50MPH Limit Scam spreading throughout the UK. We need to act!
 

Hi All :mchappy:

We live in the fairly laid back county of Oxfordshire and this Sunday, had our first run out for the year to Stratford on Avon, who for anyone that knows is a great and classy bikers meeting place. However, watch out if you park on the newly rebuilt waterfront, as apparantly they take pics of the bikes parked on there and then very kindly post you a parking ticket for £70! BarStewards or what?

Anyway, on our quite quick round trip of about sixty miles, we were all quite upset to see that Warwickshire Council has been busy over the winter and has implemented 50 MPH limits all over the county! These are on fine large dual carriageways and on most of the main A roads we went on.

Becoming more and more frustrated with the slow pace of the traffic flow and mulling over why they had made this pathetic decision, I suddenly had a Eureka moment! No I didn't run down the Fosse Way naked, I just suddenly realised why this has been done, as get this, now every vehicle, including Trucks, Vans, Buses, Volvos towing Caravans, Honda 90's etc, apart from restricted 50's, can now all be nicked by Greed Cameras, with average speed cameras being fazed in as soon as possible, according to reports in MCN.

This is terrible and it spoiled part of the day.

On my return, I looked on the web and came up with the fact that Warwickshire Council ignored Police advice, who were opposed to the lowering of the National Speed Limit and just went ahead and did it anyway.

How do we complain about this unfair Warwickshire decision and of the totally unreasonable proposed 220,000 miles of UK roads that will have a 50 MPH limit, enforced by thousands of average speed camers! This will be the end of biking for fun in the UK?

Protest? You bet, where do I sign?

Cheers

Chris

Write to your MP. Alternatively, emigrate (the only options if you really don't like a country).

S

I'm down at the other end of Oxfordshire and I've been seeing this creeping across the county for years.

One local road has been 60 since I've lived here but about 5yrs ago one short stretch started to break up. The council slapped a 30 limit on the whole 4 mile length with notices saying it's for your own safety and left it for 18 months until we got used to it. After the repairs were done the limit was put back up to ... 50! That 50 section has now been used as the start point to extend it bit by bit along the rest of the road.

Don't you see...
 

What is the common element in all road accidents? - speed.
They've got us...Their logic is irrefutable: to hit anything first you have to be moving....

As I understand it, when altering a speed limit councils are supposed to go through some sort of statutory consultation process, notify the Department of Transport or whatever it's called, and use an objective set of criteria based on accident figures etc. If Oxfordshite CC hasn't followed this, they would perhaps lay themselves open to some sort of judicial challenge?

Speed limits - how they are set : Directgov - Home and community

The reason behind all this is that the government wants constant yearly reductions in road casualties. The early stuff, like drink-driving and seatbelts, was a sort of 'low hanging fruit'. But as time has gone on, it has become harder and harder to find measures that have any sort of impact - we are now firmly into diminishing marginal returns territory. Hence all these measures such as busting people for eating sweets while they're driving, or the proposed 50 mph national speed limit, that cause a lot of harassment and inconvenience to motorists but probably don't make that much of a difference - apart from revenue to HM Treasury.

and there we have it!

:funmeterno:

I cut across the Peak District a few weeks ago, thinking it would be the nicest way of getting from Manchester to Leicester - same thing there, 50mph everywhere. No sign of cameras or cops, but then it was a weekday at the end of winter. Bet the vans will be out in force on sunny weekends...

My ex got caught speeding 3 times a few years ago, and for the 3rd was offered a theory-based retraining course instead of points. There were 10 of them on it, and when asked what the national speed limit was on single carriageway roads, only he and one other got it right - the rest thought it was 40mph!!!

Maybe teaching people how to drive from the start, including taking them on the motorway with an instructor rather than assuming a piece of paper makes you automatically capable of doing something you couldn't 10 minutes before, would be a better idea than slowing us all down!

Off to work on a road safety conference this week, they get cops & paramedics in to talk to teenagers and provide (rather graphic) details of why they should drive carefully, will be interesting to hear their opinions on the validity of reducing speed limits.

Laura

It's an industry. Think of all the people in casualty reduction partnerships, law enforcement, PR, local government and so forth doing their oh so important jobs, saving lives, keeping the paper mills open and stationary suppliers in business. If we start to admit that all cases of life so far discovered have been fatal they'll have nothing to do except turn the whole PR machine against anyone who says they are pointless.

