The idea that the Highway Code needs to be made as big as the tax code, in order to cover every possible eventuality, all to stop lawyers lawyering, is one of the most preposterous arguments I’ve read on here. I hope that it’s heroic trolling
Fine, expect the law on careless driving causing injury or death then to continue to be often decided by what the judge, jury or magistrate of the day decides it in court to mean then
Literally the very purpose of our legal system.
What's the problem?
You have to keenly follow the significant cases then to see what the law actually is in terms of interpretation of the statutory offence of driving carelessly if no drink or drugs or mobile phone use involved and the Highway Code is not very specific about the action
no you don't, you just have to take care while driving
Yes but what is 'taking care' is a subjective opinion beyond not drink or drug driving, not using your phone when driving and not driving over the speed limit and not clearly breaching the terms of the Highway Code.
So what judges and juries decide it to be needs to be followed in other driving cases charged with careless driving
it means not driving like a muppet. When you drive you see many drivers driving like muppets. Don't do what they do.
What is 'not driving like a muppet?' A muppet could be driving at the speed limit, not drunk, have no drugs in his system and not be on his phone and not clearly in breach of the highway code but still be charged with careless driving and you would need to follow the case verdict to see if the muppet was convicted and you needed to avoid similar actions
Except that I don't need to follow all the case law to understand what muppetry is. I already know that driving round blind corners on single track roads at 60mph is a bad idea, regardless of the posted limit, or that it's prudent to leave very long breaking distances and to take corners gently when there's the potential for the road to be covered in ice. I don't actually need a court verdict to tell me that.
Court verdicts are only significant when they don't give the outcome you'd expect - eg the recent preverse judgement where a firm was fined because a driver delivering to them fell off his lorry, hit his head on the floor and unfortunately died - thus throwing the onus onto anyone who takes deliveries to manage the working at height risk of a driver unloading his lorry, rather than onto the haulier as you would logically expect. (Personally, I think no case should have been brought against anyone for that particular incident - the costs of mitigation vastly exceed the threshold of "reasonably practicable" relative to the level of risk. But HSE are a bunch of unaccoutable shits who have virtually forgotten the concept of "reasonably practicable".)
I hesitate to mention this, since some reader might take it as a challenge. But here goes anyway, with that small warning: Recently a Washington state trooper recorded a driver doing 156 miles per hour. In the fog. With their lights off. https://mynorthwest.com/chokepoints/wsp-156-mph-i-5-headlights/4183877
The idea that the Highway Code needs to be made as big as the tax code, in order to cover every possible eventuality, all to stop lawyers lawyering, is one of the most preposterous arguments I’ve read on here. I hope that it’s heroic trolling
Fine, expect the law on careless driving causing injury or death then to continue to be often decided by what the judge, jury or magistrate of the day decides it in court to mean then
Literally the very purpose of our legal system.
What's the problem?
You have to keenly follow the significant cases then to see what the law actually is in terms of interpretation of the statutory offence of driving carelessly if no drink or drugs or mobile phone use involved and the Highway Code is not very specific about the action
no you don't, you just have to take care while driving
Yes but what is 'taking care' is a subjective opinion beyond not drink or drug driving, not using your phone when driving and not driving over the speed limit and not clearly breaching the terms of the Highway Code.
So what judges and juries decide it to be needs to be followed in other driving cases charged with careless driving
So?
Subjectivity is important and valuable, not problematic.
Driving subject to the circumstances is precisely what you are supposed to do.
Juries determining if people have acted reasonably or not are doing what they are supposed to do.
"Reasonable doubt" is pretty subjective too - I remember a judge getting quite exasperated when a jury asked what it meant.
Juries make weird decisions, whether it's this guy hitting the cyclists head on or that Labour councillor. But it's the least worst system IMO.
Interesting to have a driving related discussion where you and I completely agree.
We do not need a table of rules and data for every circumstance.
We do need people to pay attention and not be dicks.
There is definitely a disconnect between careless/dangerous driving prosecutions and convictions though. Assuming that the HW code is sensible (I think it is), we do need a public information campaign making it clear to jurors and road users what the minimum standard is.
Not naming anyone...
Yes but as I have pointed out in some cases the HW code is vague on what the minimum standard is eg how much to slow down when approaching a bend or in heavy rain
It is vague for very good reasons.
As many people have explained to you, many times.
Good law often is vague. Overly prescriptive is bad law.
I hesitate to mention this, since some reader might take it as a challenge. But here goes anyway, with that small warning: Recently a Washington state trooper recorded a driver doing 156 miles per hour. In the fog. With their lights off. https://mynorthwest.com/chokepoints/wsp-156-mph-i-5-headlights/4183877
The idea that the Highway Code needs to be made as big as the tax code, in order to cover every possible eventuality, all to stop lawyers lawyering, is one of the most preposterous arguments I’ve read on here. I hope that it’s heroic trolling
Fine, expect the law on careless driving causing injury or death then to continue to be often decided by what the judge, jury or magistrate of the day decides it in court to mean then
Literally the very purpose of our legal system.
What's the problem?
You have to keenly follow the significant cases then to see what the law actually is in terms of interpretation of the statutory offence of driving carelessly if no drink or drugs or mobile phone use involved and the Highway Code is not very specific about the action
no you don't, you just have to take care while driving
Yes but what is 'taking care' is a subjective opinion beyond not drink or drug driving, not using your phone when driving and not driving over the speed limit and not clearly breaching the terms of the Highway Code.
So what judges and juries decide it to be needs to be followed in other driving cases charged with careless driving
it means not driving like a muppet. When you drive you see many drivers driving like muppets. Don't do what they do.
What is 'not driving like a muppet?' A muppet could be driving at the speed limit, not drunk, have no drugs in his system and not be on his phone and not clearly in breach of the highway code but still be charged with careless driving and you would need to follow the case verdict to see if the muppet was convicted and you needed to avoid similar actions
It's also known as driving with care.
What is 'driving with care' and 'driving not with care'? Again, if no drink, drugs or phone or speeding involved will often be open to judge or jury interpretation if not an act expressly forbidden by the highway code
I'm not sure why this is such a difficult concept for you to grasp. Is there a particular aspect of your driving you are concerned about?
It is a difficult concept for even the average jury to grasp. Hence they often reach different verdicts on death by careless driving cases on similar facts
I hesitate to mention this, since some reader might take it as a challenge. But here goes anyway, with that small warning: Recently a Washington state trooper recorded a driver doing 156 miles per hour. In the fog. With their lights off. https://mynorthwest.com/chokepoints/wsp-156-mph-i-5-headlights/4183877
🎵 Did you ever know that you're my hero? You're everything I wish I could be. 🎵
They were having a calm exchange until Renee's wife told him to "got get yourself some lunch, big boy", which so antagonised him he had no choice but to make her a widow.
And then he took her advice and drove off for some lunch.
The idea that the Highway Code needs to be made as big as the tax code, in order to cover every possible eventuality, all to stop lawyers lawyering, is one of the most preposterous arguments I’ve read on here. I hope that it’s heroic trolling
Fine, expect the law on careless driving causing injury or death then to continue to be often decided by what the judge, jury or magistrate of the day decides it in court to mean then
Literally the very purpose of our legal system.
What's the problem?
You have to keenly follow the significant cases then to see what the law actually is in terms of interpretation of the statutory offence of driving carelessly if no drink or drugs or mobile phone use involved and the Highway Code is not very specific about the action
no you don't, you just have to take care while driving
Yes but what is 'taking care' is a subjective opinion beyond not drink or drug driving, not using your phone when driving and not driving over the speed limit and not clearly breaching the terms of the Highway Code.
So what judges and juries decide it to be needs to be followed in other driving cases charged with careless driving
it means not driving like a muppet. When you drive you see many drivers driving like muppets. Don't do what they do.
What is 'not driving like a muppet?' A muppet could be driving at the speed limit, not drunk, have no drugs in his system and not be on his phone and not clearly in breach of the highway code but still be charged with careless driving and you would need to follow the case verdict to see if the muppet was convicted and you needed to avoid similar actions
Except that I don't need to follow all the case law to understand what muppetry is. I already know that driving round blind corners on single track roads at 60mph is a bad idea, regardless of the posted limit, or that it's prudent to leave very long breaking distances and to take corners gently when there's the potential for the road to be covered in ice. I don't actually need a court verdict to tell me that.
Court verdicts are only significant when they don't give the outcome you'd expect - eg the recent preverse judgement where a firm was fined because a driver delivering to them fell off his lorry, hit his head on the floor and unfortunately died - thus throwing the onus onto anyone who takes deliveries to manage the working at height risk of a driver unloading his lorry, rather than onto the haulier as you would logically expect. (Personally, I think no case should have been brought against anyone for that particular incident - the costs of mitigation vastly exceed the threshold of "reasonably practicable" relative to the level of risk. But HSE are a bunch of unaccoutable shits who have virtually forgotten the concept of "reasonably practicable".)
Yes but driving round blind corners at 30mph, is that also a bad idea? Debateable and arguments either way. Maybe if very icy should not be done but otherwise?
As you have shown even judges can produce judgements you might not expect but going forward that would be the law on similar facts unless overturned on appeal
The idea that the Highway Code needs to be made as big as the tax code, in order to cover every possible eventuality, all to stop lawyers lawyering, is one of the most preposterous arguments I’ve read on here. I hope that it’s heroic trolling
Fine, expect the law on careless driving causing injury or death then to continue to be often decided by what the judge, jury or magistrate of the day decides it in court to mean then
Literally the very purpose of our legal system.
What's the problem?
You have to keenly follow the significant cases then to see what the law actually is in terms of interpretation of the statutory offence of driving carelessly if no drink or drugs or mobile phone use involved and the Highway Code is not very specific about the action
no you don't, you just have to take care while driving
Yes but what is 'taking care' is a subjective opinion beyond not drink or drug driving, not using your phone when driving and not driving over the speed limit and not clearly breaching the terms of the Highway Code.
So what judges and juries decide it to be needs to be followed in other driving cases charged with careless driving
So?
Subjectivity is important and valuable, not problematic.
Driving subject to the circumstances is precisely what you are supposed to do.
Juries determining if people have acted reasonably or not are doing what they are supposed to do.
"Reasonable doubt" is pretty subjective too - I remember a judge getting quite exasperated when a jury asked what it meant.
Juries make weird decisions, whether it's this guy hitting the cyclists head on or that Labour councillor. But it's the least worst system IMO.
In any system there are inevitably terms which cannot be reduced to other terms except by way of engaging in a circular set of explanations - like 'reasonable means sensible and sensible means reasonable' or that sort of thing.
In law the word 'reasonable' means 'over to you, jury, to fix the matter.
HYUFD keeps acting as if the Highway Code is or should be an answer to prevent accidents and if there are any its related to that.
That is not its purpose.
Indeed the Highway Code is quite analogous to the pirate one as much of it is more guidelines than actual rules, hence the preponderous of SHOULD versus MUST.
But the thing that lowers risk most is not having recently read the Code, it is being an experienced and careful driver.
Besides those who have broken the law, there are two groups most at risk.
1. Those so old they are suffering from age related decline (and often in denial about it). Reading the Code recently would not help them.
2. The young and inexperienced. Who are the ones most likely to have recently read some of the Code, to pass the Theory Test, but that does not make up for a lack of maturity or experience.
The idea that the Highway Code needs to be made as big as the tax code, in order to cover every possible eventuality, all to stop lawyers lawyering, is one of the most preposterous arguments I’ve read on here. I hope that it’s heroic trolling
Fine, expect the law on careless driving causing injury or death then to continue to be often decided by what the judge, jury or magistrate of the day decides it in court to mean then
Literally the very purpose of our legal system.
What's the problem?
You have to keenly follow the significant cases then to see what the law actually is in terms of interpretation of the statutory offence of driving carelessly if no drink or drugs or mobile phone use involved and the Highway Code is not very specific about the action
no you don't, you just have to take care while driving
Yes but what is 'taking care' is a subjective opinion beyond not drink or drug driving, not using your phone when driving and not driving over the speed limit and not clearly breaching the terms of the Highway Code.
So what judges and juries decide it to be needs to be followed in other driving cases charged with careless driving
So?
Subjectivity is important and valuable, not problematic.
Driving subject to the circumstances is precisely what you are supposed to do.
Juries determining if people have acted reasonably or not are doing what they are supposed to do.
"Reasonable doubt" is pretty subjective too - I remember a judge getting quite exasperated when a jury asked what it meant.
Juries make weird decisions, whether it's this guy hitting the cyclists head on or that Labour councillor. But it's the least worst system IMO.
Interesting to have a driving related discussion where you and I completely agree.
We do not need a table of rules and data for every circumstance.
We do need people to pay attention and not be dicks.
There is definitely a disconnect between careless/dangerous driving prosecutions and convictions though. Assuming that the HW code is sensible (I think it is), we do need a public information campaign making it clear to jurors and road users what the minimum standard is.
Not naming anyone...
Yes but as I have pointed out in some cases the HW code is vague on what the minimum standard is eg how much to slow down when approaching a bend or in heavy rain
It is vague for very good reasons.
As many people have explained to you, many times.
Good law often is vague. Overly prescriptive is bad law.
Like mobile phone use in a drive-thru. An exception now, but 6 points before. The 1.5 metres guidance would be an absurd law - there are times you will get closer to a cyclist, but if you're going dead slow when doing so (in traffic, at a passing place etc) where it could be appropriate.
The code remains useful because it gives us a good place to start when deciding whether something is careless or dangerous.
The idea that the Highway Code needs to be made as big as the tax code, in order to cover every possible eventuality, all to stop lawyers lawyering, is one of the most preposterous arguments I’ve read on here. I hope that it’s heroic trolling
There should be an overriding common sense law that overrides all other laws. It should be based on what a sensible person would do, not what a reckless or stupid person would do.
That’s literally populism, from Poujade to Farage. The problem is that we can’t actually agree on common sense and common sense is often inadequate in many circumstances, which is why we have big tax and legal codes.
@annmarie Wall Street Journal: Trump administration officials have had preliminary discussions about how to carry out an attack on Iran if needed to follow through on Trump’s threats, including what sites might be targeted, U.S. officials said. One option being discussed is a large-scale aerial strike on multiple Iranian military targets, one of the officials said. Another of the officials said there wasn’t a consensus on what course of action to take, and no military equipment or personnel had been moved in preparation for a strike.
The idea that the Highway Code needs to be made as big as the tax code, in order to cover every possible eventuality, all to stop lawyers lawyering, is one of the most preposterous arguments I’ve read on here. I hope that it’s heroic trolling
Fine, expect the law on careless driving causing injury or death then to continue to be often decided by what the judge, jury or magistrate of the day decides it in court to mean then
Literally the very purpose of our legal system.
What's the problem?
You have to keenly follow the significant cases then to see what the law actually is in terms of interpretation of the statutory offence of driving carelessly if no drink or drugs or mobile phone use involved and the Highway Code is not very specific about the action
no you don't, you just have to take care while driving
Yes but what is 'taking care' is a subjective opinion beyond not drink or drug driving, not using your phone when driving and not driving over the speed limit and not clearly breaching the terms of the Highway Code.
So what judges and juries decide it to be needs to be followed in other driving cases charged with careless driving
it means not driving like a muppet. When you drive you see many drivers driving like muppets. Don't do what they do.
What is 'not driving like a muppet?' A muppet could be driving at the speed limit, not drunk, have no drugs in his system and not be on his phone and not clearly in breach of the highway code but still be charged with careless driving and you would need to follow the case verdict to see if the muppet was convicted and you needed to avoid similar actions
If you’re driving, you’re fuzzy and someone’s got their hand up your arse, you’re driving like a muppet. If not, you’re not.
@annmarie Wall Street Journal: Trump administration officials have had preliminary discussions about how to carry out an attack on Iran if needed to follow through on Trump’s threats, including what sites might be targeted, U.S. officials said. One option being discussed is a large-scale aerial strike on multiple Iranian military targets, one of the officials said. Another of the officials said there wasn’t a consensus on what course of action to take, and no military equipment or personnel had been moved in preparation for a strike.
The idea that the Highway Code needs to be made as big as the tax code, in order to cover every possible eventuality, all to stop lawyers lawyering, is one of the most preposterous arguments I’ve read on here. I hope that it’s heroic trolling
Fine, expect the law on careless driving causing injury or death then to continue to be often decided by what the judge, jury or magistrate of the day decides it in court to mean then
Literally the very purpose of our legal system.
What's the problem?
You have to keenly follow the significant cases then to see what the law actually is in terms of interpretation of the statutory offence of driving carelessly if no drink or drugs or mobile phone use involved and the Highway Code is not very specific about the action
no you don't, you just have to take care while driving
Yes but what is 'taking care' is a subjective opinion beyond not drink or drug driving, not using your phone when driving and not driving over the speed limit and not clearly breaching the terms of the Highway Code.
So what judges and juries decide it to be needs to be followed in other driving cases charged with careless driving
it means not driving like a muppet. When you drive you see many drivers driving like muppets. Don't do what they do.
What is 'not driving like a muppet?' A muppet could be driving at the speed limit, not drunk, have no drugs in his system and not be on his phone and not clearly in breach of the highway code but still be charged with careless driving and you would need to follow the case verdict to see if the muppet was convicted and you needed to avoid similar actions
It's also known as driving with care.
What is 'driving with care' and 'driving not with care'? Again, if no drink, drugs or phone or speeding involved will often be open to judge or jury interpretation if not an act expressly forbidden by the highway code
I'm not sure why this is such a difficult concept for you to grasp. Is there a particular aspect of your driving you are concerned about?
It is a difficult concept for even the average jury to grasp. Hence they often reach different verdicts on death by careless driving cases on similar facts
thats just a feature of trial by juries. Again if you don't like that go and join Labour.
HYUFD keeps acting as if the Highway Code is or should be an answer to prevent accidents and if there are any its related to that.
That is not its purpose.
Indeed the Highway Code is quite analogous to the pirate one as much of it is more guidelines than actual rules, hence the preponderous of SHOULD versus MUST.
But the thing that lowers risk most is not having recently read the Code, it is being an experienced and careful driver.
Besides those who have broken the law, there are two groups most at risk.
1. Those so old they are suffering from age related decline (and often in denial about it). Reading the Code recently would not help them.
2. The young and inexperienced. Who are the ones most likely to have recently read some of the Code, to pass the Theory Test, but that does not make up for a lack of maturity or experience.
Those may be more at risk groups but the Code is there to help decide what constitutes careless driving for example and in extreme cases of failure to follow the Code dangerous driving too and is often quoted in civil and criminal cases involving such charges
If the Code is not clear on a driving action then it becomes for the subjective opinion of the judge or jury to decide if it was careless or not
This argument over Grok can produce dodgy images....this same week an Israeli company open sourced a state of the art text to video model, but not as usual just the weights of the model, the whole system, training code, etc. So anybody can take off guardrails and fine tune and even runs on a (higher end) macbook. Its already been widely adopted in cloud system. The reality is with particular text to image, there is no moat, no super secret special sauce. Can't put the genie back in the box.
Agreed, there's no route back from here. There have been open source T2I models for quite some time, and now T2V ones too, and people inevitably train them to produce specific images. There's not much the authorities can do. The models are there and people can run them locally on fairly common hardware.
Same with deepfakes. T2I and I2V models are so good now it's possible to produce videos of famous people that are very difficult to distinguish from reality. No more odd eyes and nine fingers. That genie is well out if its particular box, too.
Ofcom can run around banning sites that host these models in the cloud, but there's nothing they can do about local hosting. Anyone with a gaming PC or a high end Mac can produce all the dodgy images they want.
There have already been suggestions of a licensing system for computers over a certain capacity.
Don’t think they won’t go there.
Surely that's madness. The guts of a high end gaming rig today is probably going to be close to what's in a mid-range phone in 10 years time.
Of at a slight tangent,in amoungst the various ways in which this tech will act as massive disrupter, presumably it's about to kill the porn industry dead - once videos can be made that are indistinguishable from the "real thing", why bother with paying for girls to get their kit off on camera? And once that tech will run on a phone, why visit a pornsite, when you can have an app capable of creating every sort of depravity for you on demand?
And trying to legislate for guard rails will be going nowhere, because of the way open source variants will pop up sans guardrails, no matter how little the government likes the idea.
I can't say it's a vision of a future I find very appealing, but I fear it's going to happen whether I like it or not.
The porn industry, at least in its traditional forms, is dead already. The Rest is Entertainment:-
Both are susceptible to de-banking. It wasn't politicians who cleared the underage stuff from porn clip sites, it was the credit card companies.
so you're saying they have three things in common?
Ximinez: NOBODY expects the Spanish Inquisition! Our chief weapon is surprise...surprise and fear...fear and surprise.... Our two weapons are fear and surprise...and ruthless efficiency.... Our *three* weapons are fear, surprise, and ruthless efficiency...and an almost fanatical devotion to the Pope.... Our *four*...no... *Amongst* our weapons.... Amongst our weaponry...are such elements as fear, surprise.... I'll come in again.
