Speeding

Wow either cars or motorcycles speeding around the area like it’s a race. The noise just now what is wrong with people lately. Anyone hear or notice anything frightening.

With the speed many drivers are now going I find its s race to cross the road.

It’s making things unpleasant and more dangerous, especially when there are so many small children on bikes on even quite major roads at the moment. Stepping out off pavements into the road to maintain social distance is going to be needed for months. Let’s hope we get some more space for pedestrians and cyclists soon.

I think I heard that last night at about 10pm or something like that. It sounded like very fast and loud cars. I live in Crofton Park and they seemed to be heading north having come from the Forest Hill direction. Scary noise. More scary still when you realise that very little is likely to change. There is far too much of this sort of thing about. It seems to happen day in day out. It’s like living in a suburban version of Mad Max Thunderdome sometimes.

I don’t thing they realise that if they have an accident they may well be attended to by a gynecologist. Which would seem apt!

Ha - true that.

It’s getting beyond a joke. Cars bomb up and down HOP, many doing over 30mph let alone the limit of 20.

On my journey home on Thursday night, I saw two cars smashed together at the top of Sydenham Rise. Likely caused by speeding.

What can we do ? It seems as if the cards are stacked against the law abiding taxpayer.

It seems like some drivers have lost whatever braincells they had in the first place. Last night a mini was at the top of Honor Oak Park in the middle of the road just before the junction of Honor Oak Road/Forest Hill Road. They’d had an accident, the front bumper and the grill was hanging off. One of the occupants was sitting on the bonnet smoking a cigarette.

Tonight I drove up Honor Oak Park and aimed towards the middle of the three traffic calming tables at the requisite 20mph. The car behind me overtook me on the right doing at least 30, possibly more. That is a blind hill and they could have come a cropper.

Just picking up on this topic I decided to do some spot checks… I went out and drew a couple of lines on the road 10 metres apart. At 20mph (speed limit on my road) you’re doing 8.94 metres a second so you should be covering the gap in just over a second.

I downloaded a timer video app, went up, video’d the first car driving down the road and took a couple of screen caps.

Yes that’s 1.96-1.46 which is 0.5 seconds to cover 10 metres. Thats 44 mph. More than double the speed limit. That’s why we can’t have nice things, that’s one of the reasons for road closure of notorious rat runs.

Is this scientific? No, but it’s a ball park calculation that gives you near enough double the speed limit. I’m here all day, I can do this all day long.

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Well done. You should offer services to the police .

That’s Waldenshaw Road, right?

The problem you have there is that if modal filters were installed, due to the one-way system on Manor Mount and David’s Road, there would be no vehicle access to those roads, Pearcefield Road or the Sainsbury’s car park! Road narrowing schemes could probably prevent access for Sainsbury’s lorries too.

I guess right now you get lots of cheeky cars ‘nipping’ in right from London Road to get onto Honor Oak Road without waiting at the lights.

Given Fairlawn Primary School nursery is there, it’s a shame something can’t be done easily (like a school street).

I’d probably propose changes to stop right turns from London Road into Waldenshaw, stop left turns from Honor Oak Road into the top of Manor Mount, and remove the one-way section where Manor Mount joins Honor Oak Road.

Assuming drivers could be made to obey the “no turn” signs, what do you think to that idea?

A good few years ago the council put in speed measuring equipment on Waldenshaw Road and Manor Mount. Waldenshaw had an average speed IRO 38mph. Manor Mount was IRO 46mph, down the wrong way!!!

There’s no simple solution here because people need access to Sainsbury’s. I’m a bit confused by your Manor Mount suggestion as it’s one way UP the hill - no one should be turning in here from Honor Oak Rd (but they still do).

The only idea I’ve come up with is to have an average speed check system and make it 5mph from the to of Waldenshaw to the end of St David’s. That doesn’t affect residents or people going to Sainbury’s but prevents people from taking shortcuts. They’d literally have to count to 60 before exiting the system. It’s daft I know. Also won’t fix the speeding issue as people race to buy groceries.

The other crazy idea is to close Waldenshaw at the Manor Mount end, reverse St David’s so it’s the ‘way-in’ and let the Sainsbury’s lorries exit at the top of Manor Mount with some redesign of the turn… not ideal for people trying to get to Sainsbury’s as you’d struggle to turn across the circular from the east.

The least crazy idea is to have Sainsbury’s stock out of hours and load from the London Road front door. Then they don’t even need to run the lorries down Waldenshaw which would make my house happy as I can feel the foundations shake from my bed on the 1st floor as they go past.

Sadly I don’t think it would hold up in court. I might leave a video running for an hour one day and then edit it, could the traffic volume and speeds and send it to the council though.

Okay, to clarify, I’m proposing Manor Mount becomes two way, but just between the top of Waldenshaw Road and Honor Oak Road, and turning left is forbidden from Honor Oak Road into Manor Mount.

As they say, a picture is worth a thousand words, road signs placed at the approaches as drivers would see them:

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I think you could try to achieve similar goals by forbidding right turns into Honor Oak at the top of Manor Mount, but drivers would be likely to just ignore the restriction having already mentally committed to taking a short cut when turning off London Road into Waldenshaw. It’s better to try and dissuade cutting through at the point of entry, I think studies would show.

I think the point of modal filters is to add passive systems (i.e. near zero cost after installation) to encourage desired behaviour and actions. I’m not sure an average speed check system achieves this, or would be near cost effective to operate on a small road like this.

I don’t think the Sainsbury’s lorries would do well going up St David’s.

Speaking of speeding: I know I’ve said/written it before but Perry Hill desperately needs a speed camera put in place to combat all the idiotic boy racers that treat it like a race track in the evenings.