As with most circumstances of this nature you'll struggle to find a pollitician who'll stand up and say enough is enough, it isn't worth thousands of man hours and tax payers pounds to reduce the number of injuries from 3000 to 2999. The safety clowns know their own jobs well enough to control the system and a massive UK disease is people who want laws to control other people.

Sorry guys; get used to it, it's going to get a lot worse before it gets better.

Anyone got a few million quid to start a political party that believes in small government and personal responsibility for the UK?

Andy

You start it and I'll join - as long as I can claim expenses!:rofl:

Good points, thanks S but moving isn't one of them, as I happen to like living in this country.

The point of this posting is to see if anyone agrees that lowering the national speed limit to 50 MPH from 60 MPH is a blatant scam and isn't for safety and accident reduction, but for increasing the number of vehicles that are able to break the over 50 MPH speed limit by millions hence it's purely for revenue collection.

I think with all the extra time needed to travel, there will be more accidents due to bored drivers doing even more texting, phoning, lap top watching and sat nav fiddlng, which is where the real dangers are, plus I have always believed that tailgating is the real cause of many unavoidable accidents and more training in this area would have much more effect on saving lives then speed reduction.

Chris

Speed limits always have their place but this will be the thin end of the wedge I'm sure.

I am lucky to live in that rural backwater called Lincolnshire and still have roads that as long as you think past the next corner and remember there could be a tractor or some mud then you can push on of you want and to be honest I feel the biggest problem on our roads is the lack of roadcraft so many drivers seem not to have. Accompany that with the total lack of manners and sense and a whole generation that has never had to drive through a full winter and it is a recipe for disaster.

Most of us on here probably started gaining our road skills at 16 with a moped of some sort and then progressed to 125's and 250's because we couldn't afford to buy a car and then when we did it was probably a beaten up old Escort, Mini or Marina and these cars teach you how to drive and if you wanted to drive them quickly you soon learnt car control or crashed. But we now have drivers that have a very new car as their first car with all it's bells and whistles of ABS, traction control and very grippy tyres and such a quiet cabin the speedo is the only way of assessing how fast your going so when it all goes wrong it happens very quickly with very little chance to save it.

There are also a huge number of 'Bikers' that seem to be on the roads later in life due to a surplus of income and with a lack of roadcraft as they have gone straight from a CB500 to the latest WSB machine and use a sports bike as a way to gain an adrenalin rush with total disregard to other road users.

OK, before you all jump down my throat here I realise that what I have said is a very sweeping statement and I am not really trying to tar everyone with the same brush. But I think it is high time that the education of new drivers / riders is reassessed rather than reducing the speed limit. As stated earlier, motorway driving should now be part of the test as should skid pan training and my own personal view here but I have always thought that it should be compulsory to log 12 months on two wheels before you can move onto 4 wheels.

No such luck, unfortunately :(. The fine people of this Sceptred Isle don't have the history of mass protestation that our French colleagues enjoy, and even if we did the Governmental Class wouldn't take any notice anyway :stormy:. Just get used to it, i suppose - but then 50 is a good cruising speed for most singles, and the juice goes further :thumbup1:.

Thats ok then. Good job I own a single. Most people don't - they drive cars that are hardly ticking over at 50mph and they welcome the reduction in accidents and additional safety that reducing the speed limit brings. Or at least that's what I'm told by the council's press releases in the local newspaper - the vast majority approve of these measures to improve road safety. If I don't I must therefore be in a small minority of little consequence and the police will soon make me see the error of my ways.

Recently signs have been appearing locally telling me that "twenty is plenty"
What sort of bike should I buy when the "vast majority" thinks that this is a sensible measure to improve road safety?

I too live in Lincolnshire and find that my biggest bugbear is drivers tootling along a decent length of A road at 45mph. Drivers, and riders, become frustrated at the lack of progress and attempt to overtake - problem is a lot of Lincolnshire roads follow old Roman roads so are straight but with amny dips and hidden hollows. It was suggested a year or so ago that speed accounts for only 15% of road accidents - the majority of the other 85% are cause by poor driving skills and poorly maintained roads.
Bringing a blanket 50mph limit is a cheap way of bringing the accident rate down by making vehicles travel slowler - false assumption? I think so.

Travelling at 50mph on a perfectly safe road is going to lead to greater frustration - people travel on roads to get to work, get home, shopping trips, days out and time is a very precious commodity. People will still overtake but will now be getting points on their licences as councils will not be prepared to put more police on the roads but will enforce this with series of average speed cameras.

