Advice on speed please!

[stephen_5126639]

Hi, i have just returnd from my first ever trip with my wife it was a very enjoyable experience howevern one stretch of A road that had been resurfaced with loose chippins it had a speed restriction of 20mph with no overtaking this was a card sign put their by the contracters i was doing 25,then a 4x4 towing a large caravan overtook me doing about 50-60mph with chipins flying every where if that 4x4 had to brake it would have been all over the road or ditch,my quetion is! are these speed restrictions legal,steve

 

[sparkes]

If they are not a standard speed sign, ie round with red boader then they are just a suggestion

Steve

 

[stephen_5126639]

Hi steve, well thanks for your help here it was actually a sqare sign white withred border,

 

[Damian]

Stephen, the sign you refer to is adivisory only, it woul dhave no legal standing as such in a court of law as it is the wrong shape and wrong markings to be legally enforceable.

However, it is posted by the contractors to advise "sensible" people that a hazard exists, and they have done all they can reasonably be expected to do to prevent damage to cars etc using the stretch of road, such as broken windscreens or paint chips from flying surface material, and it saves them from numerous claims against them for such damage, it would be down to the damaged party to claim from the offending vehicle, if the reg number was taken at the time, and the driver could be traced.

 

[ProfJohnL]

Hello Stephen,

Damian is fundamentally correct about the legal standing of such a sign, but in recent years there have been a a few court cases where some incidents have occured where driver(s) have ignored advisory signes (e.g. Supermarket car park direction arrows). The court has upheld prosecutions where a driver has cleary ignored the advisory notice and that had contributed to the incident.

They may only have been a civil prosecution where the judgment is on the balance of probabilities as opposed to a criminal offence where it has to be proven beyond all reasonable doubt, but the principal could be transfered to moving traffic offences.

 

[whitetop]

Possibly a contravention of The Road Traffic Act 1988..."to drive without due care and attention or reasonable consideration for other persons using the road".

There doesn't have to be an accident for this section to apply. It's the same type of use where a driver drives through a puddle and soaks a pedestrian. No actual accident, but they would be driving without reasonable consideration.

David

 

[Terry_5129464]

Hi. This limit cannot enforced. However, if there were a police person about the the 4 x 4 driver could be charged with driving without due care and attention as the driver is being advised to drive at 20 due to the road conditions. There would not be any charge for speeding.

Terry

 

[rayc]

The reason the signs need to be put up is because road maintainance is done on the cheap. It relies on the motorist to bed the chippings in and obviously get rid of the surplus in the verge and in their tyres. The signs are also put up to prevent the contractor being sued by irate motorists with cracked windsceens, holed radiators and scratched body work. There have been instances of windscreen replacement companies sitting in lay byes just beyond the works and the contractor being aware there were major problems but taking no action.

The contractor may be quick to put the signs up but in my experience they can be there weeks later when there are minimal loose chippings about.

I note Stephen's post refers to 4x4 twice and towing vehicle once. I wonder if either of those two groups are more likely than other types of vehicle to cause the problem - I personally think van drivers are the worst at this type of thing - but I am prejudiced.

Stephen could be lucky that the sign was not mandatory as he has admitted breaking it by 25%. In the scheme being introduced in the road safety bill in the near future this is definetly prosecution territory, with more than the minimum