In the past I thought about filing an FOI request for the data from the traffic flow sensors to attempt a similar speed calculations for Woolstone Road. I’m talking about the ones where they run two ‘cables’ across the road at something like a 10m interval. I heard that they don’t use them for speed calculations, only flow, but if they have 2 measurements then it must be possible to estimate speed (given some simpleish assumptions).

Do you both mean Davids Road ?

Yes indeed, sorry, not sure where I got the St part from in my head. Probably confusing Dunstans with David - sigh.

I could work if the one-way system next to Sainsbury’s was reversed, so lorries take the second left into Sainsbury’s not the first. There may also have to be some different parking restrictions on the bottom of Manor Mount to allow sufficient turning space.

I’ve noticed a lot of screeching round the local roads at night recently (probably to avoid the speed camera on Brockley Rise). I’ve just heard someone screeching round the block now (and do an emergency stop) - I hope no one was hit. Short of road humping every road is there anything the council could do to avoid people speeding round residential roads to avoid speed cameras - it’s so antisocial and dangerous.

Employing police is the usual answer. Speed cameras are a blessing and a curse (like the silly one on Sydenham Hill).
I’m not sure the council can do anything about speeding - but they can for certain other infractions (illegal right turn, wrong way up a road etc)

Having road humps doesn’t even work! There are road humps on Sunderland Road and the speed of drivers is crazy. Anyone sticking to the 20mph speed limit is usually overtaken!

True that.

Some good info shared on twitter about the Met’s enforcement action on speeding recently.

His last sentence is beautifully ambiguous.

@Beige Which part? The bad table, the final sentence saying we need to stop caring about safety or the sign which says the pedestrian is responsible for cars speeding?

I would have thought that the consequences of “putting safety first and recognising speeding” would have been less devestation.

Hmmm. Think you’re misattributing a quote to me which belongs to the man from the Met. Definitely clumsily-phrased but the meaning is surely clear.

Sorry, I realise it wasn’t you. I just highlighted and clicked ‘quote’. I have fixed.

Sorry to derail conversation - the content of his message was indeed interesting. I wonder what is going on here.

From listening to the traffic near me at night, it very much sounds as though no drivers are doing 20 mph. During lockdown there was a much lower volume of traffic so it wasn’t as noticeable and although I’ve always though the traffic speeds generally on Perry vale/rise are well over the 20 mph limit, it seems particularly bad now that lockdown is lifting. If a cyclist, pedestrian or another car got in the way I don’t think it would be pretty. Of course there has never been any enforcement on perry vale so no incentive for anyone to stick to the limit even in normal times, of the idea of promoting safety doesn’t matter to them.

The zone highs are shocking, and I guess that’s the point of Andy Cox’s post. But it doesn’t tell us much about the average speeding in each zone. For example, all those ‘highs’ could be attributed to one high speed car chase.

Are you aware of any car racing happening on Perry Vale in the very early hours of the morning? I’m on Sunderland Road and several times over the last few weeks when I’ve been up late and have had windows open I’ve heard “souped up” cars going at what sounds like very high speeds constantly for an hour or so. Although I’m closer to the South Circular than Perry Vale the sound appears to be coming from the Perry Vale direction.

Maybe - it sounds more like individual
Cars rather the multiple cars together but could be some kind of racing

There is a local vehicle which seems to have had its muffler removed, and the owner drives around the area a lot, often in the small hours.

I was out for a walk yesterday evening … around 9 PM and there were two cars racing down Honor Oak Park, past One Tree Hill towards the station … approx 50 MPH. Two Golfs; one black, one white.

If you see racing or other forms of dangerous driving, it’s possible to submit video evidence to the police:

https://www.met.police.uk/ro/report/rti/rti-a/report-a-road-traffic-incident/

Note the video must cover two mins before and after the event:

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…

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Quoting your quote…

That precludes you from having a private speed camera of any kind on your street (similar to my photographic experiment above) - you’d literally have to follow someone for almost 5 minutes to submit any kind of evidence.

There are plenty of successful ‘bikecammer’ videos that lead to prosecution - e.g. close passes, that seem to be exempt from that +/- 2min rule though.

Why would you have to follow them? Wouldn’t 2 mins of empty street leading up to the incident followed by 2 mins of empty street qualify?

There’s a guy who owns a silver/white golf on Devonshire Road (if it’s the same person). He woke me up at 2AM this morning with that dam exhaust of his, to say nothing of how fast he drives down Devonshire Road. We have major water and footpath works going on at the moment but this does not seem to stop him from driving like a loon.
This is not an isolated case, he drives this way every time he leaves the flat

Unfortunately not everyone take responsibility and this why we are frustrated about those so called speed runners!!

Indeed. I believe excessive noise from moving vehicles is a police responsibility rather than Council. Can you report the issue online if you have car reg and address?

It would be great if that were possible.

I think you need to refer to the Nuisance Neighbour on Devonshire Road post for your person in question.

A supernuisance.

Banana in the tailpipe

My husband has filed an online complaint with the police and given the car reg and address

HaHaHa

Thanks Lj, have just read this post…wow!
I got woken up at around 2AM by his exhaust this morning
In fact he’s revving his engine as I write at 8.18PM this evening

Bananas are so last year, use a potato!

Yeah but isn’t that car super cool?!

I thought people grew out of the Fast and Furious car stage in their teens…

Hopefully this will add to the growing list of complaints about him. Unfortunatley he knows the system well, after my original post and many complaints to the police/council he quitened down a fair bit which I believe was from some warning given to him. However the council only monitor this for the 4 weeks post the complaint. Guess what happened in the 5th week… Back to usual. Burnouts in the street, Playing insanely loud music/bass at any time of the day and obviously just revving that extremely loud exhaust whenever he can.