The idea that the Highway Code needs to be made as big as the tax code, in order to cover every possible eventuality, all to stop lawyers lawyering, is one of the most preposterous arguments I’ve read on here. I hope that it’s heroic trolling
Fine, expect the law on careless driving causing injury or death then to continue to be often decided by what the judge, jury or magistrate of the day decides it in court to mean then
Literally the very purpose of our legal system.
What's the problem?
You have to keenly follow the significant cases then to see what the law actually is in terms of interpretation of the statutory offence of driving carelessly if no drink or drugs or mobile phone use involved and the Highway Code is not very specific about the action
no you don't, you just have to take care while driving
Yes but what is 'taking care' is a subjective opinion beyond not drink or drug driving, not using your phone when driving and not driving over the speed limit and not clearly breaching the terms of the Highway Code.
So what judges and juries decide it to be needs to be followed in other driving cases charged with careless driving
it means not driving like a muppet. When you drive you see many drivers driving like muppets. Don't do what they do.
What is 'not driving like a muppet?' A muppet could be driving at the speed limit, not drunk, have no drugs in his system and not be on his phone and not clearly in breach of the highway code but still be charged with careless driving and you would need to follow the case verdict to see if the muppet was convicted and you needed to avoid similar actions
It's also known as driving with care.
What is 'driving with care' and 'driving not with care'? Again, if no drink, drugs or phone or speeding involved will often be open to judge or jury interpretation if not an act expressly forbidden by the highway code
I'm not sure why this is such a difficult concept for you to grasp. Is there a particular aspect of your driving you are concerned about?
It is a difficult concept for even the average jury to grasp. Hence they often reach different verdicts on death by careless driving cases on similar facts
thats just a feature of trial by juries. Again if you don't like that go and join Labour.
Even judges can sometimes interpret what constitutes careless driving in a slightly different way on similar facts if the Highway Code is vague on an action
The idea that the Highway Code needs to be made as big as the tax code, in order to cover every possible eventuality, all to stop lawyers lawyering, is one of the most preposterous arguments I’ve read on here. I hope that it’s heroic trolling
Fine, expect the law on careless driving causing injury or death then to continue to be often decided by what the judge, jury or magistrate of the day decides it in court to mean then
Literally the very purpose of our legal system.
What's the problem?
You have to keenly follow the significant cases then to see what the law actually is in terms of interpretation of the statutory offence of driving carelessly if no drink or drugs or mobile phone use involved and the Highway Code is not very specific about the action
no you don't, you just have to take care while driving
Yes but what is 'taking care' is a subjective opinion beyond not drink or drug driving, not using your phone when driving and not driving over the speed limit and not clearly breaching the terms of the Highway Code.
So what judges and juries decide it to be needs to be followed in other driving cases charged with careless driving
it means not driving like a muppet. When you drive you see many drivers driving like muppets. Don't do what they do.
What is 'not driving like a muppet?' A muppet could be driving at the speed limit, not drunk, have no drugs in his system and not be on his phone and not clearly in breach of the highway code but still be charged with careless driving and you would need to follow the case verdict to see if the muppet was convicted and you needed to avoid similar actions
Except that I don't need to follow all the case law to understand what muppetry is. I already know that driving round blind corners on single track roads at 60mph is a bad idea, regardless of the posted limit, or that it's prudent to leave very long breaking distances and to take corners gently when there's the potential for the road to be covered in ice. I don't actually need a court verdict to tell me that.
Court verdicts are only significant when they don't give the outcome you'd expect - eg the recent preverse judgement where a firm was fined because a driver delivering to them fell off his lorry, hit his head on the floor and unfortunately died - thus throwing the onus onto anyone who takes deliveries to manage the working at height risk of a driver unloading his lorry, rather than onto the haulier as you would logically expect. (Personally, I think no case should have been brought against anyone for that particular incident - the costs of mitigation vastly exceed the threshold of "reasonably practicable" relative to the level of risk. But HSE are a bunch of unaccoutable shits who have virtually forgotten the concept of "reasonably practicable".)
Yes but driving round blind corners at 30mph, is that also a bad idea? Debateable and arguments either way. Maybe if very icy should not be done but otherwise?
As you have shown even judges can produce judgements you might not expect but going forward that would be the law on similar facts unless overturned on appeal
Drive around a blind corner so that you can stop if there’s a person lying in the road where it’s blind, or where there’s a tractor stopped there, or be comfortable with killing or dying if you don’t
@elonmusk · 24m We will make the new 𝕏 algorithm, including all code used to determine what organic and advertising posts are recommended to users, open source in 7 days.
This will be repeated every 4 weeks, with comprehensive developer notes, to help you understand what changed.
Firstly, I don't really care (but that might be because it's Sultana and Your Party, which is as insignificant as it is amusing) and, secondly, really? Don't the police have better things to be spending their time on?
You've just said my job isn't important.
Investitgating financial crimes is very important.
Anything juicy recently?
Nope, my investigations have mostly centred on cocaine and unsolicited & solicited dick pics.
In my OH's last company, she was asked to ignore the cocaine misuse as the company wouldn't have a sales team left. Your lot must have higher standards.
Just to point out that this is an everyday example of the ridiculous state of affairs where wholesalers in this product are getting 20-25 year sentences while the product is regarded by millions as quotidian and normal.
If demand ceased, so would supply. Either decriminalise or make the user the real criminal, not the hard working trader.
MPs and television presenters have been cancelled over dodgy bants or porn but politics and the media are fuelled by actually illegal drugs. And this illustrates a real problem – the growing gulf between what is acceptable and what is legal.
Coke is now such a naff drug - it’s being hoovered up noses in pubs up and down the country by every man jack and off kitchen counters by bored mums.
Is the answer to be massively illiberal on coke - 1 year in prison, no suspended sentences or anything for possession. Announce it from the rooftops - you are caught with coke, or driving under the influence and you are going to prison for a year so say goodbye to your mid level management job, your kids, your bed. Prepare to be unable to cover your mortgage and lose your home, have a nightmare with a drugs offence when opening accounts or travelling.
Would something this severe smash the casual use? These people aren’t thinking of the chain of poor fuckers down the line working in grim conditions to harvest and produce, those getting killed in the trade so why have any sympathy for the end users?
I’m not sure how I feel about the above but would be an interesting experiment.
Where do you plan to build the extra 3,000 prisons?
This misses the point. The function of mandatory prison sentences is not in order to fill extra prisons but to deter certain actions. I am neutral as between decriminalisation and, OTOH, rational drug law enforcement. What is irrational is to deter traders with 25 year sentences but not deter use in any significant way.
Would not a few dozen otherwise impeccable living middling sorts with wives, children and careers in auto finance and geography teaching going to prison for drug use be enough?
I wonder how many of us are a little more careful about driving now that mere careless driving, if it chances to have certain outcomes, can lead straight to prison?
It can but even if careless driving leads to death or serious injury in most cases the sentence will be a community order or suspended sentence. Only if the driver killed under the influence of drink of drugs would an immediate prison sentence be likely.
We also should be considering changing highway laws to reduce speed limits on rural roads, narrow tracks and at bends or banning u turns or 3 point turns except in quiet residential streets as a lot of what would be mere careless driving could still be doing a currently legal manoeuvre
Just how are people supposed to turn round if they miss a junction or take a wrong turn?
Wait until they reach the next roundabout
This is nuts. I live in rural Surrey, but let's be honest Surrey is also pretty built up so I imagine most of the countryside is worse for roundabouts than where I live, but lets just take the lane I live on:
It has a roundabout at one end so let's assume we are going in the other direction. It is 2 miles long. It then reaches a cross roads. To the left you have to drive about 4 miles to a roundabout (which you may not know is there). Straight on is a narrow lane of about a mile with a T junction at the end. At that junction you can turn left or right. If you turn left you have about 5 miles to another T junction. At that junction you can turn left and eventually come to a roundabout in a mile. If you turn right I can't even think where there is a roundabout. Going back to the last junction if you turn right you come to another junction after about 2 miles. You can turn right and come to a roundabout after 3 miles. If you turn left after 2 miles you come to another junction. The next roundabout is about 7 miles away. Finally going back to the first junction if you turn right after 2 miles there is a junction. I can't think of where there is another roundabout either left or right on that road.
Your suggestion is nuts.
You are also wrong on speed limits for country lanes. You should be driving at a speed appropriate for the road, car and conditions. I am currently taking my Advanced Driving lessons for IAM. They are really hot on not exceeding the speed limits, but also hot on not progressing and I was told I was driving too slow for the conditions on my last lesson. People driving too slow for the conditions are also very dangerous.
Fine, then take the risk of being done for death or serious injury by careless driving if you do said u turn on a rural road and won't wait until the next roundabout or village.
The speed limit on country lanes is 60mph.
'Driving at a speed appropriate for the road, car and conditions' is a totally subjective term. One man's 'appropriate speed' may be 55mph, another 20mph on the same road and same conditions, even if approaching a bend it is completely vague guidance. As you say you can be accused of going too slow as well as too fast
You should be able to stop in the distance you can see to be clear, is good general advice.
And how is the average man on the road of average intelligence let alone those of below supposed to be able to calculate how long it will take them to stop where they see is clear ahead? They can follow the speed limit, they can't do stopping distance calculations every road they take!
On the contrary, you can and do. Just as you judge other distances, like how far behind the car in front to drive, in different conditions.
Glad you live the other side of London, I'm unlikely to meet you coming round a corner. Perhaps you should hand back your licence, I'm beginning to think that wasn't such an uncharitable suggestion
How? The average driver on the road is NOT a statistician who can calculate stopping distances. You drive behind a car so you can always see its back and license plate in full, that is NOT the same as doing constant stopping distance calculations.
The speed limit on rural roads is 60mph, either we reduce that to 40mph and say 20-30mph max around bends and when wet or snowing and 20mph on single tracks or legally there must be real debate on whether someone driving at the speed limit should be prosecuted even if an accident?
Rural roads are national speed limit - drive at a safe speed, mot the maximum
@elonmusk · 24m We will make the new 𝕏 algorithm, including all code used to determine what organic and advertising posts are recommended to users, open source in 7 days.
This will be repeated every 4 weeks, with comprehensive developer notes, to help you understand what changed.
The idea that the Highway Code needs to be made as big as the tax code, in order to cover every possible eventuality, all to stop lawyers lawyering, is one of the most preposterous arguments I’ve read on here. I hope that it’s heroic trolling
Fine, expect the law on careless driving causing injury or death then to continue to be often decided by what the judge, jury or magistrate of the day decides it in court to mean then
Literally the very purpose of our legal system.
What's the problem?
You have to keenly follow the significant cases then to see what the law actually is in terms of interpretation of the statutory offence of driving carelessly if no drink or drugs or mobile phone use involved and the Highway Code is not very specific about the action
no you don't, you just have to take care while driving
Yes but what is 'taking care' is a subjective opinion beyond not drink or drug driving, not using your phone when driving and not driving over the speed limit and not clearly breaching the terms of the Highway Code.
So what judges and juries decide it to be needs to be followed in other driving cases charged with careless driving
it means not driving like a muppet. When you drive you see many drivers driving like muppets. Don't do what they do.
What is 'not driving like a muppet?' A muppet could be driving at the speed limit, not drunk, have no drugs in his system and not be on his phone and not clearly in breach of the highway code but still be charged with careless driving and you would need to follow the case verdict to see if the muppet was convicted and you needed to avoid similar actions
Except that I don't need to follow all the case law to understand what muppetry is. I already know that driving round blind corners on single track roads at 60mph is a bad idea, regardless of the posted limit, or that it's prudent to leave very long breaking distances and to take corners gently when there's the potential for the road to be covered in ice. I don't actually need a court verdict to tell me that.
Court verdicts are only significant when they don't give the outcome you'd expect - eg the recent preverse judgement where a firm was fined because a driver delivering to them fell off his lorry, hit his head on the floor and unfortunately died - thus throwing the onus onto anyone who takes deliveries to manage the working at height risk of a driver unloading his lorry, rather than onto the haulier as you would logically expect. (Personally, I think no case should have been brought against anyone for that particular incident - the costs of mitigation vastly exceed the threshold of "reasonably practicable" relative to the level of risk. But HSE are a bunch of unaccoutable shits who have virtually forgotten the concept of "reasonably practicable".)
Yes but driving round blind corners at 30mph, is that also a bad idea? Debateable and arguments either way. Maybe if very icy should not be done but otherwise?
As you have shown even judges can produce judgements you might not expect but going forward that would be the law on similar facts unless overturned on appeal
Drive around a blind corner so that you can stop if there’s a person lying in the road where it’s blind, or where there’s a tractor stopped there, or be comfortable with killing or dying if you don’t
It’s not complicated at all
Yes but if driving around a blind corner should that be 25mph to allow time to stop or 30mph? What if it is raining 25mph or 20mph?
Firstly, I don't really care (but that might be because it's Sultana and Your Party, which is as insignificant as it is amusing) and, secondly, really? Don't the police have better things to be spending their time on?
You've just said my job isn't important.
Investitgating financial crimes is very important.
Anything juicy recently?
Nope, my investigations have mostly centred on cocaine and unsolicited & solicited dick pics.
In my OH's last company, she was asked to ignore the cocaine misuse as the company wouldn't have a sales team left. Your lot must have higher standards.
Just to point out that this is an everyday example of the ridiculous state of affairs where wholesalers in this product are getting 20-25 year sentences while the product is regarded by millions as quotidian and normal.
If demand ceased, so would supply. Either decriminalise or make the user the real criminal, not the hard working trader.
MPs and television presenters have been cancelled over dodgy bants or porn but politics and the media are fuelled by actually illegal drugs. And this illustrates a real problem – the growing gulf between what is acceptable and what is legal.
Coke is now such a naff drug - it’s being hoovered up noses in pubs up and down the country by every man jack and off kitchen counters by bored mums.
Is the answer to be massively illiberal on coke - 1 year in prison, no suspended sentences or anything for possession. Announce it from the rooftops - you are caught with coke, or driving under the influence and you are going to prison for a year so say goodbye to your mid level management job, your kids, your bed. Prepare to be unable to cover your mortgage and lose your home, have a nightmare with a drugs offence when opening accounts or travelling.
Would something this severe smash the casual use? These people aren’t thinking of the chain of poor fuckers down the line working in grim conditions to harvest and produce, those getting killed in the trade so why have any sympathy for the end users?
I’m not sure how I feel about the above but would be an interesting experiment.
Where do you plan to build the extra 3,000 prisons?
This misses the point. The function of mandatory prison sentences is not in order to fill extra prisons but to deter certain actions. I am neutral as between decriminalisation and, OTOH, rational drug law enforcement. What is irrational is to deter traders with 25 year sentences but not deter use in any significant way.
Would not a few dozen otherwise impeccable living middling sorts with wives, children and careers in auto finance and geography teaching going to prison for drug use be enough?
I wonder how many of us are a little more careful about driving now that mere careless driving, if it chances to have certain outcomes, can lead straight to prison?
It can but even if careless driving leads to death or serious injury in most cases the sentence will be a community order or suspended sentence. Only if the driver killed under the influence of drink of drugs would an immediate prison sentence be likely.
We also should be considering changing highway laws to reduce speed limits on rural roads, narrow tracks and at bends or banning u turns or 3 point turns except in quiet residential streets as a lot of what would be mere careless driving could still be doing a currently legal manoeuvre
Just how are people supposed to turn round if they miss a junction or take a wrong turn?
Wait until they reach the next roundabout
This is nuts. I live in rural Surrey, but let's be honest Surrey is also pretty built up so I imagine most of the countryside is worse for roundabouts than where I live, but lets just take the lane I live on:
It has a roundabout at one end so let's assume we are going in the other direction. It is 2 miles long. It then reaches a cross roads. To the left you have to drive about 4 miles to a roundabout (which you may not know is there). Straight on is a narrow lane of about a mile with a T junction at the end. At that junction you can turn left or right. If you turn left you have about 5 miles to another T junction. At that junction you can turn left and eventually come to a roundabout in a mile. If you turn right I can't even think where there is a roundabout. Going back to the last junction if you turn right you come to another junction after about 2 miles. You can turn right and come to a roundabout after 3 miles. If you turn left after 2 miles you come to another junction. The next roundabout is about 7 miles away. Finally going back to the first junction if you turn right after 2 miles there is a junction. I can't think of where there is another roundabout either left or right on that road.
Your suggestion is nuts.
You are also wrong on speed limits for country lanes. You should be driving at a speed appropriate for the road, car and conditions. I am currently taking my Advanced Driving lessons for IAM. They are really hot on not exceeding the speed limits, but also hot on not progressing and I was told I was driving too slow for the conditions on my last lesson. People driving too slow for the conditions are also very dangerous.
Fine, then take the risk of being done for death or serious injury by careless driving if you do said u turn on a rural road and won't wait until the next roundabout or village.
The speed limit on country lanes is 60mph.
'Driving at a speed appropriate for the road, car and conditions' is a totally subjective term. One man's 'appropriate speed' may be 55mph, another 20mph on the same road and same conditions, even if approaching a bend it is completely vague guidance. As you say you can be accused of going too slow as well as too fast
You should be able to stop in the distance you can see to be clear, is good general advice.
And how is the average man on the road of average intelligence let alone those of below supposed to be able to calculate how long it will take them to stop where they see is clear ahead? They can follow the speed limit, they can't do stopping distance calculations every road they take!
On the contrary, you can and do. Just as you judge other distances, like how far behind the car in front to drive, in different conditions.
Glad you live the other side of London, I'm unlikely to meet you coming round a corner. Perhaps you should hand back your licence, I'm beginning to think that wasn't such an uncharitable suggestion
How? The average driver on the road is NOT a statistician who can calculate stopping distances. You drive behind a car so you can always see its back and license plate in full, that is NOT the same as doing constant stopping distance calculations.
The speed limit on rural roads is 60mph, either we reduce that to 40mph and say 20-30mph max around bends and when wet or snowing and 20mph on single tracks or legally there must be real debate on whether someone driving at the speed limit should be prosecuted even if an accident?
Rural roads are national speed limit - drive at a safe speed, mot the maximum
Yes never over national speed limit and mostly not at it either but what is a safe speed if raining? If hail? Before a bend?
@elonmusk · 24m We will make the new 𝕏 algorithm, including all code used to determine what organic and advertising posts are recommended to users, open source in 7 days.
This will be repeated every 4 weeks, with comprehensive developer notes, to help you understand what changed.
I bet he won’t make the Grok code, full of commands to praise Musk all the time, open source.
The idea that the Highway Code needs to be made as big as the tax code, in order to cover every possible eventuality, all to stop lawyers lawyering, is one of the most preposterous arguments I’ve read on here. I hope that it’s heroic trolling
There should be an overriding common sense law that overrides all other laws. It should be based on what a sensible person would do, not what a reckless or stupid person would do.
That’s literally populism, from Poujade to Farage. The problem is that we can’t actually agree on common sense and common sense is often inadequate in many circumstances, which is why we have big tax and legal codes.
The “common sense overrides” was how the law worked in medieval times. The slight problem with that is not “populism” so much as “making up the rules as you go along”.
Which is why the law got more detailed. But….
The problem is that it is provably impossible to create a linear rule set to cover every eventuality in a non-linear world. Which is why the law grows ever larger and fails to catch up.
"This is the final battle; Pahlavi will return" chant the crowds tonight in darkened cut-off Iran. And Pahlavi just might. The challenge is great for Khamenei’s heirs but so far there is only one established opposition leader. There is a the king over the water - the Crown Prince. Today he has made a historic call
"This is the final battle; Pahlavi will return" chant the crowds tonight in darkened cut-off Iran. And Pahlavi just might. The challenge is great for Khamenei’s heirs but so far there is only one established opposition leader. There is a the king over the water - the Crown Prince. Today he has made a historic call
Firstly, I don't really care (but that might be because it's Sultana and Your Party, which is as insignificant as it is amusing) and, secondly, really? Don't the police have better things to be spending their time on?
You've just said my job isn't important.
Investitgating financial crimes is very important.
Anything juicy recently?
Nope, my investigations have mostly centred on cocaine and unsolicited & solicited dick pics.
In my OH's last company, she was asked to ignore the cocaine misuse as the company wouldn't have a sales team left. Your lot must have higher standards.
Just to point out that this is an everyday example of the ridiculous state of affairs where wholesalers in this product are getting 20-25 year sentences while the product is regarded by millions as quotidian and normal.
If demand ceased, so would supply. Either decriminalise or make the user the real criminal, not the hard working trader.
MPs and television presenters have been cancelled over dodgy bants or porn but politics and the media are fuelled by actually illegal drugs. And this illustrates a real problem – the growing gulf between what is acceptable and what is legal.
Coke is now such a naff drug - it’s being hoovered up noses in pubs up and down the country by every man jack and off kitchen counters by bored mums.
Is the answer to be massively illiberal on coke - 1 year in prison, no suspended sentences or anything for possession. Announce it from the rooftops - you are caught with coke, or driving under the influence and you are going to prison for a year so say goodbye to your mid level management job, your kids, your bed. Prepare to be unable to cover your mortgage and lose your home, have a nightmare with a drugs offence when opening accounts or travelling.
