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[Marks DTM Calib]

There are plans to make the entire inner city in Nottingham a 20mph zone

[Bigron]

There are vacancies about to be advertised for persons, male or female, to carry red flags in front of all horseless carriages.....

Ron.

[Lizzie Zoom]

There are plans to make the entire inner city in Nottingham a 20mph zone

I think more and more large towns and cities will be going down that route.

As for London that I can speak for, you are very lucky if you can average 20 mph when travelling across it!

As for red flags Ron, I do not think they are necessary now; congestion is so bad that traffic is naturally slowing down to red flag speeds. Two years ago I went back to driving almost the whole length of the M6; it was really just a giant car park and took me the whole day (12 hours) to travel what I regularly travelled in the 1980's in about 3 hours at most!

[TheBoy]

There are plans to make the entire inner city in Nottingham a 20mph zone

Well I guess that's an improvement on the shitholes like Oxford, who have been hell bent on banning all vehicles apart from dirty, smokey buses from the city centre for years.

And they can't work out why businesses are moving out....

[TheBoy]

when there were far, far fewer cars around, children, including me, forgot all about what the parents and school had taught us (no changes there!!) and ran out into roads for footballs, balloons, or just because we wanted to.

Children today are the same; I know from my experiences with my children and now grandchildren that you can teach and teach children again and again and still they will not do as they are told.  They will, from time to time, run into the road or simply cross when they think there is enough time to do so, and the accident happens.

I don't think its so much the extra traffic (if anything, that slows things), its the way we molly coddle our little bastids in cotton wool, putting them in the car to drive them to school 800yrds away, and drop them off right by the gate (ignoring the keep clear markings), and shielding them from learning things are dangerous.

I also think the quality of drivers has plummeted. I think most of us "of a certain age" couldn't afford a car, so took to the roads on motorbikes.  I think newly qualified drivers lack that complete awareness that motorcyclists usually have. And far too many distractions whilst driving, such as updating their arsebook, twaatter, and drinking their hot Costa.


As for speed limits, I'm all for sensible ones.  For the most part, I'm against long stretches of 50mph where it should be NSL, and I'm mostly against 20mph limits, that are purely in place because those that should be on the cull list like the sound of their own voice.

[Lizzie Zoom]

when there were far, far fewer cars around, children, including me, forgot all about what the parents and school had taught us (no changes there!!) and ran out into roads for footballs, balloons, or just because we wanted to.

Children today are the same; I know from my experiences with my children and now grandchildren that you can teach and teach children again and again and still they will not do as they are told.  They will, from time to time, run into the road or simply cross when they think there is enough time to do so, and the accident happens.

I don't think its so much the extra traffic (if anything, that slows things), its the way we molly coddle our little bastids in cotton wool, putting them in the car to drive them to school 800yrds away, and drop them off right by the gate (ignoring the keep clear markings), and shielding them from learning things are dangerous.

I also think the quality of drivers has plummeted. I think most of us "of a certain age" couldn't afford a car, so took to the roads on motorbikes.  I think newly qualified drivers lack that complete awareness that motorcyclists usually have. And far too many distractions whilst driving, such as updating their arsebook, twaatter, and drinking their hot Costa.


As for speed limits, I'm all for sensible ones.  For the most part, I'm against long stretches of 50mph where it should be NSL, and I'm mostly against 20mph limits, that are purely in place because those that should be on the cull list like the sound of their own voice.

Now TB that is very true, an angers me.  My mum, and I with my kids, walked half a mile to the school and back, twice a day, without any need for a car.  There is a whole generation now that know nothing but having a car on the drive and going everywhere in it; and society wonders why we have fat kids (and adults)!! It is so noticeable when the children have school holidays; the "rush hour" is almost non-existent! 