Fun little tidbit the other day, he seemed to have been picked up somewhere by the police as he was brought by them back here in an unmarked car. He was asked to unlock his cars as they searched them… wonder what they were looking for! Unfortunatley they didnt ask him to turn the engine on so it cant’ve been anything to do with the noise

I’m so intruiged by Devonshire Road now - they have it ALL. Caves, water features and car racing. I’m going to cycle over and check it out this evening.

Check your life insurance.

Are you taking a banana?

Art Installation: Concrete paving cars parked in various locations.
Natural spring rivers.
61 Odd Side Kayaking business opportunity.
Diggerland on Woodcombe.
Definitely a tourist attraction in the making.

I went out for a walk earlier and two motorbikes were whizzing very fast through the Cycle only gap on Garthorne Road. They were wearing helmets and bandanas and the second bike had a pillion passenger. They then speeded onto the wrong side of Grierson Road, skimming a couple of inches past me… I’ve seen a lot of delivery riders cutting through that gap, but these guys were going particularly fast and I suspect were also eyeing up my bag…

Count on it Suze

Waldenshaw Road is currently closed (access only, owing to the road being dug up), and the Manor Mount one-way system is suspended.

I’m not sure what the Sainsbury’s lorries are doing, but I wonder how the traffic is working out now - though during lockdown I guess it’s hard to compare.

I would say 90% of people ignore the road closed signs or simply drive over them to push them out of the way. I’m sitting here watching the traffic racing past as usual. The Sainsbury’s lorries mostly come down Manor Mount.

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It took Thames Water just over a week to figure out how to stop the water leak. Technically the road is still closed to protect workers on site.

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The whole one-way system is definitely under ‘water duress’. Yesterday I noticed that the leak at the junction of Peacefield Cresc and Davids Road was producing quite a bit of water. There were a couple of guys with a pump - not sure if they were addressing the leak or just pumping out their own utility trench (phone or tv cable).

This is what Sainsbury’s lorries were doing when it was snowing.
He really struggled with the turn.

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We had a Sainsburys lorry stuck in the dip on Waldenshaw Road for a day after going down in the snow and getting stuck.

I thought this guy had left the neighbourhood, but unfortunately the misfiring modified white golf seems to be back. Drove past me at 50 - 60 MPH this evening. Very noisy, also smelly exhaust.

Many people complain about lack of enforcement of existing laws such as local speed limits - this tech looks an easy fix using smart phones and v little police resource. ‘Speedcam Anywhere’

Edit: Doesn’t look as though the app works very well yet though.

https://www.transportxtra.com/publications/local-transport-today/news/70894/-game-changing-smartphone-app-gathers-evidence-of-speeding/

It didn’t come up when I searched in the play store, so here is the link.

I hope the app works better than by the sign up process (it won’t let me click ‘sign up’ button despite password meeting criteria).

The reviews say the same thing, so it’s probably broken:

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I’ll have to get out my Android burner phone to install this

Interestingly I am going to court as a witness to a ‘dangerous driving’ incident caught on camera (albeit not using the app), so these videos do work.

It would seem that the council are finally doing something about the people who drive the wrong way down Manor Mount.

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That’s awkward. I mean it’s been ‘No Entry’ for ages, not just ‘From 28th March’. This is just saying hey we’re actually going to enforce this for real because it’s a proper problem. Honestly I always look left when coming out of Waldenshaw because there’s always a real risk of some nutter coming down the wrong way.

Maybe they’ll finish it off by doing some sort of consultation and traffic survey about the impact of making 1 street one-way on the traffic on the neighbouring streets

Don’t hold your breath

On a serious note i am glad that one issue around here is being addressed - i sometimes wonder whether the traffic department’s jurisdiction doesn’t stretch to this side of the railway.

except when it does.

I think known in most places as an Impact Assessment, but ignored in Lewisham

I’ve never understood why it is necessary to advertise camera enforcement. Guess it’s just the power of the motoring lobby.
Do the crime, face the fine.
However it happens to have been detected.

Deterrent is better and safer than punishment.

There probably won’t even be a camera, but no entry signs apparently don’t apply to all drivers.

Personally i think it should say no entry except for bicycles, but that probably goes without saying.

If I remember correctly there was already a camera sign there (albeit I never actually saw a camera) and so as soon as people (perhaps even apps now) figure that out then the camera deterrent signs no longer work.

Putting up a sign next to the existing ‘No Entry’ sign that says ‘No Entry for real after Date X’ is also daft because it’s literally inviting you to have a go before then.

There’s definitely a camera now. Diagonally opposite to the sign on the other side of Honor Oak Road on a tall pole.

It may not be a coincidence that the date on the sign is after the first photo of the sign.

yes agreed. I worked for the Home Office for a few years. Maybe more of it rubbed off on me than I’d realised…

Wouldn’t the deterrent be more effective generally if it was not advertised though? People would think that signs may result in camera enforcement and be deterred from not following the signs.

Ticket inspectors don’t advertise their presence with helpful signs such as ‘On Thursday evenings ticket inspectors will present at this station’

Edit - perhaps Lewisham could just put a load of signs up saying ‘we are installing new enforcement cameras around the borough and this might be one of the places. Please don’t get fined’. Sounds cheap too.

That’s usually how it evolves.

No Entry

No Entry + Camera sign (no camera)

No Entry + Camera Sign + Sign saying cameras are now active + Camera

That’s kind of how the speed cameras work too - only some of them are active, although you can get phone apps (I noticed while installing the app mentioned above) that tell you which ones are active.

