Safe Speed Forums

More camera discrimination from the dreaded speed cameras.
Any one who owns a classic motor cycle or car that has the Speedo driven from the hub, beware when going by speed cameras due to as Hub
driven Speedo’s are not so accurate as the speed camera’s device.
Especially now that the mph reading can mean the difference between 2, 3, 6 points,
it can be hard to hold a steady Speedo reading when you have Speedo bounce.
Once more we see discrimination from these dreadful brain dead machines.
What do we do? Stop and push our vehicle by the damn camera.
Now that’s what I call real road safety (NOT)

The way things are going, sooner or later not even doing that is going to stop you from getting pinged.

Speedo accuracy is governed by law - JUST ONCE in the life of a vehicle - at time of manufacture.

After 3 years anything might have happened. After 30, I'd say all bets were off.

Wheel and tyre changes, final drive changes and dashboard changes can all have a dramatic effect, not to mention vehicle and component ageing.

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Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

If speedo accuracy is so important then speedos should be calibrated each year during the MOT. It's no good saying that they are going to lower the thresholds if the instruments aren't accurate enough. It's like insisting everything has to be weighed to the nearest gram and providing scales which are only accurate to the nearest 10! Is there anyone a normal punter can go and actually get their speedo checked? My old car had one that used to overread by 8 mph even at 30. I'm sure I enquired a few years ago and they only advice I got was to follow someone else at a preset speed!

I am so waiting for someone to say they ran over a child because they were so afraid of drifting over a speed limit and getting 3 points. It should of course be the child of one of those annoying Brake and their ilk type people just to make the irony just that bit sweeter

Am proud owner of a first edition Triumph Stag, and equally proud owner of a Moggie Saloon and Wildy has a racy lady convertible one!

We use the Road Angels to check speed on these cars to be sure. The discrepancies of old cars are staggering.

Stag has her original Speedo - 6 mph out across the speedo range - but at least she's constant. This car hates traffic jams - Triumphs appeared to have this tendency of overheating - and other relatives have Stags, Herald and Dollies which misbehave similarly! But the Speedos all seem to be 6-7 mph below what it says on the dash! Apart from the last edition Stag which reads higher! But that one lives in Germany! Phew!

The Moggies - speedos are not accurate at all. The saloon's speedo compared to the RA version is 5 mph above the Speed on reading at low speed and rises to as much as 10mph at high speeds (ie when the old gal's tootling along at 60 mph per the Speedo - she's really racing along at 70 mph! ) The racy soft top version is just a little more accurate ...

Not easy to find spares - but problem solved by using a useful gadget!

As for Krissi's Capri - (the car which really endeared her to our pals on certain other site ) - not accurate either! Phallic symbol indeed!

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The problem with this is, even doing this can make 2 - 3 mph difference.
Have your speedo calibrated on worn tyres & then change them & it's reading 2 - 3 mph lower than the actual reading.
HGV's have the tacho calibrated to very small tolerances & also have a limiter set to 56mph, but some vehicles still travel a few mph slower or faster than others. How ?, because you organise when your tyres are changed to best effect or because even small tolerances can make a difference.

Don't worry - the nanny state will find a way to make sure they can seem to control and regulate the uncontrollable (like the environment), probably by taxing us to raise the revenue required to set up measures to ensure we comply.

Could you elaborate on your parallel with the environment? The URL point to a report on the dire climate effects of air pollution.

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:? Did you read it? It's an ABD press release having a pop at yet another AGW industry event, which I wouldn't be at all surprised to find was publicly funded or partly so, and where theree will no doubt be copious scare stories generated and much back slapping among the [spits] great and good [/spits]. It also has a pop at the lack of publicity given to another recent event (sounded like "Apocalypse No") which was picking holes in the AGW dogma, and mentions the recent resignation of an IPCC scientist who seems fed up with the misrepresentation of the science.

How on earth did you get "a report on the dire climate effects of air pollution" from that?

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Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler - Einstein

I thought you had got an old banger....

BTW the MOT does not call for a working speedo.

There are still current production cars built with mechanical speedos.

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Speed camera policy Kills

I am trying to save the world, so I drive an old banger! It is far better for the environment to keep an old car on the road than to buy a new one. That is because the factory releases more carbon to make a new car than it ever releases while being driven.

