|
This website is designed and targeted towards those people who wish to learn about speed limits; it is a useful guide to the Police, Highway Engineers, learner drivers, consultants and those members of the public that are confused by the whole subject. This site informs you about the minimum standards and requirements that your local council or government agency (in the case of trunk roads) should have signed the highway, even other Highways staff will find it a useful guide. I have also included a section on speed cameras and their signing. The Government publishes circulars, manuals and advisory leaflets explaining to Councils how to make legal orders correctly, the consultation process, how to sign to a minimum standard to make sure that the driver knows at all times what the speed limit is on that road. Unfortunately in my experience the standard of signing can be quite poor and wording of legal orders quite ambiguous. If you would like to look at the definitive guide for sign speed limits, you will find this on the Department for Transport website dft.gov.uk. The Government has recently consulted with Local Council's on a new guide (chapter 3 of the Traffic Signs Manual pages 97 to 120) to signing speed limits and camera sites and although in its draft form it is expected to be the definitive guide for the next few years. Another document that you will find useful is 'Setting Local Speed Limits' issued on 8 August 2006 which is a guide to Local Authorities and Highways Agency (in the case of Trunk Roads) on how and in what circumstances to set speed limits, it gives a very good description of the legal requirements for speed limits and is very easy to read and understand. Within this document there is a large bibleography of other reference material that you will find handy - these are the documents that Local Council's use. Another publication is 'know your signs' for those who wish to know why signs are different shapes, sizes and colours, this publication and those mentioned are all available on the dft website and downloadable as a pdf file.
I have organised the website so it should be easy to navigate, in total there are 30 pages and you will see the same navigation bars at the top and at the side of each page. The written material and other weblinks are above the page and diagrams at the side.
I have spoken to members of the public, Police Officers, officers in the Council and other organisations and it is surprising how little people know about the basic rules of speed limits. The most common causes of confusion are between 30mph speed limits and street lighting, 30mph speed limits without street lighting, under what circumstances do you make a legal order and do you need legal orders for national speed limits.
The basic rules relating to one of the most important subjects on the highway seem to be the least known about and why people are so often caught. In fact in my teens I was caught speeding on a 30mph street lit road simply because I was ignorant of the rules even though I had driven the same route many times before.
I think that one of the most important subjects on the highway is often overlooked by driving instructors, test examiners and theory tests, it should be one of the most important to be able to understand why and where you have 20 limits, zones, 30/40/50/60/70mph speed limits. I have never seen an advert either on TV, Cinema or the paper to inform and educate the driver about speed limits although there are plenty of adverts proclaiming the dangers of drinking, drugs, reckless driving, driving without tax and the consequences. It appears that in our society the emphasis is punishment first and education second, in my experience up to 90% and probably beyond do not understand speed limits sufficiently to drive at the correct speed on the highway.
The Police adhere to a formulae at and above which they will prosecute drivers who exceed the speed limit, this is - speed limit + 10% +2mph, so for example in a 30mph speed limit the speed at which you would be prosecuted is 30 + 3mph + 2mph = 35mph, for a 40mph speed limit this would be 46mph and for a 60mph speed limit this would be 68mph. In fact as you can see from the speeds it does not take much to unknowingly exceed the limit/ perhaps you were distracted by a passenger or didn't see that last speed limit sign, or you just thinking about something else - as 30mph speed limits are the ones that are most often targeted for enforcement my advice is that if you are in any doubt about the speed limit in a street lit area - stick to 30mph and look out for repeater signs on the lamppost or poles.
Any way, I will leave you to browse at your leisure.
|
|