Another way to shaft Mr and Mrs Public in the UK.

Reason 92938 to leave the U.K :thumbdown:

Now i don't generally go with the whole "Speed kills" mantra that the Preaching groups give out - i've blasted around Germany as a Squaddy on fast bikes and had a ball (off-the-clock on zx10's, what a rush!). But now all that's out of my system i simply enjoy pootling about enjoying the ride and not worrying too much about the Rozzers. 50 on an A-road suits me fine, no less mind... 40 around the central Balkans was just tooo slow. Must be getting old, eh :rofl:.

Guys, if you want to influence the government, kick them where it hurts. Buy pre 1972 Enfields converted to diesel. That way you pay no road tax and very little fuel tax. These bikes will be ideal for the road conditions they want to impose.. Their enthusiasm for it will decline exponentially with the loss of revenue.

A 10 hp diesel will happily cruise at 50mph or 60 at about 170 mpg. ( and if you use veg oil they wont even get the tax on that :))

If they were serious about improving road safety, they would invest in education and training, not limits, but that would cost money not generate it, so that won't happen, will it?

I am soooo glad that I left the UK.

There are things I miss, but the slow demise of personal freedoms for questionable reasons is not one of them. I can accept restrictions in society if I can see a genuine benefit to society, but in many cases I can't and I simply don't trust the government to do things because they are the right things to do: they always seem to have an ulterior motive.

It does not help that the British are far too apathetic when it comes to things of principle, IMO. If people in the UK can't see the immediate benefit to them, they don't bother. So anyone living outside the affected areas won't think "we're next", but rather "well, doesn't affect me..." And hey presto, before you know it its too late...

Clarkson's had a rant
 

Some time ago I saw that Clarkson (who lives in Chipping Norton) had a rant about the low limit on the A44 in his Times column, saying he fears that one day he'll come round a corner to find another car on his side of the road overtaking dangerously because the driver grew frustrated behind someone sticking to an inapproporiate limit. Natuarally the official resonse was to ignore his article and misrepresent what he said.

Not sure what to do about the imposition of such limits; I've written to my MP and his response was that he generally approves of motherhood and is quite partial to apple pie. I did see that the Libertarian Party are planning a big campaign in the next election (unless Brown invokes the Civil Contingencies Act and "postpones" it) so there may be hope there. Other than that, my daughter leaves school in 18 months and I will go travelling, so the time I spend in the UK will much reduce.

Oh No, I have something in common with Clarkson!
 

Hi Mark

Nice to hear that there is some support and Clarkson does make a good point about overtaking due to boredom and even worse driving due to being on the road longer.

My point to this thread is that I believe the Government are not doing this as a safety issue, as the Police and many others, some in the AA, RAC, ROSPA, IAM advise against it, but this is simply to broaden the net of motorists who can be caught and finded (cha ching!) as almost akk vehicles, bar restricted 50's, tractors, balers, milk floats, Royal Enfield diesels, unless they are on a 3 in 1 incline, are capable of hitting 55MPH.

This will lead to a new spate of heavy braking, that will cause serious collisions (as they are not called accidents anymore) and instead of having a momentary lapse and seeing a cop or speed camera and braking from say 68 MPH to around 64MPH you will have to brake from that or less to under 52 MPH.

But as long as those thoughtless penpushers fill the coffers, they won't worry about that!

Drink is the answer, I'm off to a real pub for a pint of Old Hooky!

Bye

Chris

Should I ever come round a corner and be hit by some pillock on my side of the road who had made a concious decision to put my life at risk because he or she was bored by being forced to travel at the speed limit, I would hope that they would at least, have their license taken away permanently. If you wish to kill or maim, do it to yourself, do not involve others. Please do not treat this as just another sanctimonious rant, I have been the victim of a driver who put his needs/pleasures before the welfare of others and believe me, it hurts. Ride safe.

:nono:

Would you not then prefer the law to be heavily against such selfish people? My own preference would be to remove a lot of the traffic laws and instead have draconian investigation rules and punishments. Instead of everyone having to do 50 all the time, make the 60 limit reccomended. Ride at 90 because the road is clear, no harm done. Ride at 60 in fog and get spotted by the police as dangerous or worse still hit something and the first thing that should happen is your driving license is suspended. No riding until it goes to court. If the police make the case this was dangerous you are banned for years, if not that's the end of it. Use the information on the road as a guide, not rigid and often inexplicable rules.

