why do so many people post links to this nonsensical site?
You wouldn't know they were nonsensical if they didn't post them !!!!!
i'd be v happy if the pensioners on the site stopped posting the daily telegraph nonsense they read each morning
I'm not yet a pensioner.
On the substantive question of whether £3.5M is 'enough', it depends how long you may need to spend in a warm, dry care home attended by helpful, well-paid staff. In an ideal world one could insure against such an eventuality, either privately or through the state. In the real world it helps to keep a million or two under the mattress, just in case.
why do so many people post links to this nonsensical site?
You wouldn't know they were nonsensical if they didn't post them !!!!!
i'd be v happy if the pensioners on the site stopped posting the daily telegraph nonsense they read each morning
I'm not yet a pensioner.
On the substantive question of whether £3.5M is 'enough', it depends how long you may need to spend in a warm, dry care home attended by helpful, well-paid staff. In an ideal world one could insure against such an eventuality, either privately or through the state. In the real world it helps to keep a million or two under the mattress, just in case.
Especially now the new government kicked the cap into touch and seemingly any alternative reform is into the long grass.
why do so many people post links to this nonsensical site?
You wouldn't know they were nonsensical if they didn't post them !!!!!
i'd be v happy if the pensioners on the site stopped posting the daily telegraph nonsense they read each morning
I'm not yet a pensioner.
On the substantive question of whether £3.5M is 'enough', it depends how long you may need to spend in a warm, dry care home attended by helpful, well-paid staff. In an ideal world one could insure against such an eventuality, either privately or through the state. In the real world it helps to keep a million or two under the mattress, just in case.
The 3.25m is on top of an index linked 50k pension.
why do so many people post links to this nonsensical site?
You wouldn't know they were nonsensical if they didn't post them !!!!!
i'd be v happy if the pensioners on the site stopped posting the daily telegraph nonsense they read each morning
I'm not yet a pensioner.
On the substantive question of whether £3.5M is 'enough', it depends how long you may need to spend in a warm, dry care home attended by helpful, well-paid staff. In an ideal world one could insure against such an eventuality, either privately or through the state. In the real world it helps to keep a million or two under the mattress, just in case.
They have full state pensions plus £60k+ of private pensions between them on top !
It is interesting being in Wales for a few days and obeying the new 20mph speed limit. Everywhere I seem to build up massive queues of irritable locals.
This is in the north-east, so one of the areas worst affected and where the three local councils have been most resistant to making adjustments.
Good on you! It only takes one law abiding driver (or commercial/emergency vehicle) to enforce them.
Given the number of roads that are already excepted from 20mph, I suspected that councils would find it difficult to find any more without pissing off local residents (people like driving at 30mph past other people's houses). I'd guess that is what is happening here?
Why italicise that?
If people choose to live on a main road, what's wrong with driving past their home at 30mph or 40mph or 50mph if that's the speed limit?
Main arterial roads should be 40 or 50mph through towns and 60 or 70mph outside of towns.
20 is plenty for residential streets, but arteries are not residential streets.
That does get more complicated in Wales, where the lack of bypasses means very often they are the same thing. Ponterwyd or Rhayader or Aberystwyth, for example.
There are some however classified as residential that really are not. The A44 at Llangurig where the 20mph zone goes past the church, the pub and a garage springs to mind. The village itself is on a back street...
That used to be 30 (below), and the limit has been dropped to 20 and moved a little further out of the village to be beyond the entrance to a housing estate which looks like it is due for a lot more expansion.
The move of the sign further out is sensible, because they know that your average UK driver who does not look beyond the end of their bonnet will be racing up to that sign at 50 or 60mph than stand their car on its nose to slow down, or continue through the village (and it is through the village) at highway speeds.
I'd say that 30mph is a sensible limit there IF the limit is obeyed, but it will be ignored - because that is seen as acceptable behaviour.
