Re: 120 MPH?????

[Aleksander Mierzwa <alex@matrix.pl>]

At 11:48 99-03-04 GMT, Phil Payne wrote:

>"Speed kills" is the simplistic message.  Irrespective of where, when
>and local conditions, we are all to be held rigidly to arbitrary
>speed limits.  The victims are actually not the motorists, but the
>police - who are required to stand in front of sober and sensible
>members of the community at the roadside and tell them that 65mph
>on a dead straight road miles from the nearest town (or even turning)
>is irresponsible and almost a capital offence.

I've heard that UK has world's most competent cops and Phil's words confirm
that. I hate to say that in my country cops actually seem to love the
situation. Recent issue of the Polish edition of "Auto Bild" brings a
letter from p***ed off motorist who received his first ticket in 8 years.
Unmarked police car equipped with Trafipax (basically a video camera
coupled with calibrated speedometer) was tailgating him at very close
distance until he finally lost his nerves and sped up, breaking the speed
limit. When he pointed out to the cops that they were keeping unsafe
distance, their answer was "our car has excellent brakes with ABS". The
conclusion was that if even trained officers believe that having good
brakes is an excuse for tailgating people at 90kph, then no wonder we've
got one of the highest accident rates in Europe.

Aleksander Mierzwa
Warsaw, Poland
mailto:alex@matrix.pl
87 Audi 5000CS turbo (mine)
88 Renault Medallion wagon (mom's)
91 mountain bike (just in case both cars break at the same time :-)