequently informed by the police that according to witnesses and their own investigation the driver of the vehicle was 100% to blame for this accident and he would be prosecuted. His punishment for causing 2 injuries and writing off both vehicles was a driver awareness course. No fine, no endorsements, no ban.

So yes you and anybody else can keep harping on about speeding being such a massive danger but I'll keep on in my belief that it is actual drivers themselves that are the main factor in almost all crashes based entirely from my own experiences in which never has excessive speed been a factor.

Moto70 wrote:

djchump wrote:

You might want to add "obeying the rules of the road" and "low probability of causing a fatal accident" to your list of qualities of a "good driver".

I will when you show me somebody that has always obeyed the rules of the road.

HELLO.

@djchump: Nope, nothing, not a fine, not a point, zilch. I couldn't believe it when I got the letter from the court. He had to attend a half day driver awareness course at his own expense so that was sort of a fine but if you're looking at black and white he was not fined.

I just let my insurance company deal with the claim (I vehemently hate the 'where there's a blame' culture), my bike was paid off (it was 3 months old and on finance when it was written off) and I received just over £2,000. This was the total amount for loss of earnings (I had to use a week of my holiday) around £400 at the time, £930 for both crash helmets, £160 for clothing with the remainder being for injuries.

My mate pushed more for his and got just over a grand for some cuts on his arm and when I see cuts I don't mean lacerations, just tiny little pinpricks like a shaving cut!

I do realise that speed is the main factor in the devastation caused when an accident does happen but people have to realise that more often than not it isn't the cause of the accident. In my accident it played no part at all other than the injuries it inflicted, if it had been in a 60mph limit then there is a high chance that I could have been killed but the fact still lies in that the accident was caused by the driver. If a driver loses control because he was going to fast I'd argue that the speed wasn't the cause of the accident but it instead lies with the driver's own recklessness. It's a grey area I know and people will point to motorway pile-ups as a valid indicator that they are right whereas I would point to the fact that again people are the ones fucking up, they can fuck up in a car park just as easily they can fuck-up at speed.

I saw an accident on the M5 happen right in front of me, a car veered left in front of a lorry and then seconds later came hurtling across into the central reservation, in the process it immediately took out one car which in turn caused another to spin. I dropped from the outside lane to the middle and went through the carnage all in the space of a few seconds. This was possible because I was aware, I knew where the lorry was that was overtaking and I could see the paths the spinning cars were taking so I knew that a quick jink to the middle would see me through it. If I had the misfortune of being in the place where the car was that got collected then I would have had no option as there was nothing he could have done. Yes speed was a factor but the fault still lies with the fact hat a driver turned to abruptly and paid the price.


@igorgetmeabrain: You were sat in the wrong lane of a motorway only a few posts ago, I'd say that could be classed as driving without due care...

igorgetmeabrain wrote:

I was not in the wrong lane. I had moved out to overtake.

How did a car undertake you then?

Confused as to why you were over taking when your exit was close enough that one other car could make you miss it.