The real issue there is that UK roads are not designed to look like roads that are safe at the suitable speed limit eg through villages, so there are not the necessary visual cues for people driving through to slow down, and they go hooning through regardless.
That's down to the nature of LHAs being created to build roads, and ignore other interests - such as adequate consideration for pedestrians. It's also why junctions prioritise throughput over safety, and anyone asking for a Zebra crossing across a busy road to a primary school will be told in effect that not enough children under 10 have been killed or crippled to justify it yet.
Bit in bold. The problem is, some people will obey a 20 limit and that annoys people.
Stick a speed camera in there and people will do 30.
I've been teaching my step-daughter to drive recently, and it is very noticeable that some people simply cannot stand to drive at the speed limit. My step-daughter obviously has to learn to drive at or just below the speed limit (since she'd otherwise fail her driving test), but whatever the speed limit, there's always some bozo behind who just has to get past and will drive right on our tail before overtaking at the next (barely) possible opportunity.
And while I'm on the topic, I've seen some of the worst driving about while teaching her to drive. The L-plates seem like a red rag to a bull for some people. They think nothing of driving right on your tail, or cutting straight across in front of you. And if a learner has stalled their car on a hill in front of you, sitting two inches behind their bumper and leaning on your horn isn't going to help them get going any faster!
People are bullying arseholes, especially when they feel safe from confrontation, such as in their car, or behind the boss’s desk.
My driving instructor liked my approach to people hammering the horn when I was doing 20.
I would, almost instinctively, slow down by about 1 mph, each time they sounded the horn.
I let them pass.
As a general rule I like dangerous idiots in front of me so I can watch them, rather than behind me where they are likely to rear-end me.
Letting people in is the best way to drive even if they're in the wrong.
The flipside is using the invariably empty lane for a road merger, don't be the arsehole hanging wheels over the white line to "block" people coming up the other lane in some sort of weird non highway code compliant moral queueing protocol.
That one annoys me. Using both lanes is quite explicitly the rule!
Recently spent forty minutes near-stationary in an unnecessary queue on the Oxford ring road. One lane was closed and it required people to merge into the outside line.
Due to a series of timid drivers at the front of the queue in the outside lane and a series of aggressive drivers coming up the inside lane to the front and shouldering in, one lane was in constant motion (with no chance of getting in as they were nose-to-tail) and the other lane was completely stationary.
This continued until one person managed to pull out into the moving lane and stopped. He then matched with the inside lane as it started up again (when the series of drivers ahead of him in it had got through), so both were moving at the same rate.
He would certainly have counted as "the arsehole" above, forcing a non highway-code compliant moral queueing protocol, but we were quite grateful. Especially as we'd missed the start of our movie already by then (having left plenty of time to get there)
The "aggressive" drivers are doing the right thing. You're supposed to use both lanes until the merge point!
If they wanted the merge point a mile back, they'd have put it a mile back. But then idiots would try and force a premature merge two miles back.
Why didn't you just use the moving lane? As you're supposed to!
In this case, it sounds like the aggressive drivers were the ones in the inside lane refusing to merge in turn with those in the outside lane.
I agree on this, and Bart’s original point. The most efficient use of road is for everyone to keep in all the lanes until the merge point.
I think there are different moral codes in different parts of the country though on the wider issue of “cutting up” vs “letting in”. Crudely, in big cities it is considered impolite not to make space for someone to change lane, merge or come out of a turning. In the more rural districts it’s the opposite: it is considered rude to cut in front of someone. The urban cultural code just reflects the reality that without the ability to squeeze in, nobody would ever get anywhere.
I'm always bemused by the juxtaposition of "big city" versus "rural". Most of the country's population lives in neither, suburban towns.
As a suburban driver I have what you'd call an urban attitude then. I will happily let anyone in, in front of me. If someone is waiting at a junction without a light I will flash them and let them pull in front of me. I will equally happily cut in front of anyone and will drive until the merge point at any junction as you're supposed to and pass anyone tailing back in a stationary lane while there's an open lane available which is supposed to be used, and then merge in turn at the actual merge point.