Would something this severe smash the casual use? These people aren’t thinking of the chain of poor fuckers down the line working in grim conditions to harvest and produce, those getting killed in the trade so why have any sympathy for the end users?
I’m not sure how I feel about the above but would be an interesting experiment.
Where do you plan to build the extra 3,000 prisons?
This misses the point. The function of mandatory prison sentences is not in order to fill extra prisons but to deter certain actions. I am neutral as between decriminalisation and, OTOH, rational drug law enforcement. What is irrational is to deter traders with 25 year sentences but not deter use in any significant way.
Would not a few dozen otherwise impeccable living middling sorts with wives, children and careers in auto finance and geography teaching going to prison for drug use be enough?
I wonder how many of us are a little more careful about driving now that mere careless driving, if it chances to have certain outcomes, can lead straight to prison?
It can but even if careless driving leads to death or serious injury in most cases the sentence will be a community order or suspended sentence. Only if the driver killed under the influence of drink of drugs would an immediate prison sentence be likely.
We also should be considering changing highway laws to reduce speed limits on rural roads, narrow tracks and at bends or banning u turns or 3 point turns except in quiet residential streets as a lot of what would be mere careless driving could still be doing a currently legal manoeuvre
Just how are people supposed to turn round if they miss a junction or take a wrong turn?
Wait until they reach the next roundabout
This is nuts. I live in rural Surrey, but let's be honest Surrey is also pretty built up so I imagine most of the countryside is worse for roundabouts than where I live, but lets just take the lane I live on:
It has a roundabout at one end so let's assume we are going in the other direction. It is 2 miles long. It then reaches a cross roads. To the left you have to drive about 4 miles to a roundabout (which you may not know is there). Straight on is a narrow lane of about a mile with a T junction at the end. At that junction you can turn left or right. If you turn left you have about 5 miles to another T junction. At that junction you can turn left and eventually come to a roundabout in a mile. If you turn right I can't even think where there is a roundabout. Going back to the last junction if you turn right you come to another junction after about 2 miles. You can turn right and come to a roundabout after 3 miles. If you turn left after 2 miles you come to another junction. The next roundabout is about 7 miles away. Finally going back to the first junction if you turn right after 2 miles there is a junction. I can't think of where there is another roundabout either left or right on that road.
Your suggestion is nuts.
You are also wrong on speed limits for country lanes. You should be driving at a speed appropriate for the road, car and conditions. I am currently taking my Advanced Driving lessons for IAM. They are really hot on not exceeding the speed limits, but also hot on not progressing and I was told I was driving too slow for the conditions on my last lesson. People driving too slow for the conditions are also very dangerous.
Fine, then take the risk of being done for death or serious injury by careless driving if you do said u turn on a rural road and won't wait until the next roundabout or village.
The speed limit on country lanes is 60mph.
'Driving at a speed appropriate for the road, car and conditions' is a totally subjective term. One man's 'appropriate speed' may be 55mph, another 20mph on the same road and same conditions, even if approaching a bend it is completely vague guidance. As you say you can be accused of going too slow as well as too fast
You should be able to stop in the distance you can see to be clear, is good general advice.
And how is the average man on the road of average intelligence let alone those of below supposed to be able to calculate how long it will take them to stop where they see is clear ahead? They can follow the speed limit, they can't do stopping distance calculations every road they take!
On the contrary, you can and do. Just as you judge other distances, like how far behind the car in front to drive, in different conditions.
Glad you live the other side of London, I'm unlikely to meet you coming round a corner. Perhaps you should hand back your licence, I'm beginning to think that wasn't such an uncharitable suggestion
How? The average driver on the road is NOT a statistician who can calculate stopping distances. You drive behind a car so you can always see its back and license plate in full, that is NOT the same as doing constant stopping distance calculations.
The speed limit on rural roads is 60mph, either we reduce that to 40mph and say 20-30mph max around bends and when wet or snowing and 20mph on single tracks or legally there must be real debate on whether someone driving at the speed limit should be prosecuted even if an accident?
Rural roads are national speed limit - drive at a safe speed, mot the maximum
Yes never over national speed limit and mostly not at it either but what is a safe speed if raining? If hail? Before a bend?
Drive at a speed (slowly enough) that you know you can avoid an “accident”. What sort of driver needs it written down? One that shouldn’t be driving
I am going to have to unfollow Ed now he has gone all serious and dropped his unknown stuntman routine.
The strategy, such as it is, from Starmer and the other European leaders is to kiss Trump's arse with both lips on both cheeks and hope the Dems win in 2028 so normal service is restored.
I seems fucking mad on the face of it but they are a) cleverer than me and b) in possession of far more information and analytical talent so maybe there is something in it.
I hesitate to mention this, since some reader might take it as a challenge. But here goes anyway, with that small warning: Recently a Washington state trooper recorded a driver doing 156 miles per hour. In the fog. With their lights off. https://mynorthwest.com/chokepoints/wsp-156-mph-i-5-headlights/4183877
Were they ICE going to murderapprehend a Democrat?
"This is the final battle; Pahlavi will return" chant the crowds tonight in darkened cut-off Iran. And Pahlavi just might. The challenge is great for Khamenei’s heirs but so far there is only one established opposition leader. There is a the king over the water - the Crown Prince. Today he has made a historic call
The idea that the Highway Code needs to be made as big as the tax code, in order to cover every possible eventuality, all to stop lawyers lawyering, is one of the most preposterous arguments I’ve read on here. I hope that it’s heroic trolling
Fine, expect the law on careless driving causing injury or death then to continue to be often decided by what the judge, jury or magistrate of the day decides it in court to mean then
Literally the very purpose of our legal system.
What's the problem?
You have to keenly follow the significant cases then to see what the law actually is in terms of interpretation of the statutory offence of driving carelessly if no drink or drugs or mobile phone use involved and the Highway Code is not very specific about the action
no you don't, you just have to take care while driving
Yes but what is 'taking care' is a subjective opinion beyond not drink or drug driving, not using your phone when driving and not driving over the speed limit and not clearly breaching the terms of the Highway Code.
So what judges and juries decide it to be needs to be followed in other driving cases charged with careless driving
it means not driving like a muppet. When you drive you see many drivers driving like muppets. Don't do what they do.
What is 'not driving like a muppet?' A muppet could be driving at the speed limit, not drunk, have no drugs in his system and not be on his phone and not clearly in breach of the highway code but still be charged with careless driving and you would need to follow the case verdict to see if the muppet was convicted and you needed to avoid similar actions
Except that I don't need to follow all the case law to understand what muppetry is. I already know that driving round blind corners on single track roads at 60mph is a bad idea, regardless of the posted limit, or that it's prudent to leave very long breaking distances and to take corners gently when there's the potential for the road to be covered in ice. I don't actually need a court verdict to tell me that.
Court verdicts are only significant when they don't give the outcome you'd expect - eg the recent preverse judgement where a firm was fined because a driver delivering to them fell off his lorry, hit his head on the floor and unfortunately died - thus throwing the onus onto anyone who takes deliveries to manage the working at height risk of a driver unloading his lorry, rather than onto the haulier as you would logically expect. (Personally, I think no case should have been brought against anyone for that particular incident - the costs of mitigation vastly exceed the threshold of "reasonably practicable" relative to the level of risk. But HSE are a bunch of unaccoutable shits who have virtually forgotten the concept of "reasonably practicable".)
Yes but driving round blind corners at 30mph, is that also a bad idea? Debateable and arguments either way. Maybe if very icy should not be done but otherwise?
As you have shown even judges can produce judgements you might not expect but going forward that would be the law on similar facts unless overturned on appeal
Drive around a blind corner so that you can stop if there’s a person lying in the road where it’s blind, or where there’s a tractor stopped there, or be comfortable with killing or dying if you don’t
It’s not complicated at all
Or a postie’s van delivering to the cottage just round the blind bend.
"This is the final battle; Pahlavi will return" chant the crowds tonight in darkened cut-off Iran. And Pahlavi just might. The challenge is great for Khamenei’s heirs but so far there is only one established opposition leader. There is a the king over the water - the Crown Prince. Today he has made a historic call
I am going to have to unfollow Ed now he has gone all serious and dropped his unknown stuntman routine.
The strategy, such as it is, from Starmer and the other European leaders is to kiss Trump's arse with both lips on both cheeks and hope the Dems win in 2028 so normal service is restored.
I seems fucking mad on the face of it but they are a) cleverer than me and b) in possession of far more information and analytical talent so maybe there is something in it.
It’s useful for the government and its current US relations to have Ed (and Zach) saying this. Apres moi, Les Lib Dems.
Firstly, I don't really care (but that might be because it's Sultana and Your Party, which is as insignificant as it is amusing) and, secondly, really? Don't the police have better things to be spending their time on?
You've just said my job isn't important.
Investitgating financial crimes is very important.
Anything juicy recently?
Nope, my investigations have mostly centred on cocaine and unsolicited & solicited dick pics.
In my OH's last company, she was asked to ignore the cocaine misuse as the company wouldn't have a sales team left. Your lot must have higher standards.
Just to point out that this is an everyday example of the ridiculous state of affairs where wholesalers in this product are getting 20-25 year sentences while the product is regarded by millions as quotidian and normal.
If demand ceased, so would supply. Either decriminalise or make the user the real criminal, not the hard working trader.
MPs and television presenters have been cancelled over dodgy bants or porn but politics and the media are fuelled by actually illegal drugs. And this illustrates a real problem – the growing gulf between what is acceptable and what is legal.
Coke is now such a naff drug - it’s being hoovered up noses in pubs up and down the country by every man jack and off kitchen counters by bored mums.
Is the answer to be massively illiberal on coke - 1 year in prison, no suspended sentences or anything for possession. Announce it from the rooftops - you are caught with coke, or driving under the influence and you are going to prison for a year so say goodbye to your mid level management job, your kids, your bed. Prepare to be unable to cover your mortgage and lose your home, have a nightmare with a drugs offence when opening accounts or travelling.
Would something this severe smash the casual use? These people aren’t thinking of the chain of poor fuckers down the line working in grim conditions to harvest and produce, those getting killed in the trade so why have any sympathy for the end users?
I’m not sure how I feel about the above but would be an interesting experiment.
Where do you plan to build the extra 3,000 prisons?
This misses the point. The function of mandatory prison sentences is not in order to fill extra prisons but to deter certain actions. I am neutral as between decriminalisation and, OTOH, rational drug law enforcement. What is irrational is to deter traders with 25 year sentences but not deter use in any significant way.
Would not a few dozen otherwise impeccable living middling sorts with wives, children and careers in auto finance and geography teaching going to prison for drug use be enough?
I wonder how many of us are a little more careful about driving now that mere careless driving, if it chances to have certain outcomes, can lead straight to prison?
It can but even if careless driving leads to death or serious injury in most cases the sentence will be a community order or suspended sentence. Only if the driver killed under the influence of drink of drugs would an immediate prison sentence be likely.
We also should be considering changing highway laws to reduce speed limits on rural roads, narrow tracks and at bends or banning u turns or 3 point turns except in quiet residential streets as a lot of what would be mere careless driving could still be doing a currently legal manoeuvre
Just how are people supposed to turn round if they miss a junction or take a wrong turn?
Wait until they reach the next roundabout
This is nuts. I live in rural Surrey, but let's be honest Surrey is also pretty built up so I imagine most of the countryside is worse for roundabouts than where I live, but lets just take the lane I live on:
It has a roundabout at one end so let's assume we are going in the other direction. It is 2 miles long. It then reaches a cross roads. To the left you have to drive about 4 miles to a roundabout (which you may not know is there). Straight on is a narrow lane of about a mile with a T junction at the end. At that junction you can turn left or right. If you turn left you have about 5 miles to another T junction. At that junction you can turn left and eventually come to a roundabout in a mile. If you turn right I can't even think where there is a roundabout. Going back to the last junction if you turn right you come to another junction after about 2 miles. You can turn right and come to a roundabout after 3 miles. If you turn left after 2 miles you come to another junction. The next roundabout is about 7 miles away. Finally going back to the first junction if you turn right after 2 miles there is a junction. I can't think of where there is another roundabout either left or right on that road.
Your suggestion is nuts.
You are also wrong on speed limits for country lanes. You should be driving at a speed appropriate for the road, car and conditions. I am currently taking my Advanced Driving lessons for IAM. They are really hot on not exceeding the speed limits, but also hot on not progressing and I was told I was driving too slow for the conditions on my last lesson. People driving too slow for the conditions are also very dangerous.
Fine, then take the risk of being done for death or serious injury by careless driving if you do said u turn on a rural road and won't wait until the next roundabout or village.
The speed limit on country lanes is 60mph.
'Driving at a speed appropriate for the road, car and conditions' is a totally subjective term. One man's 'appropriate speed' may be 55mph, another 20mph on the same road and same conditions, even if approaching a bend it is completely vague guidance. As you say you can be accused of going too slow as well as too fast
You should be able to stop in the distance you can see to be clear, is good general advice.
And how is the average man on the road of average intelligence let alone those of below supposed to be able to calculate how long it will take them to stop where they see is clear ahead? They can follow the speed limit, they can't do stopping distance calculations every road they take!
On the contrary, you can and do. Just as you judge other distances, like how far behind the car in front to drive, in different conditions.
Glad you live the other side of London, I'm unlikely to meet you coming round a corner. Perhaps you should hand back your licence, I'm beginning to think that wasn't such an uncharitable suggestion
How? The average driver on the road is NOT a statistician who can calculate stopping distances. You drive behind a car so you can always see its back and license plate in full, that is NOT the same as doing constant stopping distance calculations.
The speed limit on rural roads is 60mph, either we reduce that to 40mph and say 20-30mph max around bends and when wet or snowing and 20mph on single tracks or legally there must be real debate on whether someone driving at the speed limit should be prosecuted even if an accident?
Rural roads are national speed limit - drive at a safe speed, mot the maximum
Yes never over national speed limit and mostly not at it either but what is a safe speed if raining? If hail? Before a bend?
If you don't know that when you are driving in those conditions you should not be driving
"This is the final battle; Pahlavi will return" chant the crowds tonight in darkened cut-off Iran. And Pahlavi just might. The challenge is great for Khamenei’s heirs but so far there is only one established opposition leader. There is a the king over the water - the Crown Prince. Today he has made a historic call
This time last year I had to do one of those speedy awareness courses. Quite shocking how few people knew some key crucial info e.g. many got the national speed limit sign on rural roads totally wrong.
Firstly, I don't really care (but that might be because it's Sultana and Your Party, which is as insignificant as it is amusing) and, secondly, really? Don't the police have better things to be spending their time on?
You've just said my job isn't important.
Investitgating financial crimes is very important.
Anything juicy recently?
Nope, my investigations have mostly centred on cocaine and unsolicited & solicited dick pics.
In my OH's last company, she was asked to ignore the cocaine misuse as the company wouldn't have a sales team left. Your lot must have higher standards.
Just to point out that this is an everyday example of the ridiculous state of affairs where wholesalers in this product are getting 20-25 year sentences while the product is regarded by millions as quotidian and normal.
If demand ceased, so would supply. Either decriminalise or make the user the real criminal, not the hard working trader.
MPs and television presenters have been cancelled over dodgy bants or porn but politics and the media are fuelled by actually illegal drugs. And this illustrates a real problem – the growing gulf between what is acceptable and what is legal.
Coke is now such a naff drug - it’s being hoovered up noses in pubs up and down the country by every man jack and off kitchen counters by bored mums.
Is the answer to be massively illiberal on coke - 1 year in prison, no suspended sentences or anything for possession. Announce it from the rooftops - you are caught with coke, or driving under the influence and you are going to prison for a year so say goodbye to your mid level management job, your kids, your bed. Prepare to be unable to cover your mortgage and lose your home, have a nightmare with a drugs offence when opening accounts or travelling.
Would something this severe smash the casual use? These people aren’t thinking of the chain of poor fuckers down the line working in grim conditions to harvest and produce, those getting killed in the trade so why have any sympathy for the end users?
I’m not sure how I feel about the above but would be an interesting experiment.
Where do you plan to build the extra 3,000 prisons?
This misses the point. The function of mandatory prison sentences is not in order to fill extra prisons but to deter certain actions. I am neutral as between decriminalisation and, OTOH, rational drug law enforcement. What is irrational is to deter traders with 25 year sentences but not deter use in any significant way.
Would not a few dozen otherwise impeccable living middling sorts with wives, children and careers in auto finance and geography teaching going to prison for drug use be enough?
I wonder how many of us are a little more careful about driving now that mere careless driving, if it chances to have certain outcomes, can lead straight to prison?
It can but even if careless driving leads to death or serious injury in most cases the sentence will be a community order or suspended sentence. Only if the driver killed under the influence of drink of drugs would an immediate prison sentence be likely.
We also should be considering changing highway laws to reduce speed limits on rural roads, narrow tracks and at bends or banning u turns or 3 point turns except in quiet residential streets as a lot of what would be mere careless driving could still be doing a currently legal manoeuvre
Just how are people supposed to turn round if they miss a junction or take a wrong turn?
Wait until they reach the next roundabout
This is nuts. I live in rural Surrey, but let's be honest Surrey is also pretty built up so I imagine most of the countryside is worse for roundabouts than where I live, but lets just take the lane I live on:
It has a roundabout at one end so let's assume we are going in the other direction. It is 2 miles long. It then reaches a cross roads. To the left you have to drive about 4 miles to a roundabout (which you may not know is there). Straight on is a narrow lane of about a mile with a T junction at the end. At that junction you can turn left or right. If you turn left you have about 5 miles to another T junction. At that junction you can turn left and eventually come to a roundabout in a mile. If you turn right I can't even think where there is a roundabout. Going back to the last junction if you turn right you come to another junction after about 2 miles. You can turn right and come to a roundabout after 3 miles. If you turn left after 2 miles you come to another junction. The next roundabout is about 7 miles away. Finally going back to the first junction if you turn right after 2 miles there is a junction. I can't think of where there is another roundabout either left or right on that road.
Your suggestion is nuts.
You are also wrong on speed limits for country lanes. You should be driving at a speed appropriate for the road, car and conditions. I am currently taking my Advanced Driving lessons for IAM. They are really hot on not exceeding the speed limits, but also hot on not progressing and I was told I was driving too slow for the conditions on my last lesson. People driving too slow for the conditions are also very dangerous.
Fine, then take the risk of being done for death or serious injury by careless driving if you do said u turn on a rural road and won't wait until the next roundabout or village.
The speed limit on country lanes is 60mph.
'Driving at a speed appropriate for the road, car and conditions' is a totally subjective term. One man's 'appropriate speed' may be 55mph, another 20mph on the same road and same conditions, even if approaching a bend it is completely vague guidance. As you say you can be accused of going too slow as well as too fast
You should be able to stop in the distance you can see to be clear, is good general advice.
And how is the average man on the road of average intelligence let alone those of below supposed to be able to calculate how long it will take them to stop where they see is clear ahead? They can follow the speed limit, they can't do stopping distance calculations every road they take!
On the contrary, you can and do. Just as you judge other distances, like how far behind the car in front to drive, in different conditions.
Glad you live the other side of London, I'm unlikely to meet you coming round a corner. Perhaps you should hand back your licence, I'm beginning to think that wasn't such an uncharitable suggestion
How? The average driver on the road is NOT a statistician who can calculate stopping distances. You drive behind a car so you can always see its back and license plate in full, that is NOT the same as doing constant stopping distance calculations.
The speed limit on rural roads is 60mph, either we reduce that to 40mph and say 20-30mph max around bends and when wet or snowing and 20mph on single tracks or legally there must be real debate on whether someone driving at the speed limit should be prosecuted even if an accident?
Rural roads are national speed limit - drive at a safe speed, mot the maximum
Yes never over national speed limit and mostly not at it either but what is a safe speed if raining? If hail? Before a bend?
Drive at a speed (slowly enough) that you know you can avoid an “accident”. What sort of driver needs it written down? One that shouldn’t be driving
Yes.
Always drive slowly unless it is blindingly obvious you could safely go a little bit faster.
This time last year I had to do one of those speedy awareness courses. Quite shocking how few people knew some key crucial info e.g. many got the national speed limit sign on rural roads totally wrong.
Maybe mandatory theory test retests every 10 years for drivers?
I am going to have to unfollow Ed now he has gone all serious and dropped his unknown stuntman routine.
The strategy, such as it is, from Starmer and the other European leaders is to kiss Trump's arse with both lips on both cheeks and hope the Dems win in 2028 so normal service is restored.
I seems fucking mad on the face of it but they are a) cleverer than me and b) in possession of far more information and analytical talent so maybe there is something in it.
Hoping for the best, preparing for the worst, and in the meantime hanging on - is a sensible strategy, if that's what they're actually doing.
Firstly, I don't really care (but that might be because it's Sultana and Your Party, which is as insignificant as it is amusing) and, secondly, really? Don't the police have better things to be spending their time on?
You've just said my job isn't important.
Investitgating financial crimes is very important.
Anything juicy recently?
Nope, my investigations have mostly centred on cocaine and unsolicited & solicited dick pics.
In my OH's last company, she was asked to ignore the cocaine misuse as the company wouldn't have a sales team left. Your lot must have higher standards.