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I stole this .sig

Sorry, I should have said that it was a report on a report on the dire climate effects of air pollution! I was trying to find out the general view on how serious we think air pollution is (or is not). You have answered my question, and now I think I'll add shares in welly boot and inflatable dingy manufacturers to my portfolio, because sales in southern England look set to rocket!

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I stole this .sig

Do you find the anthropogenic global warming theory convincing then?

I must say I'm finding it increasingly absurd and hysterical.

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Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

I think you're being far too kind there, Paul

It's a politically motivated bullshit-fest of scaring the bejaesus out of the public with over simplified nonsense about being able to control something hugely complex by concetrating our entire effort on twiddling with one fairly unimportant factor.

Oh hang on, was that speeding or global warming?

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Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler - Einstein

There are a few reasons why I would prefer not to be convinced. First, it's scary, second it's going to be expensive or impossible to deal with, third, it'll mean I'll have to live in a cave in the Rocky mountains during my retirement, and last, there may be other explanations for it.

There are also a few reasons why I would prefer to be convinced. The sooner we get started on it, the sooner we can lick this thing, and if we lick it, I won't have to live in a cave. Even if there are other explanations for some if it, it seems odd that the weather has changed so much, and I don't want to take a chance, for the sake of my little ones.

And other reasons. I had a good view of a steelworks blast furnace when I was growing up, and was that an awesome sight when it was opened up at night. My Dad worked over there and he mentioned in passing (this is in the 60's) that all that gas can't be good. And I trust my Dad (who was the chief chemist) a whole lot more than car men. Also, in September 1997, surprisingly I was Mission Operations Engineer on the first mission (Radarsat) to make a radar scan map all of Antarctica. A section of the report says:



And this is NASA talking, not me!

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This would be round the time when everyone was flapping about the imminent ice age. I guess this particular prediction would have been dismissed at the time as crank science that didn't fit the colling consensus But it was bound to be true of course. Where did they think the icebergs in the Southern Ocean were coming from? Since when do we need to launch spacecraft and satellites to confirm that floating ice melts in warmer water? Antarctic ice shelves have been disintegrating since mankind's favourite word was "ug" and the most popular form of entertainment was hitting each other with rocks. It's got nothing to do with AGW and everything to do with being an ice shelf affected by wave action in water above 1c. It'd be very strange if they didn't disintegrate, which makes predictions like the one you mention a bit like predicting that next years Gold Cup will be won by someone on a horse.

Being NASA doesn't remove the ability to talk out of their backsides. There's no reason to trust them any more than the car men (industry presumably). They both have their vested interests, so I'd say take nothing at face value and accept only that which makes sense regardless of where it comes from. If a mad axe murderer had beaten Newton to the laws of motion by a few years, unpleasant as he may be he'd still have been right on that particular point. For that matter Newton wasn't exactly the nicest fluffiest person ever, was he? Your dad may have been right about the steelworks, but heavy industry and cars aren't much of a comparison.

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Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler - Einstein

Have you tried having your speedo calibrated on a car. The only calibration service, i am aware of is carried out by VOSA, for SVA test's.



Tacho's on HGV's have short calibration every 2 years, full calibration every 6 years.

Calibration certifcates, are issued with the specific tyres that are fitted, as soon as the tyres are changed, the company that carried out the calbration, is no longer liable for the calibration.

Do not expect any vehicle new or old to be 100%

Digital speedometers are no better than cable driven.

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Steve

I am sure your dad is right on the things he said.
And I am in no doubt the world is in the poo
But when it comes to the moggie and the classic cars (motorcycles)
I doubt if you got rid of them it would not make the slightest difference
To “global warming”
Better to look towards china and the USA etc if you want to stop the ice caps melting.
Our government just uses global warming as an excuse to tax the motorist more.
As to NASA well I bet every time they put a spy satellite up I imagine it causes more pollution
Than 100.000.000 classic vehicles running for all there useable lives.
All I said is look out if you got a hub drive Speedo when going past a brain dead speed camera.

Given all this fuss about speedos, perhaps they should not be calibrated in kph, or mph, but like an example I have seen on the Internet, where notch should have a "description" of how fast you are going. For example:

0 mph - stopped
10 mph - slow
20 mph - bit slow
30 mph - quick-ish
40 mph - quick
50 mph - ooh!
60 mph - Scary
70 mph - Careful
80 mph - Hold on
90 mph - bite lip
100 mph - shut eyes

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I stole this .sig

Climate change, is a natural event

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Steve