That's certainly not true in Scotland. The ONS is being typically obtuse as I search for English/Welsh stats.
They should have a sterilization programme for owners of XL bully’s . The dogs should all be rounded up and put down . This works to protect the public from these four legged killing machines and it also protects the public from the morons who thought having one of these dogs was a good idea . The country needs to reduce the level of breeding by said dog owners , too many thick in bred trailer trash are popping out babies who are then socialized into being morons by their parents .
Lordy, these softy liberal types.
Very funny . Sadly the birth rates amongst the saner section of the public are dropping . Birth rates are too high in the sections of the population who add nothing to society and are most responsible for anti -social behaviour .
You support the 2 child benefit cap then? Birthrates tend to be highest amongst the royal family and wealthy married celebrities and those on welfare and who left school at 16
It is interesting being in Wales for a few days and obeying the new 20mph speed limit. Everywhere I seem to build up massive queues of irritable locals.
This is in the north-east, so one of the areas worst affected and where the three local councils have been most resistant to making adjustments.
Good on you! It only takes one law abiding driver (or commercial/emergency vehicle) to enforce them.
Given the number of roads that are already excepted from 20mph, I suspected that councils would find it difficult to find any more without pissing off local residents (people like driving at 30mph past other people's houses). I'd guess that is what is happening here?
Why italicise that?
If people choose to live on a main road, what's wrong with driving past their home at 30mph or 40mph or 50mph if that's the speed limit?
Main arterial roads should be 40 or 50mph through towns and 60 or 70mph outside of towns.
20 is plenty for residential streets, but arteries are not residential streets.
That does get more complicated in Wales, where the lack of bypasses means very often they are the same thing. Ponterwyd or Rhayader or Aberystwyth, for example.
There are some however classified as residential that really are not. The A44 at Llangurig where the 20mph zone goes past the church, the pub and a garage springs to mind. The village itself is on a back street...
That used to be 30 (below), and the limit has been dropped to 20 and moved a little further out of the village to be beyond the entrance to a housing estate which looks like it is due for a lot more expansion.
The move of the sign further out is sensible, because they know that your average UK driver who does not look beyond the end of their bonnet will be racing up to that sign at 50 or 60mph than stand their car on its nose to slow down, or continue through the village (and it is through the village) at highway speeds.
I'd say that 30mph is a sensible limit there IF the limit is obeyed, but it will be ignored - because that is seen as acceptable behaviour.
The real issue there is that UK roads are not designed to look like roads that are safe at the suitable speed limit eg through villages, so there are not the necessary visual cues for people driving through to slow down, and they go hooning through regardless.
That's down to the nature of LHAs being created to build roads, and ignore other interests - such as adequate consideration for pedestrians. It's also why junctions prioritise throughput over safety, and anyone asking for a Zebra crossing across a busy road to a primary school will be told in effect that not enough children under 10 have been killed or crippled to justify it yet.
Bit in bold. The problem is, some people will obey a 20 limit and that annoys people.
Stick a speed camera in there and people will do 30.
I've been teaching my step-daughter to drive recently, and it is very noticeable that some people simply cannot stand to drive at the speed limit. My step-daughter obviously has to learn to drive at or just below the speed limit (since she'd otherwise fail her driving test), but whatever the speed limit, there's always some bozo behind who just has to get past and will drive right on our tail before overtaking at the next (barely) possible opportunity.
And while I'm on the topic, I've seen some of the worst driving about while teaching her to drive. The L-plates seem like a red rag to a bull for some people. They think nothing of driving right on your tail, or cutting straight across in front of you. And if a learner has stalled their car on a hill in front of you, sitting two inches behind their bumper and leaning on your horn isn't going to help them get going any faster!
People are bullying arseholes, especially when they feel safe from confrontation, such as in their car, or behind the boss’s desk.
