Has the Lincolnshire Constabulary really got nothing better to do than to waste court time (and tax-payers' money) prosecuting motorist Michael Thompson for a minor infringement of the law?
Apparently, the answer is 'no', they don't have anything better to do. Now, we have a situation in which a law-abiding member of the public has a criminal record all because he flashed his car's headlights to warn other motorists that they're heading towards a Police 'safety camera' (aka money-spinning speed trap).
The reason why most motorists, the writer included, warn other motorists of speed traps is because they are frequently cynically placed to do nothing more than to generate revenue; they don't have much to do with safety and with the cut-backs starting to bite we can all expect to see more of these mobile money-spinners springing up on a road near you.
In my region, rural Derbyshire, so many of the main trunk roads have had their speed limits reduced from the national speed limit to 50 mph, accompanied by the condescending statement: "It's 50 for a reason" (and we now know what that reason i$!). A case in point is the A515 from Buxton to Ashbourne, which had it's speed limit reduced to 50 mph.
The argument for reducing speed limits is to reduce the number of crashes or fatalities; having travelled along this road for several years I can't tell you the last time I saw a crash. Now, if you keep to 50 mph you often get stuck behind lorries and tractors, and to overtake you have to break the law, which is a complete nonsense.
The A610 that links Codnor to the edge of Nottingham, on the Nottinghamshire-Derbyshire border, allows you to do 70 mph and then just before a long incline, and still miles away from pedestrians, the speed limit reduced to 50 mph and as you approach the roundabout where the A610 meets junction 26 of the M1, it is reduced to 40 mph.
There must be hundreds of examples from around the country with nonsensical speed limits. The irony is that on narrow country lanes you can tear along at 60 mph when the limit perhaps ought to be lower; but there's not enough traffic on country lanes to make it worth trying to enforce a sensible speed limit. The same goes for villages where often the speed limit is 30 mph (as it should be) but motorists hurtle through.
I am not a fan of speed cameras but I believe they should be deployed where motorists ought to know better, but on the open road the speed limits should be set higher.
As for the motorways, when will we be allowed to catch up with our Continental cousins and travel at 80 mph?
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