Speaking of the app, it installed just fine for me. Will be out when it’s not arctic giving it a go

I think the
4th evolution is Road Closure,
you have sufficiently reduced traffic that the cost of a camera and the lack of revenue means it is probably cheaper to just close that entry point.

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Works for me - literally the first car I pointed it at.

How and how often is it accurately calibrated?

There’s a helpful Q&A on their site

https://speedcamanywhere.com/

I don’t think it needs calibrating. It think it uses time and vehicle size(from AI image recognition) to calculate speed using trigonometry.

Edit: ah, from the guardian article it uses number plate recognition to look up the vehicle model (it needs to know the size to calculate speed).

Yup, it’s simplified but similar to how the self driving stuff in things like Teslas works when checking for other moving cars except it’s doing the processing in the cloud instead of locally. It’s still expensive to process so they have a ‘freemium’ model - someone has to pay for the cloud compute costs after all. I might check out the pro version just to see how that works. Which means there’s a deterrent. Is he standing behind the hedge?

It’s effectively using image processing to analyse the movement between 2 different frames - I did it the old fashioned way at the top of the thread here a couple of years ago:

I live nearby. Considering its a residential, 20mph zone, cars travel down Waldenshaw at such a high speed and it scares me. Great to see someone taking a positive step in prevention. All for it!

Looks as though citizen volunteering to help the police enforce speed limits is not popular with some road users.

Surprising really as it’s been pioneered on the forum here for a while!

We did get speeding prioritised as one of the ‘top 3’ things to watch under the heading of road crime by the local FH ward police, although I missed the last meeting so I didn’t get an update. I will see if I can check and find out what happened - they were actually going to deploy some officers with radar guns after I sent them data from my camera. A fairly even split with cars >30km/h. Data does help.

Interesting to see the use of the word crime now being adopted for what was previously labelled traffic offences and still is by the CPS. The Met’s take on this is that there is a link in criminality between dangerous drivers and criminal activity which led them to setting up their Road Crime unit during lockdown.

It does seem to be sending out a mixed message of it being a crime if speeding drivers only get a letter through the post saying please don’t speed again if caught by the Community Road Watch team.

Am I alone in being utterly appalled that in the UK people are now being encouraged to spy on and report their fellow citizens for any infringement that takes their fancy?
We’ve had hotlines for breaching Covid regulations, dashcam footage and apps for traffic offences; where next? Recording conversations in the pub for opinions that disagree with the latest dogma.

If you saw a stranger break a neighbour’s window to gain entry would you not call the police? Or if you saw a shopper sneak a display item into their bag, would you not alert the store staff? Or if you overheard a huddled group discuss how to deploy a car bomb, would you not call a hotline?

We live in a civil society and we all have a collective responsibility to help uphold the laws which keep us civil and safe.

https://www.police.uk/pu/contact-the-police/ - seems fairly straight forward to me. If someone witnessed someone else breaking into your home presumably you’d want them to call the police?

The police have a page to report ‘infringements’ - https://www.met.police.uk/ro/report/rti/rti-beta-2.1/report-a-road-traffic-incident/?stepid=1-1-2-1-1&lid=9cf5ace7-2ab5-47a2-9a43-52dfdf5b9e91&rid=1610 You’d have thought if they didn’t want safer streets for everyone, they’d discourage it.

Snap

There is a great deal of difference between reporting a crime that you happen to witness by chance and deliberately seeking out and reporting infringements.

The logical next step after taking on and reporting the menace of speeding motorists is the formation of a Forest Hill chapter of the Guardian Angels.
Are there any local stockists of berets and shiny red bomber jackets?

If anybody knows who or what was the noise on the south circular at 2am please inform the police. For anybody that missed it, it sounded more like an air raid warning than an engine but was probably a motorbrike.
I almost headed to the nearest Anderson shelter.

Isn’t there a level of common sense? There are certain roads in FH that have a speed limit of 20, but were built for 40.
Spying on people in these roads is just rude.

Then you have roads like Devonshire road which really should be 10 for the most part, but you can’t report constant dangerous driving because it is subjective and would require a level of intelligence that isn’t required from an app

You seem to differentiate a crime and an infringement. By definition, an infringement is act of breaking a law… ergo a crime.

I do wish there were more active Neighbourhood Watch programs. Helps keep the cost of insurance down.

Speeding in the UK, when handled by a fixed penalty notice (which is common), doesn’t create a criminal record. Ergo not legally a crime?

Not at all; I am differentiating between doing the right thing and setting out with the express intention of criminalising your fellow citizens.

People who break laws, are criminalising themselves, they are not being criminalised by others. If you chose to break a law, they you must accept the consequences of that action. If you don’t want a fine or a criminal conviction, then don’t do it.

Nothing more simple then that.

Then that should go for cyclists on pavements and e-scooters on roads and pavements. But of course there’s no app to catch those “criminal” activities, because there are no licences ahd therefore no number plates.

Ah, the old “if you’ve done nothing wrong you’ve got nothing to fear” argument; where have I heard that before?

Sure. With you 100%.

I’m not sure what you mean. Can you provide some context?

It’s the standard excuse for anyone who wants to conduct surveillance activities as, I suspect, you well know.

So if I am walking down the street and, by chance, hear a speeding car approaching, so I grab my phone and use the app, how is that different to taking a photo of a burglar in the act?

No… I really didn’t know what you mean or the relevancy of that response to my earlier comment. This is a country which for a large part relies on personal responsibility. My point was addressed solely at the fact that if anyone, under whatever circumstance, breaks the law they must be ready to accept the consequences of that conscious act.

It is very clear that despite our police’s best efforts, people will continue to speed around our neighbourhood to the great risk of others. We already have one form of surveillance in place to help counter that… speed cameras. I can see no problem in a police-supported crowd sourced system of speed checks. After all, this is about making the roads safer for all users, including other drivers.