My driving instructor liked my approach to people hammering the horn when I was doing 20.
I would, almost instinctively, slow down by about 1 mph, each time they sounded the horn.
I let them pass.
As a general rule I like dangerous idiots in front of me so I can watch them, rather than behind me where they are likely to rear-end me.
Letting people in is the best way to drive even if they're in the wrong.
The flipside is using the invariably empty lane for a road merger, don't be the arsehole hanging wheels over the white line to "block" people coming up the other lane in some sort of weird non highway code compliant moral queueing protocol.
That one annoys me. Using both lanes is quite explicitly the rule!
Recently spent forty minutes near-stationary in an unnecessary queue on the Oxford ring road. One lane was closed and it required people to merge into the outside line.
Due to a series of timid drivers at the front of the queue in the outside lane and a series of aggressive drivers coming up the inside lane to the front and shouldering in, one lane was in constant motion (with no chance of getting in as they were nose-to-tail) and the other lane was completely stationary.
This continued until one person managed to pull out into the moving lane and stopped. He then matched with the inside lane as it started up again (when the series of drivers ahead of him in it had got through), so both were moving at the same rate.
He would certainly have counted as "the arsehole" above, forcing a non highway-code compliant moral queueing protocol, but we were quite grateful. Especially as we'd missed the start of our movie already by then (having left plenty of time to get there)
The "aggressive" drivers are doing the right thing. You're supposed to use both lanes until the merge point!
If they wanted the merge point a mile back, they'd have put it a mile back. But then idiots would try and force a premature merge two miles back.
Why didn't you just use the moving lane? As you're supposed to!
In this case, it sounds like the aggressive drivers were the ones in the inside lane refusing to merge in turn with those in the outside lane.
I agree on this, and Bart’s original point. The most efficient use of road is for everyone to keep in all the lanes until the merge point.
I think there are different moral codes in different parts of the country though on the wider issue of “cutting up” vs “letting in”. Crudely, in big cities it is considered impolite not to make space for someone to change lane, merge or come out of a turning. In the more rural districts it’s the opposite: it is considered rude to cut in front of someone. The urban cultural code just reflects the reality that without the ability to squeeze in, nobody would ever get anywhere.
I'm always bemused by the juxtaposition of "big city" versus "rural". Most of the country's population lives in neither, suburban towns.
As a suburban driver I have what you'd call an urban attitude then. I will happily let anyone in, in front of me. If someone is waiting at a junction without a light I will flash them and let them pull in front of me. I will equally happily cut in front of anyone and will drive until the merge point at any junction as you're supposed to and pass anyone tailing back in a stationary lane while there's an open lane available which is supposed to be used, and then merge in turn at the actual merge point.
That's certainly not true in Scotland. The ONS is being typically obtuse as I search for English/Welsh stats.
And aren't most "big cities" a collection of suburban towns and villages? Does Leith count as a suburban town?
England in trouble. Root is out. Let's see what our tail can do.
Very long tail. Certainly no England batting deep. It is why Stokes is a huge loss for the balance of the team.
It is why I don't really understand the selection of Potts, he isn't the future and doesn't fill the Stokes role.
Did he not get 149* recently? That would be handy.
Still averages under 20 in FC and a massive 7.5 at test level. Ben Stokes stand-in he is not and his bowling isn't test level. In my opinion, its a nothing selection, it is never a raw talent for the future or somebody who has shown they are test level.
why do so many people post links to this nonsensical site?
You wouldn't know they were nonsensical if they didn't post them !!!!!
i'd be v happy if the pensioners on the site stopped posting the daily telegraph nonsense they read each morning
I'm not yet a pensioner.
On the substantive question of whether £3.5M is 'enough', it depends how long you may need to spend in a warm, dry care home attended by helpful, well-paid staff. In an ideal world one could insure against such an eventuality, either privately or through the state. In the real world it helps to keep a million or two under the mattress, just in case.