Just to point out that this is an everyday example of the ridiculous state of affairs where wholesalers in this product are getting 20-25 year sentences while the product is regarded by millions as quotidian and normal.
If demand ceased, so would supply. Either decriminalise or make the user the real criminal, not the hard working trader.
MPs and television presenters have been cancelled over dodgy bants or porn but politics and the media are fuelled by actually illegal drugs. And this illustrates a real problem – the growing gulf between what is acceptable and what is legal.
Coke is now such a naff drug - it’s being hoovered up noses in pubs up and down the country by every man jack and off kitchen counters by bored mums.
Is the answer to be massively illiberal on coke - 1 year in prison, no suspended sentences or anything for possession. Announce it from the rooftops - you are caught with coke, or driving under the influence and you are going to prison for a year so say goodbye to your mid level management job, your kids, your bed. Prepare to be unable to cover your mortgage and lose your home, have a nightmare with a drugs offence when opening accounts or travelling.
Would something this severe smash the casual use? These people aren’t thinking of the chain of poor fuckers down the line working in grim conditions to harvest and produce, those getting killed in the trade so why have any sympathy for the end users?
I’m not sure how I feel about the above but would be an interesting experiment.
Where do you plan to build the extra 3,000 prisons?
This misses the point. The function of mandatory prison sentences is not in order to fill extra prisons but to deter certain actions. I am neutral as between decriminalisation and, OTOH, rational drug law enforcement. What is irrational is to deter traders with 25 year sentences but not deter use in any significant way.
Would not a few dozen otherwise impeccable living middling sorts with wives, children and careers in auto finance and geography teaching going to prison for drug use be enough?
I wonder how many of us are a little more careful about driving now that mere careless driving, if it chances to have certain outcomes, can lead straight to prison?
It can but even if careless driving leads to death or serious injury in most cases the sentence will be a community order or suspended sentence. Only if the driver killed under the influence of drink of drugs would an immediate prison sentence be likely.
We also should be considering changing highway laws to reduce speed limits on rural roads, narrow tracks and at bends or banning u turns or 3 point turns except in quiet residential streets as a lot of what would be mere careless driving could still be doing a currently legal manoeuvre
Just how are people supposed to turn round if they miss a junction or take a wrong turn?
Wait until they reach the next roundabout
This is nuts. I live in rural Surrey, but let's be honest Surrey is also pretty built up so I imagine most of the countryside is worse for roundabouts than where I live, but lets just take the lane I live on:
It has a roundabout at one end so let's assume we are going in the other direction. It is 2 miles long. It then reaches a cross roads. To the left you have to drive about 4 miles to a roundabout (which you may not know is there). Straight on is a narrow lane of about a mile with a T junction at the end. At that junction you can turn left or right. If you turn left you have about 5 miles to another T junction. At that junction you can turn left and eventually come to a roundabout in a mile. If you turn right I can't even think where there is a roundabout. Going back to the last junction if you turn right you come to another junction after about 2 miles. You can turn right and come to a roundabout after 3 miles. If you turn left after 2 miles you come to another junction. The next roundabout is about 7 miles away. Finally going back to the first junction if you turn right after 2 miles there is a junction. I can't think of where there is another roundabout either left or right on that road.
Your suggestion is nuts.
You are also wrong on speed limits for country lanes. You should be driving at a speed appropriate for the road, car and conditions. I am currently taking my Advanced Driving lessons for IAM. They are really hot on not exceeding the speed limits, but also hot on not progressing and I was told I was driving too slow for the conditions on my last lesson. People driving too slow for the conditions are also very dangerous.
Fine, then take the risk of being done for death or serious injury by careless driving if you do said u turn on a rural road and won't wait until the next roundabout or village.
The speed limit on country lanes is 60mph.
'Driving at a speed appropriate for the road, car and conditions' is a totally subjective term. One man's 'appropriate speed' may be 55mph, another 20mph on the same road and same conditions, even if approaching a bend it is completely vague guidance. As you say you can be accused of going too slow as well as too fast
You should be able to stop in the distance you can see to be clear, is good general advice.
And how is the average man on the road of average intelligence let alone those of below supposed to be able to calculate how long it will take them to stop where they see is clear ahead? They can follow the speed limit, they can't do stopping distance calculations every road they take!
On the contrary, you can and do. Just as you judge other distances, like how far behind the car in front to drive, in different conditions.
Glad you live the other side of London, I'm unlikely to meet you coming round a corner. Perhaps you should hand back your licence, I'm beginning to think that wasn't such an uncharitable suggestion
How? The average driver on the road is NOT a statistician who can calculate stopping distances. You drive behind a car so you can always see its back and license plate in full, that is NOT the same as doing constant stopping distance calculations.
The speed limit on rural roads is 60mph, either we reduce that to 40mph and say 20-30mph max around bends and when wet or snowing and 20mph on single tracks or legally there must be real debate on whether someone driving at the speed limit should be prosecuted even if an accident?
Rural roads are national speed limit - drive at a safe speed, mot the maximum
Yes never over national speed limit and mostly not at it either but what is a safe speed if raining? If hail? Before a bend?
If you don't know that when you are driving in those conditions you should not be driving
Know what? Is it safe to drive at 30mph when raining heavily or only 20mph? Or even only 15mph?
The idea that the Highway Code needs to be made as big as the tax code, in order to cover every possible eventuality, all to stop lawyers lawyering, is one of the most preposterous arguments I’ve read on here. I hope that it’s heroic trolling
Fine, expect the law on careless driving causing injury or death then to continue to be often decided by what the judge, jury or magistrate of the day decides it in court to mean then
Literally the very purpose of our legal system.
What's the problem?
You have to keenly follow the significant cases then to see what the law actually is in terms of interpretation of the statutory offence of driving carelessly if no drink or drugs or mobile phone use involved and the Highway Code is not very specific about the action
no you don't, you just have to take care while driving
Yes but what is 'taking care' is a subjective opinion beyond not drink or drug driving, not using your phone when driving and not driving over the speed limit and not clearly breaching the terms of the Highway Code.
So what judges and juries decide it to be needs to be followed in other driving cases charged with careless driving
it means not driving like a muppet. When you drive you see many drivers driving like muppets. Don't do what they do.
What is 'not driving like a muppet?' A muppet could be driving at the speed limit, not drunk, have no drugs in his system and not be on his phone and not clearly in breach of the highway code but still be charged with careless driving and you would need to follow the case verdict to see if the muppet was convicted and you needed to avoid similar actions
Except that I don't need to follow all the case law to understand what muppetry is. I already know that driving round blind corners on single track roads at 60mph is a bad idea, regardless of the posted limit, or that it's prudent to leave very long breaking distances and to take corners gently when there's the potential for the road to be covered in ice. I don't actually need a court verdict to tell me that.
Court verdicts are only significant when they don't give the outcome you'd expect - eg the recent preverse judgement where a firm was fined because a driver delivering to them fell off his lorry, hit his head on the floor and unfortunately died - thus throwing the onus onto anyone who takes deliveries to manage the working at height risk of a driver unloading his lorry, rather than onto the haulier as you would logically expect. (Personally, I think no case should have been brought against anyone for that particular incident - the costs of mitigation vastly exceed the threshold of "reasonably practicable" relative to the level of risk. But HSE are a bunch of unaccoutable shits who have virtually forgotten the concept of "reasonably practicable".)
Yes but driving round blind corners at 30mph, is that also a bad idea? Debateable and arguments either way. Maybe if very icy should not be done but otherwise?
As you have shown even judges can produce judgements you might not expect but going forward that would be the law on similar facts unless overturned on appeal
Drive around a blind corner so that you can stop if there’s a person lying in the road where it’s blind, or where there’s a tractor stopped there, or be comfortable with killing or dying if you don’t
It’s not complicated at all
Yes but if driving around a blind corner should that be 25mph to allow time to stop or 30mph? What if it is raining 25mph or 20mph?
I did give this up as a fruitless exercise, but I have been sucked back in. I can't help it.
@hyufd You keep asking what speed you should be going for different conditions and different types of bends. You should know this if you are a driver. It is a driving skill that you learn. What are you expecting? Do you want a limit for every bend in every type of condition for every type of car. This is bonkers. You should know yourself when approaching the bend what is right. If you don't, well you might crash and get banned, which by the sounds of it would be a good thing if you didn't know what speed to go.
I will however repeat the advice I gave earlier. If this vexes you so much read pages 182 to 190 of the Police Drivers Handbook Roadcraft. You can buy it anywhere. It explains it all to you, although if you have no idea of stopping distances for your car in different conditions it might be a waste of time.
On another point @BartholomewRoberts has made some very good posts on the subject. In one he mentioned the Highway Code often mentions MUST and SHOULD (in capital red) a lot. I don't know whether it is generally known but where it says MUST, then to not do so is an offence with penalty points applicable. SHOULD is guidance. Although it was made clear to me that the police will often not enforce failure to follow a MUST rule (the application of common sense). A common one being the behaviour of cutting over a mini roundabout where you could fit around it is an offence, but a policeman is unlikely to enforce it unless reckless or he had a row with his wife that morning.
Firstly, I don't really care (but that might be because it's Sultana and Your Party, which is as insignificant as it is amusing) and, secondly, really? Don't the police have better things to be spending their time on?
You've just said my job isn't important.
Investitgating financial crimes is very important.
Anything juicy recently?
Nope, my investigations have mostly centred on cocaine and unsolicited & solicited dick pics.
In my OH's last company, she was asked to ignore the cocaine misuse as the company wouldn't have a sales team left. Your lot must have higher standards.
Just to point out that this is an everyday example of the ridiculous state of affairs where wholesalers in this product are getting 20-25 year sentences while the product is regarded by millions as quotidian and normal.
If demand ceased, so would supply. Either decriminalise or make the user the real criminal, not the hard working trader.
MPs and television presenters have been cancelled over dodgy bants or porn but politics and the media are fuelled by actually illegal drugs. And this illustrates a real problem – the growing gulf between what is acceptable and what is legal.
Coke is now such a naff drug - it’s being hoovered up noses in pubs up and down the country by every man jack and off kitchen counters by bored mums.
Is the answer to be massively illiberal on coke - 1 year in prison, no suspended sentences or anything for possession. Announce it from the rooftops - you are caught with coke, or driving under the influence and you are going to prison for a year so say goodbye to your mid level management job, your kids, your bed. Prepare to be unable to cover your mortgage and lose your home, have a nightmare with a drugs offence when opening accounts or travelling.
Would something this severe smash the casual use? These people aren’t thinking of the chain of poor fuckers down the line working in grim conditions to harvest and produce, those getting killed in the trade so why have any sympathy for the end users?
I’m not sure how I feel about the above but would be an interesting experiment.
Where do you plan to build the extra 3,000 prisons?
This misses the point. The function of mandatory prison sentences is not in order to fill extra prisons but to deter certain actions. I am neutral as between decriminalisation and, OTOH, rational drug law enforcement. What is irrational is to deter traders with 25 year sentences but not deter use in any significant way.
Would not a few dozen otherwise impeccable living middling sorts with wives, children and careers in auto finance and geography teaching going to prison for drug use be enough?
I wonder how many of us are a little more careful about driving now that mere careless driving, if it chances to have certain outcomes, can lead straight to prison?
It can but even if careless driving leads to death or serious injury in most cases the sentence will be a community order or suspended sentence. Only if the driver killed under the influence of drink of drugs would an immediate prison sentence be likely.
We also should be considering changing highway laws to reduce speed limits on rural roads, narrow tracks and at bends or banning u turns or 3 point turns except in quiet residential streets as a lot of what would be mere careless driving could still be doing a currently legal manoeuvre
Just how are people supposed to turn round if they miss a junction or take a wrong turn?
Wait until they reach the next roundabout
This is nuts. I live in rural Surrey, but let's be honest Surrey is also pretty built up so I imagine most of the countryside is worse for roundabouts than where I live, but lets just take the lane I live on:
It has a roundabout at one end so let's assume we are going in the other direction. It is 2 miles long. It then reaches a cross roads. To the left you have to drive about 4 miles to a roundabout (which you may not know is there). Straight on is a narrow lane of about a mile with a T junction at the end. At that junction you can turn left or right. If you turn left you have about 5 miles to another T junction. At that junction you can turn left and eventually come to a roundabout in a mile. If you turn right I can't even think where there is a roundabout. Going back to the last junction if you turn right you come to another junction after about 2 miles. You can turn right and come to a roundabout after 3 miles. If you turn left after 2 miles you come to another junction. The next roundabout is about 7 miles away. Finally going back to the first junction if you turn right after 2 miles there is a junction. I can't think of where there is another roundabout either left or right on that road.
Your suggestion is nuts.
You are also wrong on speed limits for country lanes. You should be driving at a speed appropriate for the road, car and conditions. I am currently taking my Advanced Driving lessons for IAM. They are really hot on not exceeding the speed limits, but also hot on not progressing and I was told I was driving too slow for the conditions on my last lesson. People driving too slow for the conditions are also very dangerous.
Fine, then take the risk of being done for death or serious injury by careless driving if you do said u turn on a rural road and won't wait until the next roundabout or village.
The speed limit on country lanes is 60mph.
'Driving at a speed appropriate for the road, car and conditions' is a totally subjective term. One man's 'appropriate speed' may be 55mph, another 20mph on the same road and same conditions, even if approaching a bend it is completely vague guidance. As you say you can be accused of going too slow as well as too fast
You should be able to stop in the distance you can see to be clear, is good general advice.
And how is the average man on the road of average intelligence let alone those of below supposed to be able to calculate how long it will take them to stop where they see is clear ahead? They can follow the speed limit, they can't do stopping distance calculations every road they take!
On the contrary, you can and do. Just as you judge other distances, like how far behind the car in front to drive, in different conditions.
Glad you live the other side of London, I'm unlikely to meet you coming round a corner. Perhaps you should hand back your licence, I'm beginning to think that wasn't such an uncharitable suggestion
How? The average driver on the road is NOT a statistician who can calculate stopping distances. You drive behind a car so you can always see its back and license plate in full, that is NOT the same as doing constant stopping distance calculations.
The speed limit on rural roads is 60mph, either we reduce that to 40mph and say 20-30mph max around bends and when wet or snowing and 20mph on single tracks or legally there must be real debate on whether someone driving at the speed limit should be prosecuted even if an accident?
Rural roads are national speed limit - drive at a safe speed, mot the maximum
Yes never over national speed limit and mostly not at it either but what is a safe speed if raining? If hail? Before a bend?
Drive at a speed (slowly enough) that you know you can avoid an “accident”. What sort of driver needs it written down? One that shouldn’t be driving
Which is what? You can even have an accident driving at just 20mph
This time last year I had to do one of those speedy awareness courses. Quite shocking how few people knew some key crucial info e.g. many got the national speed limit sign on rural roads totally wrong.
Maybe mandatory theory test retests every 10 years for drivers?
Don't know about that, seems OTT and require massive expansive of the whole testing system. But I actually thought the speedy awareness course was probably useful in reminding me of some oddities / changes, so maybe a online refresher course when you renew your plastic licence card (which I think is every 10 years). Couple of hours online doesn't seem end of the world.
Although I absolutely disagree with some of the advice e.g. drive around in 1st / 2nd gear in 20 mph zones. The whole sodding point of gearing is to give mechanical advantage, I am not going to strain the shit out of my engine doing that.
This time last year I had to do one of those speedy awareness courses. Quite shocking how few people knew some key crucial info e.g. many got the national speed limit sign on rural roads totally wrong.
Maybe mandatory theory test retests every 10 years for drivers?
Mandatory eye tests and cognitive tests for over 70s must happen, along with restrictions on young drivers
In the case of 70 year olds they have to renew their licence every 3 years under current legislation
The idea that the Highway Code needs to be made as big as the tax code, in order to cover every possible eventuality, all to stop lawyers lawyering, is one of the most preposterous arguments I’ve read on here. I hope that it’s heroic trolling
Fine, expect the law on careless driving causing injury or death then to continue to be often decided by what the judge, jury or magistrate of the day decides it in court to mean then
Literally the very purpose of our legal system.
What's the problem?
You have to keenly follow the significant cases then to see what the law actually is in terms of interpretation of the statutory offence of driving carelessly if no drink or drugs or mobile phone use involved and the Highway Code is not very specific about the action
no you don't, you just have to take care while driving
Yes but what is 'taking care' is a subjective opinion beyond not drink or drug driving, not using your phone when driving and not driving over the speed limit and not clearly breaching the terms of the Highway Code.
So what judges and juries decide it to be needs to be followed in other driving cases charged with careless driving
it means not driving like a muppet. When you drive you see many drivers driving like muppets. Don't do what they do.
What is 'not driving like a muppet?' A muppet could be driving at the speed limit, not drunk, have no drugs in his system and not be on his phone and not clearly in breach of the highway code but still be charged with careless driving and you would need to follow the case verdict to see if the muppet was convicted and you needed to avoid similar actions
Except that I don't need to follow all the case law to understand what muppetry is. I already know that driving round blind corners on single track roads at 60mph is a bad idea, regardless of the posted limit, or that it's prudent to leave very long breaking distances and to take corners gently when there's the potential for the road to be covered in ice. I don't actually need a court verdict to tell me that.
Court verdicts are only significant when they don't give the outcome you'd expect - eg the recent preverse judgement where a firm was fined because a driver delivering to them fell off his lorry, hit his head on the floor and unfortunately died - thus throwing the onus onto anyone who takes deliveries to manage the working at height risk of a driver unloading his lorry, rather than onto the haulier as you would logically expect. (Personally, I think no case should have been brought against anyone for that particular incident - the costs of mitigation vastly exceed the threshold of "reasonably practicable" relative to the level of risk. But HSE are a bunch of unaccoutable shits who have virtually forgotten the concept of "reasonably practicable".)
Yes but driving round blind corners at 30mph, is that also a bad idea? Debateable and arguments either way. Maybe if very icy should not be done but otherwise?
As you have shown even judges can produce judgements you might not expect but going forward that would be the law on similar facts unless overturned on appeal
Drive around a blind corner so that you can stop if there’s a person lying in the road where it’s blind, or where there’s a tractor stopped there, or be comfortable with killing or dying if you don’t
It’s not complicated at all
Yes but if driving around a blind corner should that be 25mph to allow time to stop or 30mph? What if it is raining 25mph or 20mph?
I did give this up as a fruitless exercise, but I have been sucked back in. I can't help it.
@hyufd You keep asking what speed you should be going for different conditions and different types of bends. You should know this if you are a driver. It is a driving skill that you learn. What are you expecting? Do you want a limit for every bend in every type of condition for every type of car. This is bonkers. You should know yourself when approaching the bend what is right. If you don't, well you might crash and get banned, which by the sounds of it would be a good thing if you didn't know what speed to go.
I will however repeat the advice I gave earlier. If this vexes you so much read pages 182 to 190 of the Police Drivers Handbook Roadcraft. You can buy it anywhere. It explains it all to you, although if you have no idea of stopping distances for your car in different conditions it might be a waste of time.
On another point @BartholomewRoberts has made some very good posts on the subject. In one he mentioned the Highway Code often mentions MUST and SHOULD (in capital red) a lot. I don't know whether it is generally known but where it says MUST, then to not do so is an offence with penalty points applicable. SHOULD is guidance. Although it was made clear to me that the police will often not enforce failure to follow a MUST rule (the application of common sense). A common one being the behaviour of cutting over a mini roundabout where you could fit around it is an offence, but a policeman is unlikely to enforce it unless reckless or he had a row with his wife that morning.
Should know what? What is the definitive safe speed for going round a bend you should never exceed? What is the definitive safe speed for driving in poor weather conditions you should never exceed?
Even standard stopping conditions will vary depending on bends or how heavy it is raining for example. So what is the safe speed you should definitely never exceed to include those conditions? Even Must and Should Code rules are not always clear on what exactly they require or prohibit
Massive savings on maternity care from the middle of the 2026/7 financial year, no mothers going on leave, gradual wind-down of our education system. Think of the resources freed up to spend on pensions.
Probably causes workforce shortages when we get to the mid 2040s, but that will be someone else's problem.
Firstly, I don't really care (but that might be because it's Sultana and Your Party, which is as insignificant as it is amusing) and, secondly, really? Don't the police have better things to be spending their time on?
You've just said my job isn't important.
Investitgating financial crimes is very important.
Anything juicy recently?
Nope, my investigations have mostly centred on cocaine and unsolicited & solicited dick pics.
In my OH's last company, she was asked to ignore the cocaine misuse as the company wouldn't have a sales team left. Your lot must have higher standards.
Just to point out that this is an everyday example of the ridiculous state of affairs where wholesalers in this product are getting 20-25 year sentences while the product is regarded by millions as quotidian and normal.
If demand ceased, so would supply. Either decriminalise or make the user the real criminal, not the hard working trader.
MPs and television presenters have been cancelled over dodgy bants or porn but politics and the media are fuelled by actually illegal drugs. And this illustrates a real problem – the growing gulf between what is acceptable and what is legal.
Coke is now such a naff drug - it’s being hoovered up noses in pubs up and down the country by every man jack and off kitchen counters by bored mums.