I’m not quite sure how anyone could argue against that.

Why do people have to keep bring cyclists into the conversation?

Since you did though, there are no rules about speeding for cyclists because bicycles don’t have speedometers. There’s really very little point in enforcing bike speeds as it’s a statistically insignificant problem. If there was money to be made out of cycling insurance then I think someone would have figured it out and profited from it by now. It’s such a minimal issue that many insurance companies give you free cycle insurance with your home insurance.

Exactly! Paying £100 and 3 points is just like paying £30k a year for non-dom tax avoiding status or a £50 FPN for partying during lockdown as was mentioned above. It’s a perfectly legal way of sidestepping what would ordinarily be a crime. I’m perfectly ok with FPNs too as it saves a lot of court time and expense, it should just be means tested like they do in Norway.

I think spying is a bit of a stretch. If you’re doing something illegal in public then if people notice you, it’s hardly spying. Real civilian style spying is measuring tree trunk diameters in East Germany when you’re there on business as a West German to determine if you can drive through them with a tank. Ask my dad.

I think that’s the point here. Nobody is going to hide behind a hedge and report anyone for doing 24 in a 20mph, it’s just not sustainable in terms of time and effort. The most urgent cause for concern is the persistent speeders who do 40 in a 20 zone whether the road was designed for it or not. Let’s find a sensible way to tackle those first.

How do we all feel about dash cams? Do they ‘criminalise fellow citizens’ or are they simply there for legal defence?

Agreed that there are no specific laws about speeding for cyclists. However, there is the offence of “wanton and furious cycling”. Curious that such an offence exists, if there is no problem.

Spying, snooping, snitching. Call it what you will, it’s over jealous enforcement of a potentially pointless law (eg if you are caught doing 21mph on Sydenham Hill)

What would you think if I recorded you buying a drink while intoxicated? Or in public drunk? Or using your phone while parked in your electric car? Or queue jumping on the tube (was in the terms of carriage last time I looked)
I’m not sure it is public concern - just malicious

Now if you record someone jumping lights at forest Hill station I might be inclined to agree with you.

If you’re going to quote me @clausy, then don’t edit what I said in order to quote me out of context.

What I said was:

And I was replying to Starman’s:

Riding bicycles on pavements and escooters on roads and pavements is illegal.

Speeding is dangerous, increases risk for everyone and shouldn’t be tolerated in built-up areas. The police are overstretched and the handful of cameras locally are well-known and people slow down around them. People who speed, drive aggressively, undertake and generally drive in an anti-social way are rarely open to feedback. I take your point but this app approach seems like a good way for a society to deal with anti-social behaviour of this type.

I’m not sure what the main concern is - should speeding be ignored? At what point do you stop turning a blind eye? There’s a massive difference between our passive acceptance of huge amounts of state surveillance and recording someone actively breaking the law for evidential purposes (speeding is a criminal offence which can be dealt with administratively through an FPN which avoids a criminal conviction, but it’s still a crime).

I’d prefer to see more active policing but in the absence of that, I’ll take this approach as a decent alternative.

Yes we do have plenty of legal surveillance in this country but what we don’t have, and I hope that we never do, is ìnformers among us equipped to report their neighbours for whatever transgression suits their agenda.

And yes Beige, I do think that is different because for only one of those scenarios have you deliberately downloaded a tool for the purpose.

This facility has been available online for years.

https://www.met.police.uk/ro/report/ocr/af/how-to-report-a-crime/

Do you have a particular agenda in mind? My concern is for the safety of our community including safety from road users incapable of following the most basic of road rules like speed limits.

People who speed are a danger to other road users, pedestrians and themselves. They will be less likely to be able to control their car and could end up killing someone. To me the potential harm justifies closer surveillance.

If people cannot obey basic laws of the road designed for safety, then maybe they shouldn’t be driving a machine capable of killing themselves and others.

Putting together your responses, and absolutely not trying to put words in your mouth, I think you are saying it’s wrong to prepare yourself for the situation in which you find someone committing a crime. Is that a fair reflection of your view?

Not quite, I’m saying it’s wrong for self-appointed citizens to equip themselves for the purpose of seeking out wrongdoers like a bunch of vigilantes.
So, going back to my original question, it seems that I am “alone in being utterly appalled that in the UK people are now being encouraged to spy on and report their fellow citizens for any infringement that takes their fancy?” and I shall need to be very wary when trundling around FH at an occasional 25mph lest I am videoed and grassed up. I just hope this new-found zealotry doesn’t creep into our outlying districts like Catford or, heaven forfend, Penge.

You make a blanket assumption that because something is a law it automatically qualifies as meritorious. That’s how authoritarianism creeps up on us.

No @JohnH1 you’re not alone. But it’s hard to speak out, because it can get misinterpreted as pro speeding. Which I’m sure you, like me, wouldn’t condone. Contrary to what some have said, it’s not on a criminal par with burglary. That’s a deliberate decision to do something bad, whereas going on some of our gradients at less than 20mph is bloody difficult without looking at the speedometer so intently as to be to the detriment of scanning the road for the actions of the reckless and other hazards. In those circumstances it’s all too easy to slip a tad over 20mph.

Now I shall duck for incoming.

I’m 50 years old. I’ve been driving for 33 years. I was involved in one minor collision, which was my fault, when I was 18 (less than a year after passing my test). That was in 1990. I’ve never been involved in a RTC since. I always drive at less than 30mph on local roads. I recently received a FPN for driving at 26mph in SE23. The “offence” took place at 1am on a week night, when there were no other road users (cars, pedestrians or cyclists) around. Do you believe I posed a danger to others? Or do you think it might more nuanced than that?

