Speeding discretions to go?

[Cyclone]

Or driver drives to the standards required for their driving test and manages to maintain their speed to the limit of the road?

 

It really isn't hard to maintain your speed and not have to stare at the speedo. That's why 17 year old kids can pass their tests. Laziness and lapsing of driving skills and a lackadaisical attitude to driving are no excuse.

 

You don't fail your test by drifting over the limit by a small amount for a short length of time.

[unbeliever]

yeah, they accelerate and brake to maintain the speed, If you brake or dip the clutch the cruise turns off at least thats how it is on the alfa romeo

 

Surely an alfa would have a job getting up enough speed to break the limit before it broke down.

 

---------- Post added 04-08-2015 at 13:54 ----------

 

You don't fail your test by drifting over the limit by a small amount for a short length of time.

 

No, you don't.

Yet without speeding discretions, do that just 4 times over 3 years and you can lose the license.

[Cyclone]

Never had one myself. Always wanted it as a convenience for long drives.

What happens when you hit a downhill. Do they brake?

 

No they don't. I've got cruise on two cars, in the Golf a slight downhill can be enough to see it edge over the limit. Sometimes to the point where I actually apply the brake (thus cancelling the cruise control).

In the other car, with a 3.2l engine, the inertia of the engine is enough that it never goes over in any situation where using it is reasonable (ie it might go over on a very steep descent, but you wouldn't be using it on anything that steep).

 

---------- Post added 04-08-2015 at 13:58 ----------

 

Usually they back off the throttle, so on parts of the M1 you can creep above the speed limit.

 

It's really not all it's cracked up to be, it's not often you can use it for any length of time (without actually breaking the law by lane hogging)

 

Think about it, last time you were on the motorway:

 

Get up to speed, lorry pulls out, slow down, overtake when you can, get up to speed, cruise along for abit, moron in a van, slow down, overtake when you can, get up to speed, cruise along for abit, lorry pulls out, slow down, overtake when you can, get up to speed, cruise along for abit, moron in a van, slow down, overtake when you can, cruise along for abit.

 

etc etc etc etc

 

You realise that there are 3 lanes on the motorway?

 

If it's not rush hour traffic you should be able to use it by simply looking further ahead and behind.

I used it most of the way to York and back on Sunday, and the traffic was actually pretty busy.

[unbeliever]

Anybody driven a car with a programmable speed limiter?

Might be more useful for this.

Just turn a knob to the speed limit and then drive normally. If you hit the limit, then the limiter kicks in, otherwise it leaves you alone.

You'd have to be mindful of it for overtaking, but still....

I think lorries have it.

[Eater Sundae]

No they don't. I've got cruise on two cars, in the Golf a slight downhill can be enough to see it edge over the limit. Sometimes to the point where I actually apply the brake (thus cancelling the cruise control).

In the other car, with a 3.2l engine, the inertia of the engine is enough that it never goes over in any situation where using it is reasonable (ie it might go over on a very steep descent, but you wouldn't be using it on anything that steep).

 

---------- Post added 04-08-2015 at 13:58 ----------

 

 

You realise that there are 3 lanes on the motorway?

 

If it's not rush hour traffic you should be able to use it by simply looking further ahead and behind.

I used it most of the way to York and back on Sunday, and the traffic was actually pretty busy.

 

I agree that there is plenty of opportunity to use cruise control on UK motorways, and on plenty of other roads for that matter. They are particularly useful in reduced speed areas as well.

[tinfoilhat]

It's not a bad idea, but they need to produce much better signage. I've been driving around the UK and found myself on roads you'd think are a 30 but are actually a 40 etc etc. You only had an idea when you finally saw a sign or when the locals sped past you en masse.

[psynuk]

Driver see's camera

Driver panics

Driver stares intently at speedo while slamming on brakes.

Car squirrels all over the road as driver isn't looking out the windscreen

Car hit pedestrian/road furniture/oncoming traffic

 

you make it sound like its hard to do these things, Clarkson was right

'you could drive a car in a sleeping bag'

 

It's really quite easy to tell when your speeding up or slowing down, it only takes fractions of a second to check your speed so why would you need to slam the brakes on? If you were paying any attention to the road you'd know that the camera was coming, you'd know the speed limit, you'd know the speed you were doing.

It's gonna require a huge amount of speed to make a car 'squrrell all over the road' shedding 40+mph quickly, in the wet, in an elise, on a bend.....

in a sleeping bag.

Edited August 4, 2015 by psynuk

[Cyclone]

40 limits always have repeater signs (or they aren't legally 40 limits).

The only roads without repeater signs would be NSL and 30 limit roads I think.

[L00b]

Anybody driven a car with a programmable speed limiter?

Might be more useful for this.

Just turn a knob to the speed limit and then drive normally. If you hit the limit, then the limiter kicks in, otherwise it leaves you alone.

You'd have to be mindful of it for overtaking, but still....

I think lorries have it.

As I said, most modern cars with a cruise control system have this as a secondary feature of the cc system.

 

My older Merc (2007, C class) certainly has it (just push the stalk in to set the top limit) and I'm pretty sure I read in the Mini manual (yes, I do RTFM!) that it's in there as well.

 

I'd never use it myself. It's a feature that hinders performance by 'default' (it won't let you speed up past the limit until you cancel it) rather than by 'choice' (you have to manually engage the feature -e.g. cruise control- and it can be overriden (accelerate temporarily past the cruising speed, e.g. for an overtake) and deselects automatically on a next brake/clutch operation). If you get my meaning. All such features are dangerous IMHO (particularly limp mode or, as suffered with a Volvo V50, complete engine switch off in the middle of 50 mph traffic !)

[psynuk]

The signage is quite often a bit sketchy, but that's only because imo there's so much signage that it's absence is seemingly more pronounced.