d215yq
Senior Member
- Joined
- Mar 28, 2008
- Messages
- 2,664
- Reaction score
- 702
- Age
- 40
- Location
- Valencia, Spain
- Your Mercedes
- 1987 W124 300D 280k miles
What used to be a pleasurable experience and nice part of my trips to the UK is now pretty stressful with the low speed limits and endless hidden speed cameras...I got flashed twice on my way back; once doing 78km/h in a 70 zone (20m before it became an 80 zone so I was speeding up) and another doing 55ish in a 50km/h zone at night. Following cars and trucks who all seem to do 85-95km/h on the roads they are constantly braking whenever they see any road furniture thinking it might be a speed camera. It doesn't help that there seem to be about 5 different types of speed camera and none of them are brightly coloured or warned about (apart from generic signs saying "speed cameras for the next 100km").
And I am someone who drives an old car which is noisier than most new ones at speed, is generally anti speeding and "pressing on" on country roads (which is usually code for driving on the edge and risking anyone else's life when it goes wrong). So how do all the keener drivers with big new mercs cope with doing 80km/h 50mph on straight empty roads for miles? I think if I lived in France the best solution would be to buy a 30 year old Mini or something so that 80km/h actually felt like a reasonable speed! Though even then my French mate has 6 points on his licence and he drives an ancient 1.9td VW t4 van which has a 0-60 time of 22seconds!
I suppose I'm lucky in that I have a Spanish registered car so don't have to pay, though apparently not paying can lead to problems if stopped in France in the same car in the future...a risk I'm prepared to take though would rather not have to do. I can see why the French are out protesting so much!
It's rather different in Spain where the cameras are warned, focussed on accident black spots and bright yellow so everyone slows down and the cameras serve their purpose.
And I am someone who drives an old car which is noisier than most new ones at speed, is generally anti speeding and "pressing on" on country roads (which is usually code for driving on the edge and risking anyone else's life when it goes wrong). So how do all the keener drivers with big new mercs cope with doing 80km/h 50mph on straight empty roads for miles? I think if I lived in France the best solution would be to buy a 30 year old Mini or something so that 80km/h actually felt like a reasonable speed! Though even then my French mate has 6 points on his licence and he drives an ancient 1.9td VW t4 van which has a 0-60 time of 22seconds!
I suppose I'm lucky in that I have a Spanish registered car so don't have to pay, though apparently not paying can lead to problems if stopped in France in the same car in the future...a risk I'm prepared to take though would rather not have to do. I can see why the French are out protesting so much!
It's rather different in Spain where the cameras are warned, focussed on accident black spots and bright yellow so everyone slows down and the cameras serve their purpose.