In other areas outside Lewisham, the “law” might be that the maximum speed on a similar road is 30mph. Which law is correct? Would I be wrong or right to be driving at 26mph on that road? Would I be a danger or not a danger to others by driving at 26mph on that road?

Thanks Mary, at least I won’t be the only one who’s “cancelled”.

But in your last post to me you suggested it would be wrong to equip oneself even for use if one simply came across a wrongdoer. Which is it?

Both. To me your downloading of the app signifies your intent to actively seek out wrongdoers and I think it is most improbable that you can “by chance” hear a speeding car, fish your phone out of your pocket, turn it on, open up the app and video said car because at just 30mph that car will have travelled 1/4 mile in the, let’s say, minimum 30 seconds it takes you to do that.

Be careful John you might crack the echo chamber…

it takes me 2 seconds to take my phone out of my pocket and double tap ‘PWR’ to load whatever app I have set my phone up to load. Does this convince you that one might be able to use the app passively (as opposed to actively seeking out wrongdoers)?

For some context: the latest traffic stats indicated that more than 1 in 100 of the vehicles travelling down Woolstone Road do at over 40mph and more than 1 in 1000 travel at more than 50mph.

Yes speeding can be dangerous. But if you drop the speed limit too much (like 20) it actually creates dangerous air pollution!

Also the speed limit on London is now disconnected from the appropriate speed. An area that is only safe to go 10 has a the same limit as an area where 40 is just as safe (often safer as there are roads in FH that have barriers on both sides that are 20)

I really don’t consider a “snitch” culture, in which we’re all encouraged to grass each other up, to be a mark of a “civil society”. Rather, it divides us further, gets us working against each other. It concerns me immensely that people can’t see the bigger picture of how division is used by states as a form of control. Divide and conquer, remember that? You may be led to believe that you’re being a praiseworthy “good citizen” by snooping and snitching on your neighbour, but the primary goal of a system of social hyper surveillance is to use “good citizens” as tools to do the work of the state and ensure that everyone toes the party line. Once we usher such a system in, it’s a slippery slope.

How prey tell are you or Mary being ‘cancelled’? There are opposing view points on this thread with supporters for all sides. You can continue to put forward your points as and how you wish.

wanton and furious cycling

I don’t think there is such a thing as that.
I believe it comes from Causing bodily harm by wanton or furious driving

This offence is created by section 35 of the Offences against the Person Act 1861 (drivers of carriages injuring persons by furious driving):

“Whosoever, having the charge of any carriage or vehicle, shall by wanton or furious driving or racing, or other wilful misconduct, or by wilful neglect, do or cause to be done any bodily harm to any person whatsoever, shall be guilty of a misdemeanor, and being convicted thereof shall be liable, at the discretion of the court, to be imprisoned for any term not exceeding two years …”

It has been used to prosecute a cyclist in 2009.

Although as someone who has been arrested for “Riding a pushbike without due care and attention” or some such thing, I do know there are specific laws for people on bikes

Umm I have no real views on the minutiae of your speeding or driving tbh. Just stay within the speed limit.

Why do some drivers react like whiny children when asked to obey the rules of the road.

I’ve gotten so confused by this topic.

There seems to be tacit agreement that speeding in general is bad. But it is isn’t bad when some people do it because they personally know that the speed limit applied for that bit of road at that time of day is wrong, therefore speeding is okay. But while other speeding is bad, it is bad for people in the community to proactively do something about it as we will be in danger of becoming Hungary.

The world’s gone

I would also note that there is a huge difference between 20 mph and 40 mph if you are say, unfortunate enough to hit a pedestrian or another car.

Most cyclists are reasonable enough to realise that speeding can be dangerous to other road users and limits your ability to stop for unpredictable and predictable hazards and a bike hitting a pedestrian at 30mph isn’t going to be pleasant. The same people who speed often cycle and drive. They aren’t cycle angels and car devils.

The police and councils have to work really hard to stop dangerous cycling and often take the pragmatic approach of banning cycling such as in Greenwich or Eastbourne seafront punishing us all for the transgressions of the few. It would be better to have more laws against cyclists to make it better for the majority rather than let people away who give us a bad name and stop the constant lack of equality in the eyes of the law arguments.

I would agree with @JohnH1 and Mary that we don’t want Forest Hill to be turned into the valley of the squinting windows. I don’t think the Police do either as their current burden of proof for a video submission is 1 minute before and 1 minute after the incident occurred so even if you manage to start videoing in 2 seconds, you would have to speed to keep up with your speeder for 2 minutes.

I admit I do tend to be a bit millitant about speeding.

I grew up with an A road running among side our farm. People used to speed along it and we lost a couple of dogs.

I also, walking round a field very early one morning with my dad, came across the aftermath of an accident where a speeding car full of young people (the subsequent investigation found they were doing 90mph) skidded off the road and down the side of a steep bank.

The interior of that car is not something I would want any one to have seen.

I think there’s definitely a case to be made for the locally set borough wide 20mph limits to be applied to all carriages - which would include cycles and escooters - not just motorised. The national limits may not apply to cyclists, but I can’t imagine many go faster than 30mph anyway. Although that said, I did get undertaken by a cyclist downhill on CP Road when I was going just a tad under 30 and he much faster than the cars. But he was all kitted out for racing and was seemingly oblivious to all else. I think I’d call it furious cycling

No, it’s called the rule of law, Chris.

Hi Andy, nice to meet you, my name’s not Chris.

I didn’t see that what I said was “whiny”, I’m sorry you read it that way. My intention in sharing so honestly was to raise questions and encourage critical thought as I find it strange that we just accept laws imposed on us arbitrarily from above as being “right”. I’ve accepted the consequences of being “caught” on camera driving at 26mph, fair dos. But do I think I was posing a danger to anyone else? No.