The 3.25m is on top of an index linked 50k pension.
Please tell me "I wouldn't describe ourselves as rich" is in the article.
It is interesting being in Wales for a few days and obeying the new 20mph speed limit. Everywhere I seem to build up massive queues of irritable locals.
This is in the north-east, so one of the areas worst affected and where the three local councils have been most resistant to making adjustments.
Good on you! It only takes one law abiding driver (or commercial/emergency vehicle) to enforce them.
Given the number of roads that are already excepted from 20mph, I suspected that councils would find it difficult to find any more without pissing off local residents (people like driving at 30mph past other people's houses). I'd guess that is what is happening here?
Why italicise that?
If people choose to live on a main road, what's wrong with driving past their home at 30mph or 40mph or 50mph if that's the speed limit?
Main arterial roads should be 40 or 50mph through towns and 60 or 70mph outside of towns.
20 is plenty for residential streets, but arteries are not residential streets.
That does get more complicated in Wales, where the lack of bypasses means very often they are the same thing. Ponterwyd or Rhayader or Aberystwyth, for example.
There are some however classified as residential that really are not. The A44 at Llangurig where the 20mph zone goes past the church, the pub and a garage springs to mind. The village itself is on a back street...
That used to be 30 (below), and the limit has been dropped to 20 and moved a little further out of the village to be beyond the entrance to a housing estate which looks like it is due for a lot more expansion.
The move of the sign further out is sensible, because they know that your average UK driver who does not look beyond the end of their bonnet will be racing up to that sign at 50 or 60mph than stand their car on its nose to slow down, or continue through the village (and it is through the village) at highway speeds.
I'd say that 30mph is a sensible limit there IF the limit is obeyed, but it will be ignored - because that is seen as acceptable behaviour.
The real issue there is that UK roads are not designed to look like roads that are safe at the suitable speed limit eg through villages, so there are not the necessary visual cues for people driving through to slow down, and they go hooning through regardless.
That's down to the nature of LHAs being created to build roads, and ignore other interests - such as adequate consideration for pedestrians. It's also why junctions prioritise throughput over safety, and anyone asking for a Zebra crossing across a busy road to a primary school will be told in effect that not enough children under 10 have been killed or crippled to justify it yet.
Bit in bold. The problem is, some people will obey a 20 limit and that annoys people.
Stick a speed camera in there and people will do 30.
I've been teaching my step-daughter to drive recently, and it is very noticeable that some people simply cannot stand to drive at the speed limit. My step-daughter obviously has to learn to drive at or just below the speed limit (since she'd otherwise fail her driving test), but whatever the speed limit, there's always some bozo behind who just has to get past and will drive right on our tail before overtaking at the next (barely) possible opportunity.
And while I'm on the topic, I've seen some of the worst driving about while teaching her to drive. The L-plates seem like a red rag to a bull for some people. They think nothing of driving right on your tail, or cutting straight across in front of you. And if a learner has stalled their car on a hill in front of you, sitting two inches behind their bumper and leaning on your horn isn't going to help them get going any faster!
People are bullying arseholes, especially when they feel safe from confrontation, such as in their car, or behind the boss’s desk.
My driving instructor liked my approach to people hammering the horn when I was doing 20.
I would, almost instinctively, slow down by about 1 mph, each time they sounded the horn.
I let them pass.
As a general rule I like dangerous idiots in front of me so I can watch them, rather than behind me where they are likely to rear-end me.
Letting people in is the best way to drive even if they're in the wrong.
The flipside is using the invariably empty lane for a road merger, don't be the arsehole hanging wheels over the white line to "block" people coming up the other lane in some sort of weird non highway code compliant moral queueing protocol.
That one annoys me. Using both lanes is quite explicitly the rule!
Recently spent forty minutes near-stationary in an unnecessary queue on the Oxford ring road. One lane was closed and it required people to merge into the outside line.