Is the answer to be massively illiberal on coke - 1 year in prison, no suspended sentences or anything for possession. Announce it from the rooftops - you are caught with coke, or driving under the influence and you are going to prison for a year so say goodbye to your mid level management job, your kids, your bed. Prepare to be unable to cover your mortgage and lose your home, have a nightmare with a drugs offence when opening accounts or travelling.
Would something this severe smash the casual use? These people aren’t thinking of the chain of poor fuckers down the line working in grim conditions to harvest and produce, those getting killed in the trade so why have any sympathy for the end users?
I’m not sure how I feel about the above but would be an interesting experiment.
Where do you plan to build the extra 3,000 prisons?
This misses the point. The function of mandatory prison sentences is not in order to fill extra prisons but to deter certain actions. I am neutral as between decriminalisation and, OTOH, rational drug law enforcement. What is irrational is to deter traders with 25 year sentences but not deter use in any significant way.
Would not a few dozen otherwise impeccable living middling sorts with wives, children and careers in auto finance and geography teaching going to prison for drug use be enough?
I wonder how many of us are a little more careful about driving now that mere careless driving, if it chances to have certain outcomes, can lead straight to prison?
It can but even if careless driving leads to death or serious injury in most cases the sentence will be a community order or suspended sentence. Only if the driver killed under the influence of drink of drugs would an immediate prison sentence be likely.
We also should be considering changing highway laws to reduce speed limits on rural roads, narrow tracks and at bends or banning u turns or 3 point turns except in quiet residential streets as a lot of what would be mere careless driving could still be doing a currently legal manoeuvre
Just how are people supposed to turn round if they miss a junction or take a wrong turn?
Wait until they reach the next roundabout
This is nuts. I live in rural Surrey, but let's be honest Surrey is also pretty built up so I imagine most of the countryside is worse for roundabouts than where I live, but lets just take the lane I live on:
It has a roundabout at one end so let's assume we are going in the other direction. It is 2 miles long. It then reaches a cross roads. To the left you have to drive about 4 miles to a roundabout (which you may not know is there). Straight on is a narrow lane of about a mile with a T junction at the end. At that junction you can turn left or right. If you turn left you have about 5 miles to another T junction. At that junction you can turn left and eventually come to a roundabout in a mile. If you turn right I can't even think where there is a roundabout. Going back to the last junction if you turn right you come to another junction after about 2 miles. You can turn right and come to a roundabout after 3 miles. If you turn left after 2 miles you come to another junction. The next roundabout is about 7 miles away. Finally going back to the first junction if you turn right after 2 miles there is a junction. I can't think of where there is another roundabout either left or right on that road.
Your suggestion is nuts.
You are also wrong on speed limits for country lanes. You should be driving at a speed appropriate for the road, car and conditions. I am currently taking my Advanced Driving lessons for IAM. They are really hot on not exceeding the speed limits, but also hot on not progressing and I was told I was driving too slow for the conditions on my last lesson. People driving too slow for the conditions are also very dangerous.
Fine, then take the risk of being done for death or serious injury by careless driving if you do said u turn on a rural road and won't wait until the next roundabout or village.
The speed limit on country lanes is 60mph.
'Driving at a speed appropriate for the road, car and conditions' is a totally subjective term. One man's 'appropriate speed' may be 55mph, another 20mph on the same road and same conditions, even if approaching a bend it is completely vague guidance. As you say you can be accused of going too slow as well as too fast
You should be able to stop in the distance you can see to be clear, is good general advice.
And how is the average man on the road of average intelligence let alone those of below supposed to be able to calculate how long it will take them to stop where they see is clear ahead? They can follow the speed limit, they can't do stopping distance calculations every road they take!
On the contrary, you can and do. Just as you judge other distances, like how far behind the car in front to drive, in different conditions.
Glad you live the other side of London, I'm unlikely to meet you coming round a corner. Perhaps you should hand back your licence, I'm beginning to think that wasn't such an uncharitable suggestion
How? The average driver on the road is NOT a statistician who can calculate stopping distances. You drive behind a car so you can always see its back and license plate in full, that is NOT the same as doing constant stopping distance calculations.
The speed limit on rural roads is 60mph, either we reduce that to 40mph and say 20-30mph max around bends and when wet or snowing and 20mph on single tracks or legally there must be real debate on whether someone driving at the speed limit should be prosecuted even if an accident?
Rural roads are national speed limit - drive at a safe speed, mot the maximum
Yes never over national speed limit and mostly not at it either but what is a safe speed if raining? If hail? Before a bend?
Drive at a speed (slowly enough) that you know you can avoid an “accident”. What sort of driver needs it written down? One that shouldn’t be driving
Which is what? You can even have an accident driving at just 20mph
I think that you might need a man walking in front of you waving a flag
@elonmusk · 24m We will make the new 𝕏 algorithm, including all code used to determine what organic and advertising posts are recommended to users, open source in 7 days.
This will be repeated every 4 weeks, with comprehensive developer notes, to help you understand what changed.
Please, please, please don't ban me...
F**k him. Let the the fascist little shit squirm. Then ban the living sh*t out of all his evil games.
26 years of driving. No points. No bans. Good No Claims. Two parking tickets.
I did rear-end shunt someone on a roundabout in 2008, and lost the No Claims. I was stressed about breaking up with my long-term girlfriend at the time, not that that's an excuse.
This time last year I had to do one of those speedy awareness courses. Quite shocking how few people knew some key crucial info e.g. many got the national speed limit sign on rural roads totally wrong.
Maybe mandatory theory test retests every 10 years for drivers?
Better would be for the government to splash out on some public information films advertising to road users what has changed, but also those elements too many drivers get wrong, such as mini-roundabouts or middle lane hogging.
And for councils to spend what little money is in the roads budgets more sensibly. For instance, the road from me to the fish and chip shop has new speed bumps where speeding was never an issue anyway but elsewhere in the borough, drivers swerve to avoid potholes, and there are junctions so festooned with signs that drivers are expected to read War and Peace in 10 seconds, and often in the same places road markings are faded to near-invisibility.
Firstly, I don't really care (but that might be because it's Sultana and Your Party, which is as insignificant as it is amusing) and, secondly, really? Don't the police have better things to be spending their time on?
You've just said my job isn't important.
Investitgating financial crimes is very important.
Anything juicy recently?
Nope, my investigations have mostly centred on cocaine and unsolicited & solicited dick pics.
In my OH's last company, she was asked to ignore the cocaine misuse as the company wouldn't have a sales team left. Your lot must have higher standards.
Just to point out that this is an everyday example of the ridiculous state of affairs where wholesalers in this product are getting 20-25 year sentences while the product is regarded by millions as quotidian and normal.
If demand ceased, so would supply. Either decriminalise or make the user the real criminal, not the hard working trader.
MPs and television presenters have been cancelled over dodgy bants or porn but politics and the media are fuelled by actually illegal drugs. And this illustrates a real problem – the growing gulf between what is acceptable and what is legal.
Coke is now such a naff drug - it’s being hoovered up noses in pubs up and down the country by every man jack and off kitchen counters by bored mums.
Is the answer to be massively illiberal on coke - 1 year in prison, no suspended sentences or anything for possession. Announce it from the rooftops - you are caught with coke, or driving under the influence and you are going to prison for a year so say goodbye to your mid level management job, your kids, your bed. Prepare to be unable to cover your mortgage and lose your home, have a nightmare with a drugs offence when opening accounts or travelling.
Would something this severe smash the casual use? These people aren’t thinking of the chain of poor fuckers down the line working in grim conditions to harvest and produce, those getting killed in the trade so why have any sympathy for the end users?
I’m not sure how I feel about the above but would be an interesting experiment.
Where do you plan to build the extra 3,000 prisons?
This misses the point. The function of mandatory prison sentences is not in order to fill extra prisons but to deter certain actions. I am neutral as between decriminalisation and, OTOH, rational drug law enforcement. What is irrational is to deter traders with 25 year sentences but not deter use in any significant way.
Would not a few dozen otherwise impeccable living middling sorts with wives, children and careers in auto finance and geography teaching going to prison for drug use be enough?
I wonder how many of us are a little more careful about driving now that mere careless driving, if it chances to have certain outcomes, can lead straight to prison?
It can but even if careless driving leads to death or serious injury in most cases the sentence will be a community order or suspended sentence. Only if the driver killed under the influence of drink of drugs would an immediate prison sentence be likely.
We also should be considering changing highway laws to reduce speed limits on rural roads, narrow tracks and at bends or banning u turns or 3 point turns except in quiet residential streets as a lot of what would be mere careless driving could still be doing a currently legal manoeuvre
Just how are people supposed to turn round if they miss a junction or take a wrong turn?
Wait until they reach the next roundabout
This is nuts. I live in rural Surrey, but let's be honest Surrey is also pretty built up so I imagine most of the countryside is worse for roundabouts than where I live, but lets just take the lane I live on:
It has a roundabout at one end so let's assume we are going in the other direction. It is 2 miles long. It then reaches a cross roads. To the left you have to drive about 4 miles to a roundabout (which you may not know is there). Straight on is a narrow lane of about a mile with a T junction at the end. At that junction you can turn left or right. If you turn left you have about 5 miles to another T junction. At that junction you can turn left and eventually come to a roundabout in a mile. If you turn right I can't even think where there is a roundabout. Going back to the last junction if you turn right you come to another junction after about 2 miles. You can turn right and come to a roundabout after 3 miles. If you turn left after 2 miles you come to another junction. The next roundabout is about 7 miles away. Finally going back to the first junction if you turn right after 2 miles there is a junction. I can't think of where there is another roundabout either left or right on that road.
Your suggestion is nuts.
You are also wrong on speed limits for country lanes. You should be driving at a speed appropriate for the road, car and conditions. I am currently taking my Advanced Driving lessons for IAM. They are really hot on not exceeding the speed limits, but also hot on not progressing and I was told I was driving too slow for the conditions on my last lesson. People driving too slow for the conditions are also very dangerous.
Fine, then take the risk of being done for death or serious injury by careless driving if you do said u turn on a rural road and won't wait until the next roundabout or village.
The speed limit on country lanes is 60mph.
'Driving at a speed appropriate for the road, car and conditions' is a totally subjective term. One man's 'appropriate speed' may be 55mph, another 20mph on the same road and same conditions, even if approaching a bend it is completely vague guidance. As you say you can be accused of going too slow as well as too fast
You should be able to stop in the distance you can see to be clear, is good general advice.
And how is the average man on the road of average intelligence let alone those of below supposed to be able to calculate how long it will take them to stop where they see is clear ahead? They can follow the speed limit, they can't do stopping distance calculations every road they take!
On the contrary, you can and do. Just as you judge other distances, like how far behind the car in front to drive, in different conditions.
Glad you live the other side of London, I'm unlikely to meet you coming round a corner. Perhaps you should hand back your licence, I'm beginning to think that wasn't such an uncharitable suggestion
How? The average driver on the road is NOT a statistician who can calculate stopping distances. You drive behind a car so you can always see its back and license plate in full, that is NOT the same as doing constant stopping distance calculations.
The speed limit on rural roads is 60mph, either we reduce that to 40mph and say 20-30mph max around bends and when wet or snowing and 20mph on single tracks or legally there must be real debate on whether someone driving at the speed limit should be prosecuted even if an accident?
Rural roads are national speed limit - drive at a safe speed, mot the maximum
Yes never over national speed limit and mostly not at it either but what is a safe speed if raining? If hail? Before a bend?
Drive at a speed (slowly enough) that you know you can avoid an “accident”. What sort of driver needs it written down? One that shouldn’t be driving
Yes.
Always drive slowly unless it is blindingly obvious you could safely go a little bit faster.
If however you are driving slowly, let faster traffic through.
Because frustrated drivers overtaking drivers driving too slowly is a major cause of accidents.
It was a big problem when I lived in Aber - some wanker doing 25-35 along the A44 past three pull ins, and some other wanker storming past at 70 not realising there was a dip ahead...
Now even Rachel Reeves is in the frame as a contender to replace Starmer as her rating exceeds that of Sir Keir for the first time I can recall
'The new year begins with no party leader enjoying net positive approval. Keir Starmer has seen his standing deteriorate further, with his net approval falling to –46, his joint lowest score on record and equal to Theresa May’s worst rating in May 2019.
Starmer’s decline leaves him behind most recent prime ministers at their lowest points, reinforcing a challenging start to the year for Labour’s leadership. Chancellor Rachel Reeves remains similarly unpopular on –45.
By contrast, Ed Davey is currently the most popular party leader, albeit still marginally negative, on –2, with Zack Polanski close behind on –3. Kemi Badenoch stands at –11, while Nigel Farage sits at –15.'
Firstly, I don't really care (but that might be because it's Sultana and Your Party, which is as insignificant as it is amusing) and, secondly, really? Don't the police have better things to be spending their time on?
You've just said my job isn't important.
Investitgating financial crimes is very important.
Anything juicy recently?
Nope, my investigations have mostly centred on cocaine and unsolicited & solicited dick pics.
In my OH's last company, she was asked to ignore the cocaine misuse as the company wouldn't have a sales team left. Your lot must have higher standards.
Just to point out that this is an everyday example of the ridiculous state of affairs where wholesalers in this product are getting 20-25 year sentences while the product is regarded by millions as quotidian and normal.
If demand ceased, so would supply. Either decriminalise or make the user the real criminal, not the hard working trader.
MPs and television presenters have been cancelled over dodgy bants or porn but politics and the media are fuelled by actually illegal drugs. And this illustrates a real problem – the growing gulf between what is acceptable and what is legal.
Coke is now such a naff drug - it’s being hoovered up noses in pubs up and down the country by every man jack and off kitchen counters by bored mums.
Is the answer to be massively illiberal on coke - 1 year in prison, no suspended sentences or anything for possession. Announce it from the rooftops - you are caught with coke, or driving under the influence and you are going to prison for a year so say goodbye to your mid level management job, your kids, your bed. Prepare to be unable to cover your mortgage and lose your home, have a nightmare with a drugs offence when opening accounts or travelling.
Would something this severe smash the casual use? These people aren’t thinking of the chain of poor fuckers down the line working in grim conditions to harvest and produce, those getting killed in the trade so why have any sympathy for the end users?
I’m not sure how I feel about the above but would be an interesting experiment.
Where do you plan to build the extra 3,000 prisons?
This misses the point. The function of mandatory prison sentences is not in order to fill extra prisons but to deter certain actions. I am neutral as between decriminalisation and, OTOH, rational drug law enforcement. What is irrational is to deter traders with 25 year sentences but not deter use in any significant way.
Would not a few dozen otherwise impeccable living middling sorts with wives, children and careers in auto finance and geography teaching going to prison for drug use be enough?
I wonder how many of us are a little more careful about driving now that mere careless driving, if it chances to have certain outcomes, can lead straight to prison?
It can but even if careless driving leads to death or serious injury in most cases the sentence will be a community order or suspended sentence. Only if the driver killed under the influence of drink of drugs would an immediate prison sentence be likely.
We also should be considering changing highway laws to reduce speed limits on rural roads, narrow tracks and at bends or banning u turns or 3 point turns except in quiet residential streets as a lot of what would be mere careless driving could still be doing a currently legal manoeuvre
Just how are people supposed to turn round if they miss a junction or take a wrong turn?
Wait until they reach the next roundabout
This is nuts. I live in rural Surrey, but let's be honest Surrey is also pretty built up so I imagine most of the countryside is worse for roundabouts than where I live, but lets just take the lane I live on:
It has a roundabout at one end so let's assume we are going in the other direction. It is 2 miles long. It then reaches a cross roads. To the left you have to drive about 4 miles to a roundabout (which you may not know is there). Straight on is a narrow lane of about a mile with a T junction at the end. At that junction you can turn left or right. If you turn left you have about 5 miles to another T junction. At that junction you can turn left and eventually come to a roundabout in a mile. If you turn right I can't even think where there is a roundabout. Going back to the last junction if you turn right you come to another junction after about 2 miles. You can turn right and come to a roundabout after 3 miles. If you turn left after 2 miles you come to another junction. The next roundabout is about 7 miles away. Finally going back to the first junction if you turn right after 2 miles there is a junction. I can't think of where there is another roundabout either left or right on that road.
Your suggestion is nuts.
You are also wrong on speed limits for country lanes. You should be driving at a speed appropriate for the road, car and conditions. I am currently taking my Advanced Driving lessons for IAM. They are really hot on not exceeding the speed limits, but also hot on not progressing and I was told I was driving too slow for the conditions on my last lesson. People driving too slow for the conditions are also very dangerous.
Fine, then take the risk of being done for death or serious injury by careless driving if you do said u turn on a rural road and won't wait until the next roundabout or village.
The speed limit on country lanes is 60mph.
'Driving at a speed appropriate for the road, car and conditions' is a totally subjective term. One man's 'appropriate speed' may be 55mph, another 20mph on the same road and same conditions, even if approaching a bend it is completely vague guidance. As you say you can be accused of going too slow as well as too fast
You should be able to stop in the distance you can see to be clear, is good general advice.
And how is the average man on the road of average intelligence let alone those of below supposed to be able to calculate how long it will take them to stop where they see is clear ahead? They can follow the speed limit, they can't do stopping distance calculations every road they take!
On the contrary, you can and do. Just as you judge other distances, like how far behind the car in front to drive, in different conditions.
Glad you live the other side of London, I'm unlikely to meet you coming round a corner. Perhaps you should hand back your licence, I'm beginning to think that wasn't such an uncharitable suggestion
How? The average driver on the road is NOT a statistician who can calculate stopping distances. You drive behind a car so you can always see its back and license plate in full, that is NOT the same as doing constant stopping distance calculations.
The speed limit on rural roads is 60mph, either we reduce that to 40mph and say 20-30mph max around bends and when wet or snowing and 20mph on single tracks or legally there must be real debate on whether someone driving at the speed limit should be prosecuted even if an accident?
Rural roads are national speed limit - drive at a safe speed, mot the maximum
Yes never over national speed limit and mostly not at it either but what is a safe speed if raining? If hail? Before a bend?
If you don't know that when you are driving in those conditions you should not be driving
Know what? Is it safe to drive at 30mph when raining heavily or only 20mph? Or even only 15mph?
Or 40 or 50 or 60 or 70
The driver has to know how to deal with road conditions and if not then they should not drive
'The United States’ recent military operation in Venezuela has split public opinion in the UK. Over a third (36%) oppose the action, compared with 22% who support it. Around a quarter neither support nor oppose, while many remain unsure.
Views vary strongly by party affiliation. Conservative and Reform voters are more inclined to back the intervention, while Labour, Liberal Democrat and Green voters are overwhelmingly opposed.
A plurality of the public believes the action was illegal, with 41% taking this view compared with just 9% who believe it was legal. Many are uncertain about the legality, highlighting widespread confusion and unease.
When asked how the UK should respond, there is no clear consensus. The most common view (32%) is that Britain should avoid taking sides and instead call for restraint and a peaceful transition. Smaller groups favour condemning the action as illegal or supporting the removal of Nicolás Maduro without commenting on legality.' https://www.opinium.com/resource-center/voting-intention-7th-january-2026/
Firstly, I don't really care (but that might be because it's Sultana and Your Party, which is as insignificant as it is amusing) and, secondly, really? Don't the police have better things to be spending their time on?
You've just said my job isn't important.
Investitgating financial crimes is very important.
Anything juicy recently?
Nope, my investigations have mostly centred on cocaine and unsolicited & solicited dick pics.
In my OH's last company, she was asked to ignore the cocaine misuse as the company wouldn't have a sales team left. Your lot must have higher standards.
Just to point out that this is an everyday example of the ridiculous state of affairs where wholesalers in this product are getting 20-25 year sentences while the product is regarded by millions as quotidian and normal.
If demand ceased, so would supply. Either decriminalise or make the user the real criminal, not the hard working trader.
MPs and television presenters have been cancelled over dodgy bants or porn but politics and the media are fuelled by actually illegal drugs. And this illustrates a real problem – the growing gulf between what is acceptable and what is legal.
Coke is now such a naff drug - it’s being hoovered up noses in pubs up and down the country by every man jack and off kitchen counters by bored mums.
Is the answer to be massively illiberal on coke - 1 year in prison, no suspended sentences or anything for possession. Announce it from the rooftops - you are caught with coke, or driving under the influence and you are going to prison for a year so say goodbye to your mid level management job, your kids, your bed. Prepare to be unable to cover your mortgage and lose your home, have a nightmare with a drugs offence when opening accounts or travelling.
Would something this severe smash the casual use? These people aren’t thinking of the chain of poor fuckers down the line working in grim conditions to harvest and produce, those getting killed in the trade so why have any sympathy for the end users?
I’m not sure how I feel about the above but would be an interesting experiment.
Where do you plan to build the extra 3,000 prisons?
This misses the point. The function of mandatory prison sentences is not in order to fill extra prisons but to deter certain actions. I am neutral as between decriminalisation and, OTOH, rational drug law enforcement. What is irrational is to deter traders with 25 year sentences but not deter use in any significant way.
Would not a few dozen otherwise impeccable living middling sorts with wives, children and careers in auto finance and geography teaching going to prison for drug use be enough?