I am not interested in debating speed limits or how safe you think your driving is.

I agree with you that the world’s gone mad. That we are just accepting of this state creep is pretty alarming. Snitching on someone for driving at 26mph might not concern you (boy, you might even enjoy it) but will you be so accepting of state sanctioned snooping when someone grasses you up for sneaking that extra slice of cheesecake when rations are introduced? You jest about Hungary, but the way things are going it’s not beyond the realms of possibility. Be careful what you wish for.

My mistake.

And herein lies the problem

It’s also been used quite effectively if malignly by individuals against individuals.

Hi not Chris, welcome to the forum! (sorry, hashtag dad-jokes)

I’m sorry to hear you got caught speeding, the best way to avoid this is to keep the speed under the posted limit. Remember it’s a limit, not a target.

But that’s how democracy works. Admittedly it’s tricky to find a party who advocates raising speed limits in town, or even advocating for controlling speeding cyclists (as mentioned further up the thread - there was a recent government petition about this that was thrown out.)

I would consider it a bonus, cars and all things related to cars are really quite dull. I have no interest really in talking about how good or not individual drivers may be. The speed limit is there for all drivers - boy racers, novices and 50 year old advanced driving practitioners.

Equally I am not about to go around monitoring speeding - I pay my taxes for police and speed cameras to do that.

All this on the day that the PM is fined for having a party in his garden - but only because his next door neighbour was taking photos.

And his next door neighbour is?..

I really am not “Chris”. And I’m really not against speed limits. The introduction of 20mph limits brought my speed down by 10mph, and I’m good with that. I’m just saying there are always nuances. It’s actually extremely difficult to keep to 20mph (or less) when the roads are completely empty. And it’s absurd to say it posed a danger to anyone. As someone said above, the attention required to keep an eye on the speedometer to maintain an artificially- and unnecessarily (given the circumstances)- low speed is far more dangerous than driving at a natural speed with both eyes fully on the road.

Hang on, so Mary’s just confessed to driving at just “a tad under 30mph” - are we all going to be reporting her?

Which is a really great example of what I’m talking about. Do you think if they really believed that having a garden party posed a risk, was such a dangerous thing to do that it merited a ban, they would have been hosting and attending them?

If they don’t think it is dangerous then they should not impose the restrictions and handing out fines to other people. The issue is not people expecting enforcement, but setting laws that some people may not agree with (including the PM, his ethics officer, and all his staff). Once the laws have been set we should complain about enforcement by police officers or law-abiding members of the public.

But the truth is that the roads are packed with drivers going above the speed limits when they think they can get away with it.

I’m afraid I don’t understand your reply

Well I was in a 30mph zone, so I blooming well hope not

Fair enough!

Although I would say that leads us back to the question why, if driving at 30mph is inherently unsafe, do some roads have 30mph limits, some 20mph, some 50mph etc? The answer must be that driving at 30mph is not inherently unsafe.

If you think really hard you might find the answer to your own question.

Which post are you responding to?

Rishi Sunak (remainder of content removed at request of admin).

Just FYI I just got back from court having submitted a 20 second video of a dangerous overtake, front and rear cam, 40 seconds total. I’d also heard the +/-1min thing, but they never asked for more than what I submitted.

Interestingly I mentioned that I also had a GPS recording of my speed and was able to show that I was doing between 19 - 20.4mph and therefore the bus was clearly speeding by overtaking me. Incidentally this happened right outside FH Pools, down the hill around the left hander - imagine coming face to face with a speeding 185. He had to jam on the brakes to avoid a head on collision. Long story short, they admitted my Strava recording as evidence of speeding too. They’re getting more tech savvy.

By the way I wasn’t running my camera with the intent of catching anyone, more like a dash cam in case of an accident or someone threatening my safety. This person publicly pulled their own stunt.

Snitch

Glad to hear there was no accident on this occasion.

It is step 5 in the report a Road Traffic Incident web submission form so I presume the best option is to say Yes even if is not within the official timeframe.

I think there was a fatal collision a few years back with overtaking a bit further up towards Sydenham Girls on Dartmouth Road not to mention the recent concrete balls being dislodged and a wall broken from another incident.

I don’t like the right turn into Thorpewood from Dartmouth Road on a bike if you have to stop, always feel you could be unlucky with a car flying round the bend or just not paying attention. It always feel safer when there is more traffic and you can use them as buffer. One of the issues with the smooth bit of Dartmouth Road and 20mph zones is that 86% of drivers ignore them with a much higher rate of compliance if there are speed bumps. People generally self-govern their speed well without bumps when there is traffic but come the evening and traffic reduces, speeds go up.

I think everybody has got the right to protect themselves so well done for having the evidence and following it through.

Yup. If someone’s going to threaten me with a 20 ton bus then I think it’s justified. Not only that, but think of the safety of the passengers too, let alone pedestrians or oncoming motorists. Actions have consequences. That’s why we have law, that’s why the police encourage reporting - to improve road safety for everyone…

I wouldn’t alert store staff in the shoplifting example. Not because I am blase about theft but because I think it would be a waste of time. This is because when I worked for sainsburys, we were not allowed to use the word of another shopper as evidence that a shopper was potentially shoplifting. To be able to take forward an allegation of shoplifting, a member of staff or a store guard had to see the person conceal the item, then have eyes on them all the way out of the store, so it was clear that they had taken the item, still had it with them, had bypassed the tills and it was clear they were not intending to pay.