Due to a series of timid drivers at the front of the queue in the outside lane and a series of aggressive drivers coming up the inside lane to the front and shouldering in, one lane was in constant motion (with no chance of getting in as they were nose-to-tail) and the other lane was completely stationary.
This continued until one person managed to pull out into the moving lane and stopped. He then matched with the inside lane as it started up again (when the series of drivers ahead of him in it had got through), so both were moving at the same rate.
He would certainly have counted as "the arsehole" above, forcing a non highway-code compliant moral queueing protocol, but we were quite grateful. Especially as we'd missed the start of our movie already by then (having left plenty of time to get there)
That tends to be me, when encountering a really long queue of that type. You need a fairly thick skin to ignore the more aggressive drivers behind you.
It is interesting being in Wales for a few days and obeying the new 20mph speed limit. Everywhere I seem to build up massive queues of irritable locals.
This is in the north-east, so one of the areas worst affected and where the three local councils have been most resistant to making adjustments.
Good on you! It only takes one law abiding driver (or commercial/emergency vehicle) to enforce them.
Given the number of roads that are already excepted from 20mph, I suspected that councils would find it difficult to find any more without pissing off local residents (people like driving at 30mph past other people's houses). I'd guess that is what is happening here?
Why italicise that?
If people choose to live on a main road, what's wrong with driving past their home at 30mph or 40mph or 50mph if that's the speed limit?
Main arterial roads should be 40 or 50mph through towns and 60 or 70mph outside of towns.
20 is plenty for residential streets, but arteries are not residential streets.
That does get more complicated in Wales, where the lack of bypasses means very often they are the same thing. Ponterwyd or Rhayader or Aberystwyth, for example.
There are some however classified as residential that really are not. The A44 at Llangurig where the 20mph zone goes past the church, the pub and a garage springs to mind. The village itself is on a back street...
That used to be 30 (below), and the limit has been dropped to 20 and moved a little further out of the village to be beyond the entrance to a housing estate which looks like it is due for a lot more expansion.
The move of the sign further out is sensible, because they know that your average UK driver who does not look beyond the end of their bonnet will be racing up to that sign at 50 or 60mph than stand their car on its nose to slow down, or continue through the village (and it is through the village) at highway speeds.
I'd say that 30mph is a sensible limit there IF the limit is obeyed, but it will be ignored - because that is seen as acceptable behaviour.
The real issue there is that UK roads are not designed to look like roads that are safe at the suitable speed limit eg through villages, so there are not the necessary visual cues for people driving through to slow down, and they go hooning through regardless.
That's down to the nature of LHAs being created to build roads, and ignore other interests - such as adequate consideration for pedestrians. It's also why junctions prioritise throughput over safety, and anyone asking for a Zebra crossing across a busy road to a primary school will be told in effect that not enough children under 10 have been killed or crippled to justify it yet.
Bit in bold. The problem is, some people will obey a 20 limit and that annoys people.
Stick a speed camera in there and people will do 30.
I've been teaching my step-daughter to drive recently, and it is very noticeable that some people simply cannot stand to drive at the speed limit. My step-daughter obviously has to learn to drive at or just below the speed limit (since she'd otherwise fail her driving test), but whatever the speed limit, there's always some bozo behind who just has to get past and will drive right on our tail before overtaking at the next (barely) possible opportunity.
And while I'm on the topic, I've seen some of the worst driving about while teaching her to drive. The L-plates seem like a red rag to a bull for some people. They think nothing of driving right on your tail, or cutting straight across in front of you. And if a learner has stalled their car on a hill in front of you, sitting two inches behind their bumper and leaning on your horn isn't going to help them get going any faster!
People are bullying arseholes, especially when they feel safe from confrontation, such as in their car, or behind the boss’s desk.
My driving instructor liked my approach to people hammering the horn when I was doing 20.
I would, almost instinctively, slow down by about 1 mph, each time they sounded the horn.