As for driving a motorbike; now that is something I would question.  I have never driven a motorbike but consider myself, with one million miles under my seat, a good driver, with added input from police training.  I think though the difference is now that youngsters think it a right to have a licence, and when they get one believe they are the best drivers in the World, zooming around in racing hatchbacks.  In my day we scrapped together money (in my case £15) for the humblest little car I could afford and knew I was lucky to have a licence, along with understanding getting the licence was just the start of learning to drive to the standard more mature and wiser drivers met.  I was a novice, and knew it.  How many teenagers think that now?  The ones I know certainly don't.  They think they are God's gift to the roads, and they are the only ones who really know how to drive.  That is why so many under 25 year old's have accidents.

If the test really reflected all the needs of a good driver, including attitude, in the 21st century there would be less of a problem.  But I understand there is some talk about including Sat Nav operation withing learning to drive and the test.  What!!!   For goodness sake, what is that all about?!

That is the wrong approach and is not what is required!

[Rods2]

I think too many of the current generation of snowflakes are brought up so everything is centered around them (especially if an only child) and therefore society and the world owes them everything too. When things go wrong where they wander into the road with headphones in listening to the latest c-rap and are glued to their arsebook smart screen, it is naturally the motorist at fault that has the audacity to invade their personal space as they run them down and it is obviously the motorists fault as they cross that bit of road, between two parked vans, everyday without looking and that ignorant motorist should know that and avoid them, no excuses.

[Kevin Wood]

I don't think its so much the extra traffic (if anything, that slows things), its the way we molly coddle our little bastids in cotton wool, putting them in the car to drive them to school 800yrds away, and drop them off right by the gate (ignoring the keep clear markings), and shielding them from learning things are dangerous.

Very true. Most of my H&S knowledge came from "experimentation" on the building site we used to play on, on the way home from school.

[BazaJT]

When we first moved onto the street we used to live on it was just an ordinary street of terraced houses with cars parked parallel to the kerb and vehicles driving up and down between them with a 30mph limit.Someone then decided it would be turned into a "pedestrian friendly zone".So they ripped up the road surface and the pavements and block paved the  lot with bricks using a line of different colour bricks to show where the "pavement"began/ended.Then at staggered intervals the put in flower beds/trees and decreed that cars would then park either nose or tail in to the kerb and reduced the limit to 20mph.In order to hold to that limit or less I for one had to ride the brakes nearly the length of the road.For most though the speed increased as they treated it as a slalom course and although no one was ever hit there were more near misses after the 20 limit was imposed than there was at 30!Total absence of cameras or police to enforce the new limit of course.

[Doctor Gollum]

Use a higher gear to keep the revs on the floor. Irrespective of the limit, if you've to ride the brakes to keep a speed then you don't have proper control of the vehicle coupled with a failure to read the road conditions.

Rant over.

[BazaJT]

What gear do you pick on an auto while running downhill?

[Bigron]

Starting out on a motorbike DOES teach you good roadcraft (sorry lizzie), because you are ever aware of how vulnerable you are, not only due to the actions of other drivers, but es[ecially road and weather conditions. You learn quicly for instance, that in freezing onditions the road will be treacherous on bends and under trees - without the dashboard display telling you!
The school run is ludicrous - let the little accidents walk! We had to.
The impossible 20 mph limit shows how out of touch with reality politicians/concillors are, in their chauffeur-driven cars. They imposed it simply to be "seen to be doing" something positive, out of "concern" for safety and therefore can sit back smugly, believing that they have done something wonderful. Delusional crap.

Ron.

[Doctor Gollum]

What gear do you pick on an auto while running downhill?

1

Selected manually and cover the brake, only pressing when actually needed.

[Rods2]

As youngsters most people started on motorbikes and quickly learn't good road sense and how to read conditions or ended up on one of TB's lists. As an apprentice in every first year there was one killed including in ours.

[ronnyd]

I agree with BigRon on this one, that you learn road craft pretty damn quick in a motorbike. My first "car" was a Reliant that i could drive on my bike licence, (as long as it weighted less than 8cwt). That was very handy as it had the same gearbox configuration as my Dads Mk1 Viva that i passed my car test in.