But in the other two examples yes I would act, if I were able to be sure that what o was seeing was a potential crime. Although actually thinking about it, I doubt the police would turn out for the burglary so maybe just the conspiracy example!

Wait , there are cyclists capable of doing 30 mph?

(Crawls away into corner feeling embarrassed about ever having called herself a cyclist!)

This topic is now in slow mode in the hope the discussion can continue thoughtfully and closer to the original topic.

Two posts were split to a new topic: Posts in speeding (#site-feedback)

What was a 185 doing outside FH Pools in the first place? It must either have been diverted away from its normal route or was lost!

Definitely a 185. No idea if he was lost or on diversion. 27th July last year.

Screenshot 2022-04-13 at 12.14.131436×754 111 KB

He got alongside me trying to overtake, nowhere to go because there’s a car in front of me, had to then do an emergency stop because of the oncoming traffic.

Screenshot 2022-04-13 at 12.20.041920×1314 242 KB

It’s a wide angle camera but you can see I’m maybe in a 4-5 ft gap between the bus and the kerb so 2 1/2 ft each side of the bike. Absolute minimum should be 4.5 ft and that’s not even taking into account that he’s speeding to overtake on the outside of a left hand turn pulling into a busy shopping street with pedestrians crossing to get to the pools, and oncoming traffic. Not a good look for a professional driver.

Well he probably isn’t now.

I imagine he’s not going to resign as he doesn’t think he’s done anything wrong. I guess it’s up to Arriva if they want to vote him out of the driving seat.

He’s taken full responsibility and now he’s getting on with the job of taking us all for a ride.

What did the court decide?

Well… I didn’t have time to stay to the end… I was told to call Witness Services to enquire about the verdict. They told me to call Victim Support. And they told me I had to ask the Police. So I’ve emailed them, but given the holiday weekend it might take some time.

Not sure if there’s any way to look this up in the public record somehow?

Heres one solution to speeding.

20220416_1843461035×1701 423 KB

Megan smiling and waving at you would certainly stop you in your tracks

Also a ridiculous solution. My car is fitted with the auto speed notification software, but if I drive past a street sign that has limits between certain times it will pick the lowest, if I go past a side street with a speed sign facing my road it will drop, if I go between two lorries it will assume I’m in a residential area and drop.
It is fine because I am in control, but imagine if you are doing 70 and suddenly you lose power until you are doing 30

From the detail in the story it appears that the car won’t automatically reduce power:

“After lobbying from car manufacturers, the EU softened initial plans to make the more stringent ISA system, which cuts engine power once the speed limit has been reached, mandatory. Such a system, which can be overridden for a brief time by a driver pushing hard on the accelerator, has been shown to reduce road deaths by up to 20 per cent.”

Of course that is only slightly mitigating the issues caused by the changes. If I’m doing 70 and I’m briefly allowed to hit the accelerator when it thinks the limit is 30 it will eventually slow down to a crawl on the motorway

Do you assume that the system will read the speed limit sign incorrectly or are you suggesting that, if and where it exists, a 30 mph limit on motorways doesn’t need following?

If I understand it correctly, car manufacturers are now being giving the option to only implement an advisory system (which can be ignored by the driver). Let’s have a guess which one most of them will go for.

I am talking about the frequent occasions when the speed limiter is wrong. These situations are very common and a limiter would be dangerous.

You are correct the speed limiter can be advisory on the car manufacturers decision, but for European cars they will be compulsory. If the UK market cars are euro cars with the compulsory bit switched off there is an obvious gap that encourages EU drivers to use the same switch off. The EU won’t like that so they will be compulsory with no software disabling allowed OR you might not be allowed to drive your car into the EU

Besides, I’m not sure the point of an advisory speed indicator - I’ve got one - it’s called a speedo.

Of course in some ways this doesn’t worry me, my car doesn’t have the speed limiter and the next car I buy might well be self drive anyway (won’t be getting a new one for 3-4 years) and they will be limited

There’s an interesting line in the link you posted:

The new automatic detection software spots walkers, cyclists and vulnerable road users.

This implies the same camera tech that ‘reads’ the signs will also have some sort of collision avoidance software. That’s great news for everyone on the outside of the giant steel cages Seems to be already implemented in some high end cars, but hopefully this becomes mandatory too.

The best answer to speed awareness (aside from speedos) would be to simply have a chime that bings when you go over the speed limit for more than a few seconds, just like if you don’t put your seatbelt on. It doesn’t force you to wear one but it makes it very annoying if you don’t.

Meanwhile if you want to go fast, goto Silverstone, or goto Germany and get your Kraftwerk vibe on.

There seems to be a bit of a difference in how these devices are portrayed, favourable press has been calling them ISA or Intelligent Speed Assistance and the negative press Speed Limiters forgetting that there is a manual override. I think most of us just limit our speed due to years of seeing the unexpected appear and drive appropriately for road conditions often below the speed limit.

There is an existing use case where people invite black boxes into their cars to record their driving and that tends to be younger people who want insurance and can’t get it without paying £4-5k. Getting Black box insurance reduces their premiums by thousands and is a very good incentive to drive properly as you are getting paid to do so, if you don’t your premiums will go up.

I think it is likely that over time insurers will give a discount for having these ISAs/Speed Limiters switched on sending some data back encouraging usage. Let’s face it, they will consider a driver that doesn’t want the speed assistance a higher risk.

People’s attitudes change. Let’s face it seatbelt laws were seen originally as a restriction on our own freedom and it took 15 years between making it compulsory to fit them in cars to making it compulsory to wear them.

Agreed with all that but am very concerned with any software based system branded as intelligent. In almost all instances this is just a smart algorithm so best people are aware there is nothing intrinsically intelligent in that black box. If there was, you would have a devil of a time testing it.