I let them pass.
As a general rule I like dangerous idiots in front of me so I can watch them, rather than behind me where they are likely to rear-end me.
Letting people in is the best way to drive even if they're in the wrong.
The flipside is using the invariably empty lane for a road merger, don't be the arsehole hanging wheels over the white line to "block" people coming up the other lane in some sort of weird non highway code compliant moral queueing protocol.
That one annoys me. Using both lanes is quite explicitly the rule!
Recently spent forty minutes near-stationary in an unnecessary queue on the Oxford ring road. One lane was closed and it required people to merge into the outside line.
Due to a series of timid drivers at the front of the queue in the outside lane and a series of aggressive drivers coming up the inside lane to the front and shouldering in, one lane was in constant motion (with no chance of getting in as they were nose-to-tail) and the other lane was completely stationary.
This continued until one person managed to pull out into the moving lane and stopped. He then matched with the inside lane as it started up again (when the series of drivers ahead of him in it had got through), so both were moving at the same rate.
He would certainly have counted as "the arsehole" above, forcing a non highway-code compliant moral queueing protocol, but we were quite grateful. Especially as we'd missed the start of our movie already by then (having left plenty of time to get there)
The "aggressive" drivers are doing the right thing. You're supposed to use both lanes until the merge point!
If they wanted the merge point a mile back, they'd have put it a mile back. But then idiots would try and force a premature merge two miles back.
Why didn't you just use the moving lane? As you're supposed to!
Because the moving lane was nose to tail at about 6-7 mph and pulling out would have caused a crash. You are supposed to merge in turn. They were not doing that; they weren't allowing the other lane to be usefully used. Because they were selfish arseholes taking advantage of the more timid drivers at the front of the queue.
If there had been the opportunity to squeeze in, everyone from the stationary lane would have done so and we'd have effectively merged early on the wrong lane, wouldn't we? You're happy with that?
It is interesting being in Wales for a few days and obeying the new 20mph speed limit. Everywhere I seem to build up massive queues of irritable locals.
This is in the north-east, so one of the areas worst affected and where the three local councils have been most resistant to making adjustments.
Good on you! It only takes one law abiding driver (or commercial/emergency vehicle) to enforce them.
Given the number of roads that are already excepted from 20mph, I suspected that councils would find it difficult to find any more without pissing off local residents (people like driving at 30mph past other people's houses). I'd guess that is what is happening here?
Why italicise that?
If people choose to live on a main road, what's wrong with driving past their home at 30mph or 40mph or 50mph if that's the speed limit?
Main arterial roads should be 40 or 50mph through towns and 60 or 70mph outside of towns.
20 is plenty for residential streets, but arteries are not residential streets.
That does get more complicated in Wales, where the lack of bypasses means very often they are the same thing. Ponterwyd or Rhayader or Aberystwyth, for example.
There are some however classified as residential that really are not. The A44 at Llangurig where the 20mph zone goes past the church, the pub and a garage springs to mind. The village itself is on a back street...
That used to be 30 (below), and the limit has been dropped to 20 and moved a little further out of the village to be beyond the entrance to a housing estate which looks like it is due for a lot more expansion.
The move of the sign further out is sensible, because they know that your average UK driver who does not look beyond the end of their bonnet will be racing up to that sign at 50 or 60mph than stand their car on its nose to slow down, or continue through the village (and it is through the village) at highway speeds.
I'd say that 30mph is a sensible limit there IF the limit is obeyed, but it will be ignored - because that is seen as acceptable behaviour.
The real issue there is that UK roads are not designed to look like roads that are safe at the suitable speed limit eg through villages, so there are not the necessary visual cues for people driving through to slow down, and they go hooning through regardless.
That's down to the nature of LHAs being created to build roads, and ignore other interests - such as adequate consideration for pedestrians. It's also why junctions prioritise throughput over safety, and anyone asking for a Zebra crossing across a busy road to a primary school will be told in effect that not enough children under 10 have been killed or crippled to justify it yet.