I wonder how many of us are a little more careful about driving now that mere careless driving, if it chances to have certain outcomes, can lead straight to prison?
It can but even if careless driving leads to death or serious injury in most cases the sentence will be a community order or suspended sentence. Only if the driver killed under the influence of drink of drugs would an immediate prison sentence be likely.
We also should be considering changing highway laws to reduce speed limits on rural roads, narrow tracks and at bends or banning u turns or 3 point turns except in quiet residential streets as a lot of what would be mere careless driving could still be doing a currently legal manoeuvre
Just how are people supposed to turn round if they miss a junction or take a wrong turn?
Wait until they reach the next roundabout
This is nuts. I live in rural Surrey, but let's be honest Surrey is also pretty built up so I imagine most of the countryside is worse for roundabouts than where I live, but lets just take the lane I live on:
It has a roundabout at one end so let's assume we are going in the other direction. It is 2 miles long. It then reaches a cross roads. To the left you have to drive about 4 miles to a roundabout (which you may not know is there). Straight on is a narrow lane of about a mile with a T junction at the end. At that junction you can turn left or right. If you turn left you have about 5 miles to another T junction. At that junction you can turn left and eventually come to a roundabout in a mile. If you turn right I can't even think where there is a roundabout. Going back to the last junction if you turn right you come to another junction after about 2 miles. You can turn right and come to a roundabout after 3 miles. If you turn left after 2 miles you come to another junction. The next roundabout is about 7 miles away. Finally going back to the first junction if you turn right after 2 miles there is a junction. I can't think of where there is another roundabout either left or right on that road.
Your suggestion is nuts.
You are also wrong on speed limits for country lanes. You should be driving at a speed appropriate for the road, car and conditions. I am currently taking my Advanced Driving lessons for IAM. They are really hot on not exceeding the speed limits, but also hot on not progressing and I was told I was driving too slow for the conditions on my last lesson. People driving too slow for the conditions are also very dangerous.
Fine, then take the risk of being done for death or serious injury by careless driving if you do said u turn on a rural road and won't wait until the next roundabout or village.
The speed limit on country lanes is 60mph.
'Driving at a speed appropriate for the road, car and conditions' is a totally subjective term. One man's 'appropriate speed' may be 55mph, another 20mph on the same road and same conditions, even if approaching a bend it is completely vague guidance. As you say you can be accused of going too slow as well as too fast
You should be able to stop in the distance you can see to be clear, is good general advice.
And how is the average man on the road of average intelligence let alone those of below supposed to be able to calculate how long it will take them to stop where they see is clear ahead? They can follow the speed limit, they can't do stopping distance calculations every road they take!
On the contrary, you can and do. Just as you judge other distances, like how far behind the car in front to drive, in different conditions.
Glad you live the other side of London, I'm unlikely to meet you coming round a corner. Perhaps you should hand back your licence, I'm beginning to think that wasn't such an uncharitable suggestion
How? The average driver on the road is NOT a statistician who can calculate stopping distances. You drive behind a car so you can always see its back and license plate in full, that is NOT the same as doing constant stopping distance calculations.
The speed limit on rural roads is 60mph, either we reduce that to 40mph and say 20-30mph max around bends and when wet or snowing and 20mph on single tracks or legally there must be real debate on whether someone driving at the speed limit should be prosecuted even if an accident?
Rural roads are national speed limit - drive at a safe speed, mot the maximum
Yes never over national speed limit and mostly not at it either but what is a safe speed if raining? If hail? Before a bend?
If you don't know that when you are driving in those conditions you should not be driving
Know what? Is it safe to drive at 30mph when raining heavily or only 20mph? Or even only 15mph?
Or 40 or 50 or 60 or 70
The driver has to know how to deal with road conditions and if not then they should not drive
To know something it has to be factually clearly the correct answer, what is the correct speed to not exceed in poor weather conditions? Obviously has to be below the 60mph national speed limit and below 30mph in urban areas but what is it?
26 years of driving. No points. No bans. Good No Claims. Two parking tickets.
I did rear-end shunt someone on a roundabout in 2008, and lost the No Claims. I was stressed about breaking up with my long-term girlfriend at the time, not that that's an excuse.
So you were thinking about rear ending your girlfriend and mistakenly rear ended somebody else.
Firstly, I don't really care (but that might be because it's Sultana and Your Party, which is as insignificant as it is amusing) and, secondly, really? Don't the police have better things to be spending their time on?
You've just said my job isn't important.
Investitgating financial crimes is very important.
Anything juicy recently?
Nope, my investigations have mostly centred on cocaine and unsolicited & solicited dick pics.
In my OH's last company, she was asked to ignore the cocaine misuse as the company wouldn't have a sales team left. Your lot must have higher standards.
Just to point out that this is an everyday example of the ridiculous state of affairs where wholesalers in this product are getting 20-25 year sentences while the product is regarded by millions as quotidian and normal.
If demand ceased, so would supply. Either decriminalise or make the user the real criminal, not the hard working trader.
MPs and television presenters have been cancelled over dodgy bants or porn but politics and the media are fuelled by actually illegal drugs. And this illustrates a real problem – the growing gulf between what is acceptable and what is legal.
Coke is now such a naff drug - it’s being hoovered up noses in pubs up and down the country by every man jack and off kitchen counters by bored mums.
Is the answer to be massively illiberal on coke - 1 year in prison, no suspended sentences or anything for possession. Announce it from the rooftops - you are caught with coke, or driving under the influence and you are going to prison for a year so say goodbye to your mid level management job, your kids, your bed. Prepare to be unable to cover your mortgage and lose your home, have a nightmare with a drugs offence when opening accounts or travelling.
Would something this severe smash the casual use? These people aren’t thinking of the chain of poor fuckers down the line working in grim conditions to harvest and produce, those getting killed in the trade so why have any sympathy for the end users?
I’m not sure how I feel about the above but would be an interesting experiment.
Where do you plan to build the extra 3,000 prisons?
This misses the point. The function of mandatory prison sentences is not in order to fill extra prisons but to deter certain actions. I am neutral as between decriminalisation and, OTOH, rational drug law enforcement. What is irrational is to deter traders with 25 year sentences but not deter use in any significant way.
Would not a few dozen otherwise impeccable living middling sorts with wives, children and careers in auto finance and geography teaching going to prison for drug use be enough?
I wonder how many of us are a little more careful about driving now that mere careless driving, if it chances to have certain outcomes, can lead straight to prison?
It can but even if careless driving leads to death or serious injury in most cases the sentence will be a community order or suspended sentence. Only if the driver killed under the influence of drink of drugs would an immediate prison sentence be likely.
We also should be considering changing highway laws to reduce speed limits on rural roads, narrow tracks and at bends or banning u turns or 3 point turns except in quiet residential streets as a lot of what would be mere careless driving could still be doing a currently legal manoeuvre
Just how are people supposed to turn round if they miss a junction or take a wrong turn?
Wait until they reach the next roundabout
This is nuts. I live in rural Surrey, but let's be honest Surrey is also pretty built up so I imagine most of the countryside is worse for roundabouts than where I live, but lets just take the lane I live on:
It has a roundabout at one end so let's assume we are going in the other direction. It is 2 miles long. It then reaches a cross roads. To the left you have to drive about 4 miles to a roundabout (which you may not know is there). Straight on is a narrow lane of about a mile with a T junction at the end. At that junction you can turn left or right. If you turn left you have about 5 miles to another T junction. At that junction you can turn left and eventually come to a roundabout in a mile. If you turn right I can't even think where there is a roundabout. Going back to the last junction if you turn right you come to another junction after about 2 miles. You can turn right and come to a roundabout after 3 miles. If you turn left after 2 miles you come to another junction. The next roundabout is about 7 miles away. Finally going back to the first junction if you turn right after 2 miles there is a junction. I can't think of where there is another roundabout either left or right on that road.
Your suggestion is nuts.
You are also wrong on speed limits for country lanes. You should be driving at a speed appropriate for the road, car and conditions. I am currently taking my Advanced Driving lessons for IAM. They are really hot on not exceeding the speed limits, but also hot on not progressing and I was told I was driving too slow for the conditions on my last lesson. People driving too slow for the conditions are also very dangerous.
Fine, then take the risk of being done for death or serious injury by careless driving if you do said u turn on a rural road and won't wait until the next roundabout or village.
The speed limit on country lanes is 60mph.
'Driving at a speed appropriate for the road, car and conditions' is a totally subjective term. One man's 'appropriate speed' may be 55mph, another 20mph on the same road and same conditions, even if approaching a bend it is completely vague guidance. As you say you can be accused of going too slow as well as too fast
You should be able to stop in the distance you can see to be clear, is good general advice.
And how is the average man on the road of average intelligence let alone those of below supposed to be able to calculate how long it will take them to stop where they see is clear ahead? They can follow the speed limit, they can't do stopping distance calculations every road they take!
On the contrary, you can and do. Just as you judge other distances, like how far behind the car in front to drive, in different conditions.
Glad you live the other side of London, I'm unlikely to meet you coming round a corner. Perhaps you should hand back your licence, I'm beginning to think that wasn't such an uncharitable suggestion
How? The average driver on the road is NOT a statistician who can calculate stopping distances. You drive behind a car so you can always see its back and license plate in full, that is NOT the same as doing constant stopping distance calculations.
The speed limit on rural roads is 60mph, either we reduce that to 40mph and say 20-30mph max around bends and when wet or snowing and 20mph on single tracks or legally there must be real debate on whether someone driving at the speed limit should be prosecuted even if an accident?
Rural roads are national speed limit - drive at a safe speed, mot the maximum
Yes never over national speed limit and mostly not at it either but what is a safe speed if raining? If hail? Before a bend?
If you don't know that when you are driving in those conditions you should not be driving
Know what? Is it safe to drive at 30mph when raining heavily or only 20mph? Or even only 15mph?
Or 40 or 50 or 60 or 70
The driver has to know how to deal with road conditions and if not then they should not drive
To know something it has to be factually clearly the correct answer, what is the correct speed to not exceed in poor weather conditions? Obviously has to be below the 60mph national speed limit and below 30mph in urban areas but what is it?
Since 'poor weather conditions' can cover a multitude of scenarios from 'steady rain'* to 'thick ice and freezing fog' that isn't a meaningful question.
Millions of people ignore the speed limit. How would accurate and detailed (and huge) documentation with maximum speeds for different situations make the slightest bit of difference to anything in a helpful way?
26 years of driving. No points. No bans. Good No Claims. Two parking tickets.
I did rear-end shunt someone on a roundabout in 2008, and lost the No Claims. I was stressed about breaking up with my long-term girlfriend at the time, not that that's an excuse.
So you were thinking about rear ending your girlfriend and mistakenly rear ended somebody else.
The idea that the Highway Code needs to be made as big as the tax code, in order to cover every possible eventuality, all to stop lawyers lawyering, is one of the most preposterous arguments I’ve read on here. I hope that it’s heroic trolling
Fine, expect the law on careless driving causing injury or death then to continue to be often decided by what the judge, jury or magistrate of the day decides it in court to mean then
Literally the very purpose of our legal system.
What's the problem?
You have to keenly follow the significant cases then to see what the law actually is in terms of interpretation of the statutory offence of driving carelessly if no drink or drugs or mobile phone use involved and the Highway Code is not very specific about the action
no you don't, you just have to take care while driving
Yes but what is 'taking care' is a subjective opinion beyond not drink or drug driving, not using your phone when driving and not driving over the speed limit and not clearly breaching the terms of the Highway Code.
So what judges and juries decide it to be needs to be followed in other driving cases charged with careless driving
it means not driving like a muppet. When you drive you see many drivers driving like muppets. Don't do what they do.
What is 'not driving like a muppet?' A muppet could be driving at the speed limit, not drunk, have no drugs in his system and not be on his phone and not clearly in breach of the highway code but still be charged with careless driving and you would need to follow the case verdict to see if the muppet was convicted and you needed to avoid similar actions
Except that I don't need to follow all the case law to understand what muppetry is. I already know that driving round blind corners on single track roads at 60mph is a bad idea, regardless of the posted limit, or that it's prudent to leave very long breaking distances and to take corners gently when there's the potential for the road to be covered in ice. I don't actually need a court verdict to tell me that.
Court verdicts are only significant when they don't give the outcome you'd expect - eg the recent preverse judgement where a firm was fined because a driver delivering to them fell off his lorry, hit his head on the floor and unfortunately died - thus throwing the onus onto anyone who takes deliveries to manage the working at height risk of a driver unloading his lorry, rather than onto the haulier as you would logically expect. (Personally, I think no case should have been brought against anyone for that particular incident - the costs of mitigation vastly exceed the threshold of "reasonably practicable" relative to the level of risk. But HSE are a bunch of unaccoutable shits who have virtually forgotten the concept of "reasonably practicable".)
Yes but driving round blind corners at 30mph, is that also a bad idea? Debateable and arguments either way. Maybe if very icy should not be done but otherwise?
As you have shown even judges can produce judgements you might not expect but going forward that would be the law on similar facts unless overturned on appeal
Drive around a blind corner so that you can stop if there’s a person lying in the road where it’s blind, or where there’s a tractor stopped there, or be comfortable with killing or dying if you don’t
It’s not complicated at all
Yes but if driving around a blind corner should that be 25mph to allow time to stop or 30mph? What if it is raining 25mph or 20mph?
I did give this up as a fruitless exercise, but I have been sucked back in. I can't help it.
@hyufd You keep asking what speed you should be going for different conditions and different types of bends. You should know this if you are a driver. It is a driving skill that you learn. What are you expecting? Do you want a limit for every bend in every type of condition for every type of car. This is bonkers. You should know yourself when approaching the bend what is right. If you don't, well you might crash and get banned, which by the sounds of it would be a good thing if you didn't know what speed to go.
I will however repeat the advice I gave earlier. If this vexes you so much read pages 182 to 190 of the Police Drivers Handbook Roadcraft. You can buy it anywhere. It explains it all to you, although if you have no idea of stopping distances for your car in different conditions it might be a waste of time.
On another point @BartholomewRoberts has made some very good posts on the subject. In one he mentioned the Highway Code often mentions MUST and SHOULD (in capital red) a lot. I don't know whether it is generally known but where it says MUST, then to not do so is an offence with penalty points applicable. SHOULD is guidance. Although it was made clear to me that the police will often not enforce failure to follow a MUST rule (the application of common sense). A common one being the behaviour of cutting over a mini roundabout where you could fit around it is an offence, but a policeman is unlikely to enforce it unless reckless or he had a row with his wife that morning.
Should know what? What is the definitive safe speed for going round a bend you should never exceed? What is the definitive safe speed for driving in poor weather conditions you should never exceed?
Even standard stopping conditions will vary depending on bends or how heavy it is raining for example. So what is the safe speed you should definitely never exceed to include those conditions? Even Must and Should Code rules are not always clear on what exactly they require or prohibit
i think it's probably safest for your piece of mind if you just send your license back to the DVLA
Firstly, I don't really care (but that might be because it's Sultana and Your Party, which is as insignificant as it is amusing) and, secondly, really? Don't the police have better things to be spending their time on?
You've just said my job isn't important.
Investitgating financial crimes is very important.
Anything juicy recently?
Nope, my investigations have mostly centred on cocaine and unsolicited & solicited dick pics.
In my OH's last company, she was asked to ignore the cocaine misuse as the company wouldn't have a sales team left. Your lot must have higher standards.
Just to point out that this is an everyday example of the ridiculous state of affairs where wholesalers in this product are getting 20-25 year sentences while the product is regarded by millions as quotidian and normal.
If demand ceased, so would supply. Either decriminalise or make the user the real criminal, not the hard working trader.
MPs and television presenters have been cancelled over dodgy bants or porn but politics and the media are fuelled by actually illegal drugs. And this illustrates a real problem – the growing gulf between what is acceptable and what is legal.
Coke is now such a naff drug - it’s being hoovered up noses in pubs up and down the country by every man jack and off kitchen counters by bored mums.
Is the answer to be massively illiberal on coke - 1 year in prison, no suspended sentences or anything for possession. Announce it from the rooftops - you are caught with coke, or driving under the influence and you are going to prison for a year so say goodbye to your mid level management job, your kids, your bed. Prepare to be unable to cover your mortgage and lose your home, have a nightmare with a drugs offence when opening accounts or travelling.
Would something this severe smash the casual use? These people aren’t thinking of the chain of poor fuckers down the line working in grim conditions to harvest and produce, those getting killed in the trade so why have any sympathy for the end users?
I’m not sure how I feel about the above but would be an interesting experiment.
Where do you plan to build the extra 3,000 prisons?
This misses the point. The function of mandatory prison sentences is not in order to fill extra prisons but to deter certain actions. I am neutral as between decriminalisation and, OTOH, rational drug law enforcement. What is irrational is to deter traders with 25 year sentences but not deter use in any significant way.
Would not a few dozen otherwise impeccable living middling sorts with wives, children and careers in auto finance and geography teaching going to prison for drug use be enough?
I wonder how many of us are a little more careful about driving now that mere careless driving, if it chances to have certain outcomes, can lead straight to prison?
It can but even if careless driving leads to death or serious injury in most cases the sentence will be a community order or suspended sentence. Only if the driver killed under the influence of drink of drugs would an immediate prison sentence be likely.
We also should be considering changing highway laws to reduce speed limits on rural roads, narrow tracks and at bends or banning u turns or 3 point turns except in quiet residential streets as a lot of what would be mere careless driving could still be doing a currently legal manoeuvre
Just how are people supposed to turn round if they miss a junction or take a wrong turn?
Wait until they reach the next roundabout
This is nuts. I live in rural Surrey, but let's be honest Surrey is also pretty built up so I imagine most of the countryside is worse for roundabouts than where I live, but lets just take the lane I live on:
It has a roundabout at one end so let's assume we are going in the other direction. It is 2 miles long. It then reaches a cross roads. To the left you have to drive about 4 miles to a roundabout (which you may not know is there). Straight on is a narrow lane of about a mile with a T junction at the end. At that junction you can turn left or right. If you turn left you have about 5 miles to another T junction. At that junction you can turn left and eventually come to a roundabout in a mile. If you turn right I can't even think where there is a roundabout. Going back to the last junction if you turn right you come to another junction after about 2 miles. You can turn right and come to a roundabout after 3 miles. If you turn left after 2 miles you come to another junction. The next roundabout is about 7 miles away. Finally going back to the first junction if you turn right after 2 miles there is a junction. I can't think of where there is another roundabout either left or right on that road.
Your suggestion is nuts.
You are also wrong on speed limits for country lanes. You should be driving at a speed appropriate for the road, car and conditions. I am currently taking my Advanced Driving lessons for IAM. They are really hot on not exceeding the speed limits, but also hot on not progressing and I was told I was driving too slow for the conditions on my last lesson. People driving too slow for the conditions are also very dangerous.
Fine, then take the risk of being done for death or serious injury by careless driving if you do said u turn on a rural road and won't wait until the next roundabout or village.
The speed limit on country lanes is 60mph.
'Driving at a speed appropriate for the road, car and conditions' is a totally subjective term. One man's 'appropriate speed' may be 55mph, another 20mph on the same road and same conditions, even if approaching a bend it is completely vague guidance. As you say you can be accused of going too slow as well as too fast
You should be able to stop in the distance you can see to be clear, is good general advice.
And how is the average man on the road of average intelligence let alone those of below supposed to be able to calculate how long it will take them to stop where they see is clear ahead? They can follow the speed limit, they can't do stopping distance calculations every road they take!
On the contrary, you can and do. Just as you judge other distances, like how far behind the car in front to drive, in different conditions.
Glad you live the other side of London, I'm unlikely to meet you coming round a corner. Perhaps you should hand back your licence, I'm beginning to think that wasn't such an uncharitable suggestion
How? The average driver on the road is NOT a statistician who can calculate stopping distances. You drive behind a car so you can always see its back and license plate in full, that is NOT the same as doing constant stopping distance calculations.
The speed limit on rural roads is 60mph, either we reduce that to 40mph and say 20-30mph max around bends and when wet or snowing and 20mph on single tracks or legally there must be real debate on whether someone driving at the speed limit should be prosecuted even if an accident?
Rural roads are national speed limit - drive at a safe speed, mot the maximum
Yes never over national speed limit and mostly not at it either but what is a safe speed if raining? If hail? Before a bend?
If you don't know that when you are driving in those conditions you should not be driving
Know what? Is it safe to drive at 30mph when raining heavily or only 20mph? Or even only 15mph?
Or 40 or 50 or 60 or 70
The driver has to know how to deal with road conditions and if not then they should not drive
To know something it has to be factually clearly the correct answer, what is the correct speed to not exceed in poor weather conditions? Obviously has to be below the 60mph national speed limit and below 30mph in urban areas but what is it?
Not obvious at all but I am going to leave my 65 year driving record on the table
Firstly, I don't really care (but that might be because it's Sultana and Your Party, which is as insignificant as it is amusing) and, secondly, really? Don't the police have better things to be spending their time on?
You've just said my job isn't important.
Investitgating financial crimes is very important.
Anything juicy recently?
Nope, my investigations have mostly centred on cocaine and unsolicited & solicited dick pics.
