Speeding Fines - just a heads up

[PLD]

Dunno how you're calibrating those numbers

comparing with an independent calibrated electronic system

while another's Golf is doing nearly 75 when it says 70 on the speedometer

it's illegal for any speedo to underread. So you can be doing 70 with an indicated 75, but not the other way around.

He reckons it's VW's dodgy software, like the emissions fixing, but I think it's because he's fitted larger wheels than it originally came with (so more distance is actually covered per revolution of the wheels). Yes I agree it is dodgy and he really should get the speedo re-set...

[austinbob]

You're obviously a bairn, too young to remember when there were NO speed limits except where there were street lights less than 200 yards apart?
One could drive at 120mph in a car that would take half a mile to stop, yet in over 3 million miles I've probably seen two or three bad accidents.
And I see lots of drivers gaze avidly at their speedos; or maybe they are txtng?

Its a long time since I've been called a bairn oscar - quite flattering really.
Yes I remember those days when there were virtually no speed limits but there was a lot less traffic around and few cars could attain the excessive speeds they can today.

Just to make the point about less traffic, heres a photo of me travelling in a car on the M1 motorway in 1964, midle of the day in a mates car, shortly after it opened. Virtually no traffic.... Modern day motorway travel on some motorways - you'd be lucky to reach the speed limit anyway!!

[Bealman]

Cool pic..... love the old lorries! 

[woodbury22uk]

Some people have a funny attitude to being caught speeding. There was an exchange of correspondence in our local newspaper started by a regular visitor to the town who had been caught on camera doing 40mph in a 30mph limit. He admitted that he had not seen the speed camera van. He claimed to have been using the road for 20 years and was unaware that the speed limit was 30 mph. There are only two ways on to the stretch of road and both have had prominent 30mph signs for the whole of that 20 years. But at one entry the single sign there is on the nearside on the inside of a slip road bend set back from the kerb and could be missed by occasional inattention. Maybe not 20 years of inattention. At one time there was also a sign on the outside of the slip road bend, but they stopped replacing it as it was regularly knocked down by people taking the slip road too fast! Doh!

[GrahamB]

There was one of those flashing speed limit signs that flashed if you exceeded the speed limit in Tonbridge. The problem was that it flashed 40 - the speed limit was 30!

The council also replaced a reminder speed limit sign near Tenterden. It displayed 40, the speed limit had been reduced to 30 some years ago.

[Bealman]

We have signs here that flash your speed, especially in school zones. Does make you slow down.

[njee20]

He reckons it's VW's dodgy software, like the emissions fixing, but I think it's because he's fitted larger wheels than it originally came with (so more distance is actually covered per revolution of the wheels). Yes I agree it is dodgy and he really should get the speedo re-set...

He's wrong, if nothing else why on Earth would VW want their speedos to underread? it's illegal in the EU and utterly pointless.

Larger wheels is plausible if he's gone from 15" to 19"!

OT, reading a bit more about this it's not quite as much of a change as it appears. The actual limits aren't changing, and the words "up to" are used, so one presumes a modicum of 'discretion' however opaque that logic may be.

[NinOz]

Larger wheels is plausible if he's gone from 15" to 19"!

For a change of 4" in diameter would give a 26% error.  Speedo would indicate 70 but he would be doing 88.
For 75 to be read as 70 (7% increase), he would need to change from 15" to 16" rims assuming rolling tyre profile remains about the same.  Could of course keep rims and buy a tyre with a thicker rubber profile, say go from 205/60R15 to a 205/70R15.

[njee20]

Larger wheels is plausible if he's gone from 15" to 19"!

For a change of 4" in diameter would give a 26% error.  Speedo would indicate 70 but he would be doing 88.

Yes, if he's fitted monster truck suspension at the same time to fit the same section tyres on 19s in! They're 235/35/19 on a Golf, or 195/65/15, which is a circumferential difference of 1.5" from 78.5" to 80". Considering his speedo overreads by more than 10% that still doesn't account for it. Unless he's done something very odd.

[Bealman]

Is this thread about speed limits, or tyre sizes? 

[njee20]

Like so many threads it has wandered slightly, and now relates to potential issues sticking to speed limits as a result of changing tyres. This slight meandering isn't actually a problem to virtually everyone. By all means close it though.

[Newportnobby]

It seems to have run its course so it's