Bit in bold. The problem is, some people will obey a 20 limit and that annoys people.
Stick a speed camera in there and people will do 30.
I've been teaching my step-daughter to drive recently, and it is very noticeable that some people simply cannot stand to drive at the speed limit. My step-daughter obviously has to learn to drive at or just below the speed limit (since she'd otherwise fail her driving test), but whatever the speed limit, there's always some bozo behind who just has to get past and will drive right on our tail before overtaking at the next (barely) possible opportunity.
And while I'm on the topic, I've seen some of the worst driving about while teaching her to drive. The L-plates seem like a red rag to a bull for some people. They think nothing of driving right on your tail, or cutting straight across in front of you. And if a learner has stalled their car on a hill in front of you, sitting two inches behind their bumper and leaning on your horn isn't going to help them get going any faster!
People are bullying arseholes, especially when they feel safe from confrontation, such as in their car, or behind the boss’s desk.
My driving instructor liked my approach to people hammering the horn when I was doing 20.
I would, almost instinctively, slow down by about 1 mph, each time they sounded the horn.
I let them pass.
As a general rule I like dangerous idiots in front of me so I can watch them, rather than behind me where they are likely to rear-end me.
Letting people in is the best way to drive even if they're in the wrong.
The flipside is using the invariably empty lane for a road merger, don't be the arsehole hanging wheels over the white line to "block" people coming up the other lane in some sort of weird non highway code compliant moral queueing protocol.
That one annoys me. Using both lanes is quite explicitly the rule!
Recently spent forty minutes near-stationary in an unnecessary queue on the Oxford ring road. One lane was closed and it required people to merge into the outside line.
Due to a series of timid drivers at the front of the queue in the outside lane and a series of aggressive drivers coming up the inside lane to the front and shouldering in, one lane was in constant motion (with no chance of getting in as they were nose-to-tail) and the other lane was completely stationary.
This continued until one person managed to pull out into the moving lane and stopped. He then matched with the inside lane as it started up again (when the series of drivers ahead of him in it had got through), so both were moving at the same rate.
He would certainly have counted as "the arsehole" above, forcing a non highway-code compliant moral queueing protocol, but we were quite grateful. Especially as we'd missed the start of our movie already by then (having left plenty of time to get there)
The "aggressive" drivers are doing the right thing. You're supposed to use both lanes until the merge point!
If they wanted the merge point a mile back, they'd have put it a mile back. But then idiots would try and force a premature merge two miles back.
Why didn't you just use the moving lane? As you're supposed to!
In this case, it sounds like the aggressive drivers were the ones in the inside lane refusing to merge in turn with those in the outside lane.
Indeed. Use both lanes until the merge point and merge in turn at the merge point - that's the Highway Code.
Those using an open lane to move are doing what they're supposed to do. The lane is open, its not closed.
Um - the inside lane was the lane still moving, and FeersumEnjineeya was correct - they were refusing to merge in turn. In effect, they were making it so that only one lane was moving and the other was stuck, so the other lane wasn't usable.
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It is why I don't really understand the selection of Potts, he isn't the future and doesn't fill the Stokes role.
Signed John Nephew & Jane Niece.
Senate - Cruz 47 Allred 45 (was Cruz 47 Allred 44 in July).
https://www.270towin.com/2024-senate-polls/texas
NEW THREAd
You need a fairly thick skin to ignore the more aggressive drivers behind you.
You are supposed to merge in turn. They were not doing that; they weren't allowing the other lane to be usefully used. Because they were selfish arseholes taking advantage of the more timid drivers at the front of the queue.
If there had been the opportunity to squeeze in, everyone from the stationary lane would have done so and we'd have effectively merged early on the wrong lane, wouldn't we? You're happy with that?
In effect, they were making it so that only one lane was moving and the other was stuck, so the other lane wasn't usable.