In my OH's last company, she was asked to ignore the cocaine misuse as the company wouldn't have a sales team left. Your lot must have higher standards.
Just to point out that this is an everyday example of the ridiculous state of affairs where wholesalers in this product are getting 20-25 year sentences while the product is regarded by millions as quotidian and normal.
If demand ceased, so would supply. Either decriminalise or make the user the real criminal, not the hard working trader.
MPs and television presenters have been cancelled over dodgy bants or porn but politics and the media are fuelled by actually illegal drugs. And this illustrates a real problem – the growing gulf between what is acceptable and what is legal.
Coke is now such a naff drug - it’s being hoovered up noses in pubs up and down the country by every man jack and off kitchen counters by bored mums.
Is the answer to be massively illiberal on coke - 1 year in prison, no suspended sentences or anything for possession. Announce it from the rooftops - you are caught with coke, or driving under the influence and you are going to prison for a year so say goodbye to your mid level management job, your kids, your bed. Prepare to be unable to cover your mortgage and lose your home, have a nightmare with a drugs offence when opening accounts or travelling.
Would something this severe smash the casual use? These people aren’t thinking of the chain of poor fuckers down the line working in grim conditions to harvest and produce, those getting killed in the trade so why have any sympathy for the end users?
I’m not sure how I feel about the above but would be an interesting experiment.
Where do you plan to build the extra 3,000 prisons?
This misses the point. The function of mandatory prison sentences is not in order to fill extra prisons but to deter certain actions. I am neutral as between decriminalisation and, OTOH, rational drug law enforcement. What is irrational is to deter traders with 25 year sentences but not deter use in any significant way.
Would not a few dozen otherwise impeccable living middling sorts with wives, children and careers in auto finance and geography teaching going to prison for drug use be enough?
I wonder how many of us are a little more careful about driving now that mere careless driving, if it chances to have certain outcomes, can lead straight to prison?
It can but even if careless driving leads to death or serious injury in most cases the sentence will be a community order or suspended sentence. Only if the driver killed under the influence of drink of drugs would an immediate prison sentence be likely.
We also should be considering changing highway laws to reduce speed limits on rural roads, narrow tracks and at bends or banning u turns or 3 point turns except in quiet residential streets as a lot of what would be mere careless driving could still be doing a currently legal manoeuvre
Just how are people supposed to turn round if they miss a junction or take a wrong turn?
Wait until they reach the next roundabout
This is nuts. I live in rural Surrey, but let's be honest Surrey is also pretty built up so I imagine most of the countryside is worse for roundabouts than where I live, but lets just take the lane I live on:
It has a roundabout at one end so let's assume we are going in the other direction. It is 2 miles long. It then reaches a cross roads. To the left you have to drive about 4 miles to a roundabout (which you may not know is there). Straight on is a narrow lane of about a mile with a T junction at the end. At that junction you can turn left or right. If you turn left you have about 5 miles to another T junction. At that junction you can turn left and eventually come to a roundabout in a mile. If you turn right I can't even think where there is a roundabout. Going back to the last junction if you turn right you come to another junction after about 2 miles. You can turn right and come to a roundabout after 3 miles. If you turn left after 2 miles you come to another junction. The next roundabout is about 7 miles away. Finally going back to the first junction if you turn right after 2 miles there is a junction. I can't think of where there is another roundabout either left or right on that road.
Your suggestion is nuts.
You are also wrong on speed limits for country lanes. You should be driving at a speed appropriate for the road, car and conditions. I am currently taking my Advanced Driving lessons for IAM. They are really hot on not exceeding the speed limits, but also hot on not progressing and I was told I was driving too slow for the conditions on my last lesson. People driving too slow for the conditions are also very dangerous.
Fine, then take the risk of being done for death or serious injury by careless driving if you do said u turn on a rural road and won't wait until the next roundabout or village.
The speed limit on country lanes is 60mph.
'Driving at a speed appropriate for the road, car and conditions' is a totally subjective term. One man's 'appropriate speed' may be 55mph, another 20mph on the same road and same conditions, even if approaching a bend it is completely vague guidance. As you say you can be accused of going too slow as well as too fast
You should be able to stop in the distance you can see to be clear, is good general advice.
And how is the average man on the road of average intelligence let alone those of below supposed to be able to calculate how long it will take them to stop where they see is clear ahead? They can follow the speed limit, they can't do stopping distance calculations every road they take!
On the contrary, you can and do. Just as you judge other distances, like how far behind the car in front to drive, in different conditions.
Glad you live the other side of London, I'm unlikely to meet you coming round a corner. Perhaps you should hand back your licence, I'm beginning to think that wasn't such an uncharitable suggestion
How? The average driver on the road is NOT a statistician who can calculate stopping distances. You drive behind a car so you can always see its back and license plate in full, that is NOT the same as doing constant stopping distance calculations.
The speed limit on rural roads is 60mph, either we reduce that to 40mph and say 20-30mph max around bends and when wet or snowing and 20mph on single tracks or legally there must be real debate on whether someone driving at the speed limit should be prosecuted even if an accident?
Rural roads are national speed limit - drive at a safe speed, mot the maximum
Yes never over national speed limit and mostly not at it either but what is a safe speed if raining? If hail? Before a bend?
If you don't know that when you are driving in those conditions you should not be driving
Know what? Is it safe to drive at 30mph when raining heavily or only 20mph? Or even only 15mph?
Or 40 or 50 or 60 or 70
The driver has to know how to deal with road conditions and if not then they should not drive
That's the other aspect of this.
It's hard to think of another activity that is (let's face it) fairly difficult to do well, dangerous when done badly, where the norm is that basically everyone ought to do it.
(See the challenges at both ends of the age range; there are plenty of teenaged boys who really shouldn't be allowed to drive because they are teenaged boys. Similarly, there are plenty of older drivers who keep driving beyond the point where it's wise. In part because of the way that society is configured, not driving is a complete PITA.)
(Me? I have a clean licence, because I barely use the damn thing; I have never felt flow when driving. Fortunately, I've always lived in places where I don't really need to, but I know I'm in a minority.)
I don’t understand why speed traps have to be visible and forewarned. Hidden ones would be far more effective at altering wanker driving attitudes
Edit - and raise much more revenue
I think it was as a result of a legal challenge e.g. speed cameras used to be a lot more hidden and not painted yellow. If I am remembering correctly a legal challenge resulted in some sort of ruling that they needed to be visible / identifiable and hence why they are all painted bright yellow.
Firstly, I don't really care (but that might be because it's Sultana and Your Party, which is as insignificant as it is amusing) and, secondly, really? Don't the police have better things to be spending their time on?
You've just said my job isn't important.
Investitgating financial crimes is very important.
Anything juicy recently?
Nope, my investigations have mostly centred on cocaine and unsolicited & solicited dick pics.
In my OH's last company, she was asked to ignore the cocaine misuse as the company wouldn't have a sales team left. Your lot must have higher standards.
Just to point out that this is an everyday example of the ridiculous state of affairs where wholesalers in this product are getting 20-25 year sentences while the product is regarded by millions as quotidian and normal.
If demand ceased, so would supply. Either decriminalise or make the user the real criminal, not the hard working trader.
MPs and television presenters have been cancelled over dodgy bants or porn but politics and the media are fuelled by actually illegal drugs. And this illustrates a real problem – the growing gulf between what is acceptable and what is legal.
Coke is now such a naff drug - it’s being hoovered up noses in pubs up and down the country by every man jack and off kitchen counters by bored mums.
Is the answer to be massively illiberal on coke - 1 year in prison, no suspended sentences or anything for possession. Announce it from the rooftops - you are caught with coke, or driving under the influence and you are going to prison for a year so say goodbye to your mid level management job, your kids, your bed. Prepare to be unable to cover your mortgage and lose your home, have a nightmare with a drugs offence when opening accounts or travelling.
Would something this severe smash the casual use? These people aren’t thinking of the chain of poor fuckers down the line working in grim conditions to harvest and produce, those getting killed in the trade so why have any sympathy for the end users?
I’m not sure how I feel about the above but would be an interesting experiment.
Where do you plan to build the extra 3,000 prisons?
This misses the point. The function of mandatory prison sentences is not in order to fill extra prisons but to deter certain actions. I am neutral as between decriminalisation and, OTOH, rational drug law enforcement. What is irrational is to deter traders with 25 year sentences but not deter use in any significant way.
Would not a few dozen otherwise impeccable living middling sorts with wives, children and careers in auto finance and geography teaching going to prison for drug use be enough?
I wonder how many of us are a little more careful about driving now that mere careless driving, if it chances to have certain outcomes, can lead straight to prison?
It can but even if careless driving leads to death or serious injury in most cases the sentence will be a community order or suspended sentence. Only if the driver killed under the influence of drink of drugs would an immediate prison sentence be likely.
We also should be considering changing highway laws to reduce speed limits on rural roads, narrow tracks and at bends or banning u turns or 3 point turns except in quiet residential streets as a lot of what would be mere careless driving could still be doing a currently legal manoeuvre
Just how are people supposed to turn round if they miss a junction or take a wrong turn?
Wait until they reach the next roundabout
This is nuts. I live in rural Surrey, but let's be honest Surrey is also pretty built up so I imagine most of the countryside is worse for roundabouts than where I live, but lets just take the lane I live on:
It has a roundabout at one end so let's assume we are going in the other direction. It is 2 miles long. It then reaches a cross roads. To the left you have to drive about 4 miles to a roundabout (which you may not know is there). Straight on is a narrow lane of about a mile with a T junction at the end. At that junction you can turn left or right. If you turn left you have about 5 miles to another T junction. At that junction you can turn left and eventually come to a roundabout in a mile. If you turn right I can't even think where there is a roundabout. Going back to the last junction if you turn right you come to another junction after about 2 miles. You can turn right and come to a roundabout after 3 miles. If you turn left after 2 miles you come to another junction. The next roundabout is about 7 miles away. Finally going back to the first junction if you turn right after 2 miles there is a junction. I can't think of where there is another roundabout either left or right on that road.
Your suggestion is nuts.
You are also wrong on speed limits for country lanes. You should be driving at a speed appropriate for the road, car and conditions. I am currently taking my Advanced Driving lessons for IAM. They are really hot on not exceeding the speed limits, but also hot on not progressing and I was told I was driving too slow for the conditions on my last lesson. People driving too slow for the conditions are also very dangerous.
Fine, then take the risk of being done for death or serious injury by careless driving if you do said u turn on a rural road and won't wait until the next roundabout or village.
The speed limit on country lanes is 60mph.
'Driving at a speed appropriate for the road, car and conditions' is a totally subjective term. One man's 'appropriate speed' may be 55mph, another 20mph on the same road and same conditions, even if approaching a bend it is completely vague guidance. As you say you can be accused of going too slow as well as too fast
You should be able to stop in the distance you can see to be clear, is good general advice.
And how is the average man on the road of average intelligence let alone those of below supposed to be able to calculate how long it will take them to stop where they see is clear ahead? They can follow the speed limit, they can't do stopping distance calculations every road they take!
On the contrary, you can and do. Just as you judge other distances, like how far behind the car in front to drive, in different conditions.
Glad you live the other side of London, I'm unlikely to meet you coming round a corner. Perhaps you should hand back your licence, I'm beginning to think that wasn't such an uncharitable suggestion
How? The average driver on the road is NOT a statistician who can calculate stopping distances. You drive behind a car so you can always see its back and license plate in full, that is NOT the same as doing constant stopping distance calculations.
The speed limit on rural roads is 60mph, either we reduce that to 40mph and say 20-30mph max around bends and when wet or snowing and 20mph on single tracks or legally there must be real debate on whether someone driving at the speed limit should be prosecuted even if an accident?
Rural roads are national speed limit - drive at a safe speed, mot the maximum
Yes never over national speed limit and mostly not at it either but what is a safe speed if raining? If hail? Before a bend?
If you don't know that when you are driving in those conditions you should not be driving
Know what? Is it safe to drive at 30mph when raining heavily or only 20mph? Or even only 15mph?
Or 40 or 50 or 60 or 70
The driver has to know how to deal with road conditions and if not then they should not drive
To know something it has to be factually clearly the correct answer, what is the correct speed to not exceed in poor weather conditions? Obviously has to be below the 60mph national speed limit and below 30mph in urban areas but what is it?
Not obvious at all but I am going to leave my 65 year driving record on the table
Good for you but for new drivers especially it is not really clear
Millions of people ignore the speed limit. How would accurate and detailed (and huge) documentation with maximum speeds for different situations make the slightest bit of difference to anything in a helpful way?
Think of the lawyers who find the existing Highway Code sexually unsatisfying.
If increased to 10 million pages, it would enable them to enjoy life more.
Firstly, I don't really care (but that might be because it's Sultana and Your Party, which is as insignificant as it is amusing) and, secondly, really? Don't the police have better things to be spending their time on?
You've just said my job isn't important.
Investitgating financial crimes is very important.
Anything juicy recently?
Nope, my investigations have mostly centred on cocaine and unsolicited & solicited dick pics.
In my OH's last company, she was asked to ignore the cocaine misuse as the company wouldn't have a sales team left. Your lot must have higher standards.
Just to point out that this is an everyday example of the ridiculous state of affairs where wholesalers in this product are getting 20-25 year sentences while the product is regarded by millions as quotidian and normal.
If demand ceased, so would supply. Either decriminalise or make the user the real criminal, not the hard working trader.
MPs and television presenters have been cancelled over dodgy bants or porn but politics and the media are fuelled by actually illegal drugs. And this illustrates a real problem – the growing gulf between what is acceptable and what is legal.
Coke is now such a naff drug - it’s being hoovered up noses in pubs up and down the country by every man jack and off kitchen counters by bored mums.
Is the answer to be massively illiberal on coke - 1 year in prison, no suspended sentences or anything for possession. Announce it from the rooftops - you are caught with coke, or driving under the influence and you are going to prison for a year so say goodbye to your mid level management job, your kids, your bed. Prepare to be unable to cover your mortgage and lose your home, have a nightmare with a drugs offence when opening accounts or travelling.
Would something this severe smash the casual use? These people aren’t thinking of the chain of poor fuckers down the line working in grim conditions to harvest and produce, those getting killed in the trade so why have any sympathy for the end users?
I’m not sure how I feel about the above but would be an interesting experiment.
Where do you plan to build the extra 3,000 prisons?
This misses the point. The function of mandatory prison sentences is not in order to fill extra prisons but to deter certain actions. I am neutral as between decriminalisation and, OTOH, rational drug law enforcement. What is irrational is to deter traders with 25 year sentences but not deter use in any significant way.
Would not a few dozen otherwise impeccable living middling sorts with wives, children and careers in auto finance and geography teaching going to prison for drug use be enough?
I wonder how many of us are a little more careful about driving now that mere careless driving, if it chances to have certain outcomes, can lead straight to prison?
It can but even if careless driving leads to death or serious injury in most cases the sentence will be a community order or suspended sentence. Only if the driver killed under the influence of drink of drugs would an immediate prison sentence be likely.
We also should be considering changing highway laws to reduce speed limits on rural roads, narrow tracks and at bends or banning u turns or 3 point turns except in quiet residential streets as a lot of what would be mere careless driving could still be doing a currently legal manoeuvre
Just how are people supposed to turn round if they miss a junction or take a wrong turn?
Wait until they reach the next roundabout
This is nuts. I live in rural Surrey, but let's be honest Surrey is also pretty built up so I imagine most of the countryside is worse for roundabouts than where I live, but lets just take the lane I live on:
It has a roundabout at one end so let's assume we are going in the other direction. It is 2 miles long. It then reaches a cross roads. To the left you have to drive about 4 miles to a roundabout (which you may not know is there). Straight on is a narrow lane of about a mile with a T junction at the end. At that junction you can turn left or right. If you turn left you have about 5 miles to another T junction. At that junction you can turn left and eventually come to a roundabout in a mile. If you turn right I can't even think where there is a roundabout. Going back to the last junction if you turn right you come to another junction after about 2 miles. You can turn right and come to a roundabout after 3 miles. If you turn left after 2 miles you come to another junction. The next roundabout is about 7 miles away. Finally going back to the first junction if you turn right after 2 miles there is a junction. I can't think of where there is another roundabout either left or right on that road.
Your suggestion is nuts.
You are also wrong on speed limits for country lanes. You should be driving at a speed appropriate for the road, car and conditions. I am currently taking my Advanced Driving lessons for IAM. They are really hot on not exceeding the speed limits, but also hot on not progressing and I was told I was driving too slow for the conditions on my last lesson. People driving too slow for the conditions are also very dangerous.
Fine, then take the risk of being done for death or serious injury by careless driving if you do said u turn on a rural road and won't wait until the next roundabout or village.
The speed limit on country lanes is 60mph.
'Driving at a speed appropriate for the road, car and conditions' is a totally subjective term. One man's 'appropriate speed' may be 55mph, another 20mph on the same road and same conditions, even if approaching a bend it is completely vague guidance. As you say you can be accused of going too slow as well as too fast
You should be able to stop in the distance you can see to be clear, is good general advice.
And how is the average man on the road of average intelligence let alone those of below supposed to be able to calculate how long it will take them to stop where they see is clear ahead? They can follow the speed limit, they can't do stopping distance calculations every road they take!
On the contrary, you can and do. Just as you judge other distances, like how far behind the car in front to drive, in different conditions.
Glad you live the other side of London, I'm unlikely to meet you coming round a corner. Perhaps you should hand back your licence, I'm beginning to think that wasn't such an uncharitable suggestion
How? The average driver on the road is NOT a statistician who can calculate stopping distances. You drive behind a car so you can always see its back and license plate in full, that is NOT the same as doing constant stopping distance calculations.
The speed limit on rural roads is 60mph, either we reduce that to 40mph and say 20-30mph max around bends and when wet or snowing and 20mph on single tracks or legally there must be real debate on whether someone driving at the speed limit should be prosecuted even if an accident?
Rural roads are national speed limit - drive at a safe speed, mot the maximum
Yes never over national speed limit and mostly not at it either but what is a safe speed if raining? If hail? Before a bend?
If you don't know that when you are driving in those conditions you should not be driving
Know what? Is it safe to drive at 30mph when raining heavily or only 20mph? Or even only 15mph?
Or 40 or 50 or 60 or 70
The driver has to know how to deal with road conditions and if not then they should not drive
To know something it has to be factually clearly the correct answer, what is the correct speed to not exceed in poor weather conditions? Obviously has to be below the 60mph national speed limit and below 30mph in urban areas but what is it?
Since 'poor weather conditions' can cover a multitude of scenarios from 'steady rain'* to 'thick ice and freezing fog' that isn't a meaningful question.
Firstly, I don't really care (but that might be because it's Sultana and Your Party, which is as insignificant as it is amusing) and, secondly, really? Don't the police have better things to be spending their time on?
You've just said my job isn't important.
Investitgating financial crimes is very important.
Anything juicy recently?
Nope, my investigations have mostly centred on cocaine and unsolicited & solicited dick pics.
In my OH's last company, she was asked to ignore the cocaine misuse as the company wouldn't have a sales team left. Your lot must have higher standards.
Just to point out that this is an everyday example of the ridiculous state of affairs where wholesalers in this product are getting 20-25 year sentences while the product is regarded by millions as quotidian and normal.
If demand ceased, so would supply. Either decriminalise or make the user the real criminal, not the hard working trader.
MPs and television presenters have been cancelled over dodgy bants or porn but politics and the media are fuelled by actually illegal drugs. And this illustrates a real problem – the growing gulf between what is acceptable and what is legal.
Coke is now such a naff drug - it’s being hoovered up noses in pubs up and down the country by every man jack and off kitchen counters by bored mums.
Is the answer to be massively illiberal on coke - 1 year in prison, no suspended sentences or anything for possession. Announce it from the rooftops - you are caught with coke, or driving under the influence and you are going to prison for a year so say goodbye to your mid level management job, your kids, your bed. Prepare to be unable to cover your mortgage and lose your home, have a nightmare with a drugs offence when opening accounts or travelling.
Would something this severe smash the casual use? These people aren’t thinking of the chain of poor fuckers down the line working in grim conditions to harvest and produce, those getting killed in the trade so why have any sympathy for the end users?
I’m not sure how I feel about the above but would be an interesting experiment.
Where do you plan to build the extra 3,000 prisons?
This misses the point. The function of mandatory prison sentences is not in order to fill extra prisons but to deter certain actions. I am neutral as between decriminalisation and, OTOH, rational drug law enforcement. What is irrational is to deter traders with 25 year sentences but not deter use in any significant way.
Would not a few dozen otherwise impeccable living middling sorts with wives, children and careers in auto finance and geography teaching going to prison for drug use be enough?
I wonder how many of us are a little more careful about driving now that mere careless driving, if it chances to have certain outcomes, can lead straight to prison?
It can but even if careless driving leads to death or serious injury in most cases the sentence will be a community order or suspended sentence. Only if the driver killed under the influence of drink of drugs would an immediate prison sentence be likely.
We also should be considering changing highway laws to reduce speed limits on rural roads, narrow tracks and at bends or banning u turns or 3 point turns except in quiet residential streets as a lot of what would be mere careless driving could still be doing a currently legal manoeuvre
Just how are people supposed to turn round if they miss a junction or take a wrong turn?