The idea that everyone will have to take time off work and so on for one stupid person will make everyone look at the skills they employ on the road. The I'm-doing-speed-limit-and-am-safe-even-though-i'm-paying-no-attention excuse should be removed.

Andy

Too many laws?
 

If I felt we could trust the police enough (BIG "IF") I would call for the abolition of all speed limits and other restrictions and their replacement with a catch all offence of "Driving in an inappropriate or unsafe manner" (think of it as the ultimate extension of the Dutch Drenth experiment where all roadsigns were removed so drivers had to think about their driving). This would catch anyone driving too fast for the conditions and anyone causing delays and frustration by driving too slowly or any other form of bad or dangerous driving. The problem is that it depends on the judgement of a police officer, and they have lost public confidence, so such a scheme couldn't work.

Such a soltuion would be interesting, but I don't think that the UK has instilled the same sense of civic duty that you might find in places like The Netherlands, Denmark, Germany etc...

However, I'd trust a policeman over a speed camera any day of the week in terms of subjectivity.

I've had a finger wagged in my face on one occasion. I could have been booked but I was not. I've attended the Bike Safe course and spoken to the Police at their stand at the London bike show. I think, barring a few tin-gods, they are pretty fair, and even handed...

The problem for the police is that government has tied their hands. They have ridiculous targets to meet so that the PM can look good at election time, whilst doing nothing to address the causes of the UK's problems, on the road or elsewhere, endless paperwork, keeping them from actually getting out there, etc.

I posted earlier about education being the solution. I stand by that, as well as adding better public transport to the pot.
Better transport = more financially viable option for the public + fewer drivers on the roads = few accidents

I never met a bad Uk traffic cop (the old style ones with the white covers on their hats). I've done bikesafe and talked with a few on business (I used to be in truck brakes) and they seemed genuinely sensible and quite happy to give more warnings than tickets. Of the two tickets I've had, one was well deserved (46 in a brand new 30 zone, enough to get banned but the white top cop knew it wasn't unsafe so wrote it up as 42) while the other was some pander car mounted clown who will by now have been replaced by a camera up a pole. I was doing 45 on a dual carriageway that was obviously designed as a 70 but had been dropped to 40.

IMHO, when you start a new policy you start a highway patrol too, it makes the system the same country wide. After a few weeks of lots of warnings and lectures and a few real clowns seriously banned, the public is going to trust the highway patrol even if you can't stand the heavy brigade looking for fights in your town centre on a Friday night, or your local CID who couldn't catch a bloke in stripes carrying a bag marked swag.

Andy

Also look at the clown clad quasimodo (Humpback suit brigade) who on sunny sundays come out and ride like loonies upseting everyone in every village and small town on these roads with extra loud pipes extra fast speed and glorious dramatic crashes injuring themselves and others before going back to the office /bank/ other suit - there you have the reason for the road safety lot to do what they are doing. Modern sunday bikers have knacked it for everyone. (along with the boy racers in there cars)

Hit the Nail
 

Right on the head. I once spoke to a police motorcyclist about Performance Bike's articles and comments. I said they displayed an irresponsible view that added to crazy riding. The copper said he'd spoken to some of the magazine's journalists and they had a razor edge to ride in publishing an acceptable magazine that would actually sell. Good point, but the adrenaline junkies are wrecking it for all others. I suggest four new race tracks for them to get them off the roads for us to use. Debate. Linzi.

Interestingly there is a free bike circuit outside Paris called circuit Carole, IIRR.

Having said that I think its a bit unjust to say that all Sunday riders are irresponsible lunatics. I used to ride Sportsbikes and we used to ride pretty quick, but our group was still safe, IMO. No accidents apart from a couple of lowsides, no convictions, either. It was a case of where is it safe to open up the throttle and where not. Needless to say it was not in built up areas or areas with heavy traffic.

To blame this situation on sportsbike riders I think is unrealistic and wishful thinking. Yes there are some cretins, but no more than there are cretins riding around on any bike type. Stupidity is not reserved for superbike riders and, acceleration aside, I think many people have misguided views of how fast sportsbike riders ride. After all, a Varadero or Vstrom 1000 will hit 130mph....