Wait until they reach the next roundabout
This is nuts. I live in rural Surrey, but let's be honest Surrey is also pretty built up so I imagine most of the countryside is worse for roundabouts than where I live, but lets just take the lane I live on:
It has a roundabout at one end so let's assume we are going in the other direction. It is 2 miles long. It then reaches a cross roads. To the left you have to drive about 4 miles to a roundabout (which you may not know is there). Straight on is a narrow lane of about a mile with a T junction at the end. At that junction you can turn left or right. If you turn left you have about 5 miles to another T junction. At that junction you can turn left and eventually come to a roundabout in a mile. If you turn right I can't even think where there is a roundabout. Going back to the last junction if you turn right you come to another junction after about 2 miles. You can turn right and come to a roundabout after 3 miles. If you turn left after 2 miles you come to another junction. The next roundabout is about 7 miles away. Finally going back to the first junction if you turn right after 2 miles there is a junction. I can't think of where there is another roundabout either left or right on that road.
Your suggestion is nuts.
You are also wrong on speed limits for country lanes. You should be driving at a speed appropriate for the road, car and conditions. I am currently taking my Advanced Driving lessons for IAM. They are really hot on not exceeding the speed limits, but also hot on not progressing and I was told I was driving too slow for the conditions on my last lesson. People driving too slow for the conditions are also very dangerous.
Fine, then take the risk of being done for death or serious injury by careless driving if you do said u turn on a rural road and won't wait until the next roundabout or village.
The speed limit on country lanes is 60mph.
'Driving at a speed appropriate for the road, car and conditions' is a totally subjective term. One man's 'appropriate speed' may be 55mph, another 20mph on the same road and same conditions, even if approaching a bend it is completely vague guidance. As you say you can be accused of going too slow as well as too fast
You should be able to stop in the distance you can see to be clear, is good general advice.
And how is the average man on the road of average intelligence let alone those of below supposed to be able to calculate how long it will take them to stop where they see is clear ahead? They can follow the speed limit, they can't do stopping distance calculations every road they take!
On the contrary, you can and do. Just as you judge other distances, like how far behind the car in front to drive, in different conditions.
Glad you live the other side of London, I'm unlikely to meet you coming round a corner. Perhaps you should hand back your licence, I'm beginning to think that wasn't such an uncharitable suggestion
How? The average driver on the road is NOT a statistician who can calculate stopping distances. You drive behind a car so you can always see its back and license plate in full, that is NOT the same as doing constant stopping distance calculations.
The speed limit on rural roads is 60mph, either we reduce that to 40mph and say 20-30mph max around bends and when wet or snowing and 20mph on single tracks or legally there must be real debate on whether someone driving at the speed limit should be prosecuted even if an accident?
Rural roads are national speed limit - drive at a safe speed, mot the maximum
Yes never over national speed limit and mostly not at it either but what is a safe speed if raining? If hail? Before a bend?
If you don't know that when you are driving in those conditions you should not be driving
Know what? Is it safe to drive at 30mph when raining heavily or only 20mph? Or even only 15mph?
Or 40 or 50 or 60 or 70
The driver has to know how to deal with road conditions and if not then they should not drive
To know something it has to be factually clearly the correct answer, what is the correct speed to not exceed in poor weather conditions? Obviously has to be below the 60mph national speed limit and below 30mph in urban areas but what is it?
Since 'poor weather conditions' can cover a multitude of scenarios from 'steady rain'* to 'thick ice and freezing fog' that isn't a meaningful question.
I don’t understand why speed traps have to be visible and forewarned. Hidden ones would be far more effective at altering wanker driving attitudes
Edit - and raise much more revenue
Because the point of speed traps is not to catch people speeding. It is to change behaviour that might otherwise create a hazard around a particular thing, such as a school or a difficult junction. Making them really obvious will get most people to slow down. Mission accomplished, as an American President once claimed.
Millions of people ignore the speed limit. How would accurate and detailed (and huge) documentation with maximum speeds for different situations make the slightest bit of difference to anything in a helpful way?
Think of the lawyers who find the existing Highway Code sexually unsatisfying.
If increased to 10 million pages, it would enable them to enjoy life more.
Have you no heart?
Would reduce their arguments over what certain terms mean though
Firstly, I don't really care (but that might be because it's Sultana and Your Party, which is as insignificant as it is amusing) and, secondly, really? Don't the police have better things to be spending their time on?
You've just said my job isn't important.
Investitgating financial crimes is very important.
Anything juicy recently?
Nope, my investigations have mostly centred on cocaine and unsolicited & solicited dick pics.
In my OH's last company, she was asked to ignore the cocaine misuse as the company wouldn't have a sales team left. Your lot must have higher standards.
Just to point out that this is an everyday example of the ridiculous state of affairs where wholesalers in this product are getting 20-25 year sentences while the product is regarded by millions as quotidian and normal.
If demand ceased, so would supply. Either decriminalise or make the user the real criminal, not the hard working trader.
MPs and television presenters have been cancelled over dodgy bants or porn but politics and the media are fuelled by actually illegal drugs. And this illustrates a real problem – the growing gulf between what is acceptable and what is legal.
Coke is now such a naff drug - it’s being hoovered up noses in pubs up and down the country by every man jack and off kitchen counters by bored mums.
Is the answer to be massively illiberal on coke - 1 year in prison, no suspended sentences or anything for possession. Announce it from the rooftops - you are caught with coke, or driving under the influence and you are going to prison for a year so say goodbye to your mid level management job, your kids, your bed. Prepare to be unable to cover your mortgage and lose your home, have a nightmare with a drugs offence when opening accounts or travelling.
Would something this severe smash the casual use? These people aren’t thinking of the chain of poor fuckers down the line working in grim conditions to harvest and produce, those getting killed in the trade so why have any sympathy for the end users?
I’m not sure how I feel about the above but would be an interesting experiment.
Where do you plan to build the extra 3,000 prisons?
This misses the point. The function of mandatory prison sentences is not in order to fill extra prisons but to deter certain actions. I am neutral as between decriminalisation and, OTOH, rational drug law enforcement. What is irrational is to deter traders with 25 year sentences but not deter use in any significant way.
Would not a few dozen otherwise impeccable living middling sorts with wives, children and careers in auto finance and geography teaching going to prison for drug use be enough?
I wonder how many of us are a little more careful about driving now that mere careless driving, if it chances to have certain outcomes, can lead straight to prison?
It can but even if careless driving leads to death or serious injury in most cases the sentence will be a community order or suspended sentence. Only if the driver killed under the influence of drink of drugs would an immediate prison sentence be likely.
We also should be considering changing highway laws to reduce speed limits on rural roads, narrow tracks and at bends or banning u turns or 3 point turns except in quiet residential streets as a lot of what would be mere careless driving could still be doing a currently legal manoeuvre
Just how are people supposed to turn round if they miss a junction or take a wrong turn?
Wait until they reach the next roundabout
This is nuts. I live in rural Surrey, but let's be honest Surrey is also pretty built up so I imagine most of the countryside is worse for roundabouts than where I live, but lets just take the lane I live on:
It has a roundabout at one end so let's assume we are going in the other direction. It is 2 miles long. It then reaches a cross roads. To the left you have to drive about 4 miles to a roundabout (which you may not know is there). Straight on is a narrow lane of about a mile with a T junction at the end. At that junction you can turn left or right. If you turn left you have about 5 miles to another T junction. At that junction you can turn left and eventually come to a roundabout in a mile. If you turn right I can't even think where there is a roundabout. Going back to the last junction if you turn right you come to another junction after about 2 miles. You can turn right and come to a roundabout after 3 miles. If you turn left after 2 miles you come to another junction. The next roundabout is about 7 miles away. Finally going back to the first junction if you turn right after 2 miles there is a junction. I can't think of where there is another roundabout either left or right on that road.
Your suggestion is nuts.
You are also wrong on speed limits for country lanes. You should be driving at a speed appropriate for the road, car and conditions. I am currently taking my Advanced Driving lessons for IAM. They are really hot on not exceeding the speed limits, but also hot on not progressing and I was told I was driving too slow for the conditions on my last lesson. People driving too slow for the conditions are also very dangerous.
Fine, then take the risk of being done for death or serious injury by careless driving if you do said u turn on a rural road and won't wait until the next roundabout or village.
The speed limit on country lanes is 60mph.
'Driving at a speed appropriate for the road, car and conditions' is a totally subjective term. One man's 'appropriate speed' may be 55mph, another 20mph on the same road and same conditions, even if approaching a bend it is completely vague guidance. As you say you can be accused of going too slow as well as too fast
You should be able to stop in the distance you can see to be clear, is good general advice.
And how is the average man on the road of average intelligence let alone those of below supposed to be able to calculate how long it will take them to stop where they see is clear ahead? They can follow the speed limit, they can't do stopping distance calculations every road they take!
On the contrary, you can and do. Just as you judge other distances, like how far behind the car in front to drive, in different conditions.
Glad you live the other side of London, I'm unlikely to meet you coming round a corner. Perhaps you should hand back your licence, I'm beginning to think that wasn't such an uncharitable suggestion
How? The average driver on the road is NOT a statistician who can calculate stopping distances. You drive behind a car so you can always see its back and license plate in full, that is NOT the same as doing constant stopping distance calculations.
The speed limit on rural roads is 60mph, either we reduce that to 40mph and say 20-30mph max around bends and when wet or snowing and 20mph on single tracks or legally there must be real debate on whether someone driving at the speed limit should be prosecuted even if an accident?
Rural roads are national speed limit - drive at a safe speed, mot the maximum
Yes never over national speed limit and mostly not at it either but what is a safe speed if raining? If hail? Before a bend?
If you don't know that when you are driving in those conditions you should not be driving
Know what? Is it safe to drive at 30mph when raining heavily or only 20mph? Or even only 15mph?
Or 40 or 50 or 60 or 70
The driver has to know how to deal with road conditions and if not then they should not drive
To know something it has to be factually clearly the correct answer, what is the correct speed to not exceed in poor weather conditions? Obviously has to be below the 60mph national speed limit and below 30mph in urban areas but what is it?
Since 'poor weather conditions' can cover a multitude of scenarios from 'steady rain'* to 'thick ice and freezing fog' that isn't a meaningful question.
Millions of people ignore the speed limit. How would accurate and detailed (and huge) documentation with maximum speeds for different situations make the slightest bit of difference to anything in a helpful way?
Think of the lawyers who find the existing Highway Code sexually unsatisfying.
If increased to 10 million pages, it would enable them to enjoy life more.
Have you no heart?
Would reduce their arguments over what certain terms mean though
I don’t understand why speed traps have to be visible and forewarned. Hidden ones would be far more effective at altering wanker driving attitudes
Edit - and raise much more revenue
Because the point of speed traps is not to catch people speeding. It is to change behaviour that might otherwise create a hazard around a particular thing, such as a school or a difficult junction. Making them really obvious will get most people to slow down. Mission accomplished, as an American President once claimed.
Then we need a permanent visible speed trap every few hundred yards on nearly my entire 27 mile mail route (the private bits between Rockley, Temple and Barbury Castle can probably do without). Lots of people drive like wankers whenever they don't see a a cop or a speed camera. We need to make people not drive like wankers all of the time. Hidden speed traps wherever are the only good way
OT It has been an hour or more so I can officially declare my 5½ hour nosebleed over. Three boxes of Kleenex, a ruined polo shirt and a patch of carpet were notable casualties. It is funny how such trivial things can run on.
OT It has been an hour or more so I can officially declare my 5½ hour nosebleed over. Three boxes of Kleenex, a ruined polo shirt and a patch of carpet were notable casualties. It is funny how such trivial things can run on.
Oh god!! I would really consult the doctor over that. Could be high blood pressure or worse.
OT It has been an hour or more so I can officially declare my 5½ hour nosebleed over. Three boxes of Kleenex, a ruined polo shirt and a patch of carpet were notable casualties. It is funny how such trivial things can run on.
Comments
Court verdicts are only significant when they don't give the outcome you'd expect - eg the recent preverse judgement where a firm was fined because a driver delivering to them fell off his lorry, hit his head on the floor and unfortunately died - thus throwing the onus onto anyone who takes deliveries to manage the working at height risk of a driver unloading his lorry, rather than onto the haulier as you would logically expect. (Personally, I think no case should have been brought against anyone for that particular incident - the costs of mitigation vastly exceed the threshold of "reasonably practicable" relative to the level of risk. But HSE are a bunch of unaccoutable shits who have virtually forgotten the concept of "reasonably practicable".)
https://mynorthwest.com/chokepoints/wsp-156-mph-i-5-headlights/4183877
As many people have explained to you, many times.
Good law often is vague. Overly prescriptive is bad law.
As you have shown even judges can produce judgements you might not expect but going forward that would be the law on similar facts unless overturned on appeal
In law the word 'reasonable' means 'over to you, jury, to fix the matter.
That is not its purpose.
Indeed the Highway Code is quite analogous to the pirate one as much of it is more guidelines than actual rules, hence the preponderous of SHOULD versus MUST.
But the thing that lowers risk most is not having recently read the Code, it is being an experienced and careful driver.
Besides those who have broken the law, there are two groups most at risk.
1. Those so old they are suffering from age related decline (and often in denial about it). Reading the Code recently would not help them.
2. The young and inexperienced. Who are the ones most likely to have recently read some of the Code, to pass the Theory Test, but that does not make up for a lack of maturity or experience.
The code remains useful because it gives us a good place to start when deciding whether something is careless or dangerous.
https://x.com/EdwardJDavey/status/2010034017823850682?s=20
I am going to have to unfollow Ed now he has gone all serious and dropped his unknown stuntman routine.
Wall Street Journal: Trump administration officials have had preliminary discussions about how to carry out an attack on Iran if needed to follow through on Trump’s threats, including what sites might be targeted, U.S. officials said. One option being discussed is a large-scale aerial strike on multiple Iranian military targets, one of the officials said. Another of the officials said there wasn’t a consensus on what course of action to take, and no military equipment or personnel had been moved in preparation for a strike.
Isn't Watford the gateway to the north?
It is madness.
If the Code is not clear on a driving action then it becomes for the subjective opinion of the judge or jury to decide if it was careless or not
Ximinez: NOBODY expects the Spanish Inquisition! Our chief weapon is surprise...surprise and fear...fear and surprise.... Our two weapons are fear and surprise...and ruthless efficiency.... Our *three* weapons are fear, surprise, and ruthless efficiency...and an almost fanatical devotion to the Pope.... Our *four*...no... *Amongst* our weapons.... Amongst our weaponry...are such elements as fear, surprise.... I'll come in again.
It’s not complicated at all
Elon Musk
@elonmusk
·
24m
We will make the new 𝕏 algorithm, including all code used to determine what organic and advertising posts are recommended to users, open source in 7 days.
This will be repeated every 4 weeks, with comprehensive developer notes, to help you understand what changed.
Which is why the law got more detailed. But….
The problem is that it is provably impossible to create a linear rule set to cover every eventuality in a non-linear world. Which is why the law grows ever larger and fails to catch up.
S Sebag Montefiore
@simonmontefiore
"This is the final battle; Pahlavi will return" chant the crowds tonight in darkened cut-off Iran. And Pahlavi just might. The challenge is great for Khamenei’s heirs but so far there is only one established opposition leader. There is a the king over the water - the Crown Prince. Today he has made a historic call
https://x.com/simonmontefiore/status/2010031942448635945
I seems fucking mad on the face of it but they are a) cleverer than me and b) in possession of far more information and analytical talent so maybe there is something in it.
Darya Safai MP
@SafaiDarya
Now in Tehran. Despite a total internet blackout, people are flooding the streets, answering the call of Prince Pahlavi.
Day 14 of the revolution.
Freedom is within reach.
https://x.com/SafaiDarya
Possibly amazing times in next 48 hours or so.
It would only allow Pigface to declare they were stooges of the Great Satan, as he has over Trump.
*Especially the Israeli government but that doesn't mean Netanyahu won't do it, of course.
Always drive slowly unless it is blindingly obvious you could safely go a little bit faster.
@hyufd You keep asking what speed you should be going for different conditions and different types of bends. You should know this if you are a driver. It is a driving skill that you learn. What are you expecting? Do you want a limit for every bend in every type of condition for every type of car. This is bonkers. You should know yourself when approaching the bend what is right. If you don't, well you might crash and get banned, which by the sounds of it would be a good thing if you didn't know what speed to go.
I will however repeat the advice I gave earlier. If this vexes you so much read pages 182 to 190 of the Police Drivers Handbook Roadcraft. You can buy it anywhere. It explains it all to you, although if you have no idea of stopping distances for your car in different conditions it might be a waste of time.
On another point @BartholomewRoberts has made some very good posts on the subject. In one he mentioned the Highway Code often mentions MUST and SHOULD (in capital red) a lot. I don't know whether it is generally known but where it says MUST, then to not do so is an offence with penalty points applicable. SHOULD is guidance. Although it was made clear to me that the police will often not enforce failure to follow a MUST rule (the application of common sense). A common one being the behaviour of cutting over a mini roundabout where you could fit around it is an offence, but a policeman is unlikely to enforce it unless reckless or he had a row with his wife that morning.
Although I absolutely disagree with some of the advice e.g. drive around in 1st / 2nd gear in 20 mph zones. The whole sodding point of gearing is to give mechanical advantage, I am not going to strain the shit out of my engine doing that.
In the case of 70 year olds they have to renew their licence every 3 years under current legislation
Drill music?
Serbian Turbo-Folk?
Half a million @SeanT s?
Even standard stopping conditions will vary depending on bends or how heavy it is raining for example. So what is the safe speed you should definitely never exceed to include those conditions? Even Must and Should Code rules are not always clear on what exactly they require or prohibit
Massive savings on maternity care from the middle of the 2026/7 financial year, no mothers going on leave, gradual wind-down of our education system. Think of the resources freed up to spend on pensions.
Probably causes workforce shortages when we get to the mid 2040s, but that will be someone else's problem.
I know footballers have a reputation for being a bit thick, but he didn't know the full meaning of the word holocaust....
I did rear-end shunt someone on a roundabout in 2008, and lost the No Claims. I was stressed about breaking up with my long-term girlfriend at the time, not that that's an excuse.
And for councils to spend what little money is in the roads budgets more sensibly. For instance, the road from me to the fish and chip shop has new speed bumps where speeding was never an issue anyway but elsewhere in the borough, drivers swerve to avoid potholes, and there are junctions so festooned with signs that drivers are expected to read War and Peace in 10 seconds, and often in the same places road markings are faded to near-invisibility.
Because frustrated drivers overtaking drivers driving too slowly is a major cause of accidents.
It was a big problem when I lived in Aber - some wanker doing 25-35 along the A44 past three pull ins, and some other wanker storming past at 70 not realising there was a dip ahead...
'The new year begins with no party leader enjoying net positive approval. Keir Starmer has seen his standing deteriorate further, with his net approval falling to –46, his joint lowest score on record and equal to Theresa May’s worst rating in May 2019.
Starmer’s decline leaves him behind most recent prime ministers at their lowest points, reinforcing a challenging start to the year for Labour’s leadership. Chancellor Rachel Reeves remains similarly unpopular on –45.
By contrast, Ed Davey is currently the most popular party leader, albeit still marginally negative, on –2, with Zack Polanski close behind on –3. Kemi Badenoch stands at –11, while Nigel Farage sits at –15.'
https://www.opinium.com/resource-center/voting-intention-7th-january-2026/
The driver has to know how to deal with road conditions and if not then they should not drive
Views vary strongly by party affiliation. Conservative and Reform voters are more inclined to back the intervention, while Labour, Liberal Democrat and Green voters are overwhelmingly opposed.
A plurality of the public believes the action was illegal, with 41% taking this view compared with just 9% who believe it was legal. Many are uncertain about the legality, highlighting widespread confusion and unease.
When asked how the UK should respond, there is no clear consensus. The most common view (32%) is that Britain should avoid taking sides and instead call for restraint and a peaceful transition. Smaller groups favour condemning the action as illegal or supporting the removal of Nicolás Maduro without commenting on legality.'
https://www.opinium.com/resource-center/voting-intention-7th-january-2026/
Have I understood that correctly?
*Which is less dangerous than drizzle, oddly.
It's hard to think of another activity that is (let's face it) fairly difficult to do well, dangerous when done badly, where the norm is that basically everyone ought to do it.
(See the challenges at both ends of the age range; there are plenty of teenaged boys who really shouldn't be allowed to drive because they are teenaged boys. Similarly, there are plenty of older drivers who keep driving beyond the point where it's wise. In part because of the way that society is configured, not driving is a complete PITA.)
(Me? I have a clean licence, because I barely use the damn thing; I have never felt flow when driving. Fortunately, I've always lived in places where I don't really need to, but I know I'm in a minority.)
Edit - and raise much more revenue
If increased to 10 million pages, it would enable them to enjoy life more.
Have you no heart?
"Go to A&E if:
"You have a nosebleed and:
"your nosebleed lasts longer than 10 to 15 minutes"