My point is that pointing the finger at the sportsbike riding community is not the answer nor the solution. If some bikers travel at ridiculous speeds how is dropping the limit from 60 to 50 going to change anything, especially if they are riding at over a ton as some suggest? Makes no sense to me...

On top of that, we all know that bikers are a very small proportion of the road using community and sports riders are only about 30% of that. You should also factor in the boy racers, the sunday Lotus Elise owners, the White Van drivers, the sales reps the BMW 5 series midlife crisis brigade, if we're going to generalise...

In fact, I think us blaming other road users helps vindicate the government's actions. We give them the perfect excuse to push for these limits...

Warthog, Point Taken and in many ways agreed with,
I know what I say is a very sweeping and general, I have also rode sportsbikes for over 30 years along with other machines however there is a very large and notable element of riders who stand out in there behavior sometimes travelling in large groups sometimes individuals but as I say often travelling at speed on race reps in race leathers etc they stand out a lot - many of these people dont ride bikes other than as a hobby often at sunny weekends and meet at Bike Cafes etc,The bikes are often no more than another trinket on these peoples Tick Box ! - they may be a minority but the impact they have is on the majority. It grieves me to see people constantly blaming the Police or some other authority without first looking inwards at why the problem exists in the first place. I feel as someone who has been riding bikes almost every day to work, for holidays and travelling and have done so for over 35 years to have my freedoms taken away because of these idiots and some of elements of the press who promote the actions is just too much. Bye the way many of these types wouldnt give lip service to anyone on a dirty or old or well used bike so really I dont include them in the framework of genuine people with a love of bikes whether sports /trail / chop or whatever. Bye the way I am getting older now so just becoming a bitter twisted misery.

I do see your point A' 950...

I've only been riding for 16 years, but even I have noticed the slow change in mentality, where once there was biking the fraternity (something I really enjoyed), now there is biking the elitist hobby where your bike is not a way of life, but more another status symbol.

This is a shame and a world apart from what I enjoy about biking, be it on my old TL1000S back in 2001 or my Ural 750 rig now: how the tides change!!!

Glad to see you get my meaning

Nice to see you have an Ural - just the job - smashing !!!!

I'll second that from personal experience. I found myself the other year stranded at the side of the road on my RE Bullet with a rear blow out and waiting for the lovely man in a big yellow van to come and take me home. I lost count of the number of Rossi wanna be's that went past without so much as a nod. The only guy to stop and see if all was OK was a on a very well used Guzzi.

But I feel we are digressing a little here, it does however seem that the general conscientious is that driver / rider education is the answer to the problem really. It is more important to have the skills to read the road and traffic conditions.

How many of us have shouted obscenities at cars driving in fog with no lights on, just because it isn't night? Or cars with rear fogs on in the rain? Seen nutters in 4x4's driving far too fast in the snow obviously suffering some sort of illusion that because it's a 4x4 they can but not realising it will still slide off the road at 20mph just as easily as a Fiesta?

As stated earlier it is the road craft that is lacking, far too many road users suffer from the delusion that just because they are sticking to the speed limit they are driving safely. They seem totally unable to assess when it is necessary to travel at 20mph in a 40mph limit. I loose my temper when I hear someone bitching about crashing their car on an icy road with the excuse of 'I was only doing 20' - obvious to anyone with any sense that going slower would have resulted in not crashing. And then my real favourite - 'It wasn't my fault, the road hadn't been gritted' It is an unfortunate extention of the nanny system that we find being imposed upon us, the general driving populus seem to constantly hide behind the excuse of it being someone elses fault ------- how can it be if they are the only bloody vehicle involved? But maybe it's just me and I've been very very lucky in 25 years of driving / riding not to have been involved in a 'single vehicle incident', caused an accident or been caught up in one.


I think I may also be with you A 950 on the getting older and becoming a bitter twisted misery.

All good points - but the fundamental question remains - why penalise everyone, for a few stupid people's mistakes?

Regardless of numerous 'safety' measures introduced, unfortunately, a certain percentage continue to be involved in fatal accidents... in the UK this is around 3000 per year - not a lot when you consider the millions of vehicles and journeys undertaken on our roads? (although I admit that is small consolation if an idiot happens to crash into you/someone you know of course).

However, from this we might deduce there are 3000 stupid (or to be kind, 'unlucky') individuals on the roads at anyone time, and those that do wipe themselves out are simply replaced by the lower ranks... Darwin was right you know.

As soon as the government acknowledges this fact the better, but of course they will never admit that a percentage of their electorate is stupid, so instead come up with new and more impressive ways to control the population at large.

Personally I'd like to burn a few sheep in Parliament Square (but we're not allowed to do that anymore of course, they made a law...) - but failing that, if we do see an increase in average speed cameras and inappropriately lowered limits, how about finding out the registration number of your local MP's car (that was provided by the government I should imagine) and clone that... as few hundred tickets should make them start to sit up and take notice?!

The sooner we get away from this obsessive reliance on machines and start to use real people to police the roads again, the better as far as I'm concerned.

xxx

And More
 

A couple more points. About 8 years ago a Sussex bike copper told me that here there were 5 things in common in one bike fatal crashes. Male, about 38 to 55 years old, sunny, Sunday, race replica bike. Secondly, once I was out on a flood plain, long, open left hand curve. Tail gating cars at 50mph. My low Guzzi Le Mans sounds epic so I checked behind-nothing, craned my neck to view ahead-nothing for half a mile. I drew out and hugged the right side of the very open bend to get a better view. Then after two cars I drew back in because I had just computed how far a Fireblade on full chat would go in five seconds and what speed it could easily do on this bend. No position overtaking would have given me a chance. That is one more situation I'll always back off from. I know that road is loved by fast bikers. Yes, yes, yes it is a minority but their closing speed is frightening and they are perfect material for media, the anti bike brigade and all campaigners against us--safety, fuel use, noise. I know it's a male need thing but I fear for my own liberty these days. Linzi.

Spot on.

We missed pedal cycles and horses in the inapropriate activity list though.

The next question is how do you get all the appropriate groups to work together? I'm a sales rep so I do drive thousands of miles a year and do need to keep up a decent average speed. I know plenty who are so unprofessional as to put an extra appointment over everyones safety. They'd view any campaign as a way to get one up on the guys who don't race. I used to drive trucks. I was a test driver so never had the pressure of meeting delivery windows or trying to get a 21st century milk tanker to a 16th century farm, but I know guys who do. Transport managers ignore everything except the bottom line, so the government easily control them. I've come from the adventure bike thing via litre sized BMW's to sidecars, so the bike community is familiar. Trying telling our clowns that doing the ton or riding three abreast at 40 is anti-social. All these groups have idiots who can't work together.

How do you get our idiots be it leather clad power rangers, Dentists with tassled leather jackets or Ewan and Charlie style Touratech adverts to talk to ten-appointments-a-day sales rep and the guy at the RHA who thinks they should standardise on 50 mph and 70 tonne two trailer mega rigs?

Until something like the AA from early last century exists we are stuffed.

Personally I'd go for passive resistance and an information campaign. Don't speed and the camera revenue will drop. The casualty rate will stay the same (or rise if we can get people to force the police to record the minor stuff they don't tell the insurance about). Trouble is, the population is too ill disiplined to stand the second and third wave of action from the government and the dirty tricks from the statistics office.

Personally, I think I'll enjoy my Diesel Enfield and will get a thrill from running in on chip fat and letting the excise man go :censored: himself.

Andy

Hitler reborn in the shape of ALL UK councils,

So they just lower the limit again until it goes back up? Isn't that what they're trying to do anyway?

xxx

Heard this on Radio 4 this morning:

Plans to cut traffic speed limits

Proposals to bring down speed limits in areas where there is a higher risk of accidents have been announced by the government's road safety minister.
Reductions from 30mph to 20mph in urban locations and 60mph to 50mph in the countryside are being considered.
Jim Fitzpatrick said the way people learn to drive and how they are tested is also set for major reform.
The plans are part of a new strategy to reduce road deaths in England and Wales by one-third by 2020.


More HERE

What I love is how governments always seem to suggest that their speed limiting measures have cut road deaths and injuries, when in the vast majority of cases it's because vehicles have got safer. Many fewer car drivers are killed or seirously injured because of all the airbags etc fitted, yet governments would have us believe it's because of all the speed limits they've instigated.

Simple thing to do is don't vote them back in, stand up for your rights, and take a leaf out of the French book when it comes to protesting. Why are there no wheel clamps in France? Because everyone took it upon themselves to carry a small tube of superglue and glue up the lock of EVERY wheel clamp they saw. Sure it was a pain if it was your car the clampers couldn't release, but it was more of a pain (and cost) for them to have to cut every car out. Result: People 1 - Wheel clamps 0.