Read my last paragraph again. I have clearly said that I accept it is not right how people drive huge amounts under the speed limit on a clear fast road. The driving test system is the one that encourages bad driving by drilling it into your head that you must go at the absolute maximum. No wonder there are so many accidents involving young drivers who push their cars too hard if this is what they are taught in their tests. I passed my test 3 years ago and I would not have lasted long on the roads if I had carried on driving the way I had to drive to pass my test. Luckily I had a fantastic ADI who taught me to drive properly as well as to pass my test. Once he had taught me as well as he could to drive properly and safely, he then taught me the skills I needed to pass my test, as the driving skills to pass your test are a whole lot different from the safe driving skills that you need and use on a daily basis. E.g. when I am driving, I won't pull out at a roundabout or junction if I'm not 100% sure it is safe. Normal, huh? But not on the test: they use the impatient approach where if you don't pull out quickly enough you are failed for hesitation/failure to make progress. In my previous post I was merely stating how the insurer would view it if there was an accident involving an impatient driver trying to overtake a slow driver. It would be 100% the impatient driver's fault if he has a head-on or something. NB I'm not condoning the unnecessarily slow driver, driving far too slowly can be just as dangerous as driving far too fast, I'm just saying it would not be their fault if someone behind him tried a stupid overtaking manoeuvre and failed. There is no place for dangerously stupidly slow driving, but at the same time there is equally no place on our roads for impatient driving, this is the one that causes most accidents. The driving test encourages people to rush and be impatient, and so is a direct cause for this increase in impatient driving and roadrage when someone doesn't move off from a red light within 0.1 seconds.

And if there was an accident under those circumstances, it would be 100% the fault of the impatient person doing a stupid manoeuvre. It is them that causes the accident, not the slow person. Yes the person in front should not be going unnecessarily slowly, but if people had more common sense they would just leave home earlier, then if they did meet a slow person or congestion they wouldn't need to speed or do any risky manoeuvres to get to their destination on time. I live in a very rural area in Devon with only one main road where you regularly come up behind tractors, slow tourists, grandads etc and cannot overtake for many miles. As such I have learnt the simple lesson of allowing extra time for a journey, then there is no stress. It's not rocket science. I do agree that people should not go hugely unnecessarily slowly and there should be some system of warning persistent offenders, but at the same time people should not feel under pressure to go at the absolute maximum possible legal speed.

I am completely with you on this, those who speed are obviously not put off by speed limits as they think they are above the law, we need more visible police presence on the roads to stop people speeding - and not just speeding in the legal sense i.e. going over the maximum posted speed limit, but also going at a blatantly inappropriately fast speed within the speed limit. Still, the only reason speed limits are there is because so many people don't understand how to drive at an appropriate speed on their own, so they need to be told how fast is safe. Also a major reason for inappropriate speed I believe is the driving test system. On the test, you are actively encouraged that if the road is 60, you must go at 60 - and even going at 55 can be classed as 'failing to make progress' and can result in being marked down or even failed. This is unacceptable and needs to be changed, this aspect is forcing young and new drivers to be impatient and to drive at the absolute maximum speed limit when there is no obligation to and it is not always safe to drive at the maximum legal limit. Yes they should certainly not pootle along at 40 on a perfectly safe, fast 60 road, but at the same time they should NOT be chastised if they are going at 1mph less than the max limit, which is what happened to me on my 1st test which I failed (my ADI said it was a stupid stance and encourages impatient driving, and I agree with this, but it was the only way to get through the test). Sorry to go off on a tangent, but I think this initial mentally of impatience and being in a rush that learners are forced to have in order to pass the test, is the first step into making millions of people bad drivers who go at inappropriate speeds because they believe they have to go at the maximum posted speed, and pull out ASAP at junctions, even when it is not safe to do so. Obviously in an ideal world there would be no speed limits as everyone would drive at a sensible speed for the road and conditions, but that is unrealistic and will never happen. Also bear in mind our 60mph speed limit on open roads is faster than most countries...for example in France & Germany and most European countries it's 90kph (56mph) and in Switzerland & Canada it's 80kph (50mph). In my opinion 60 is perfectly fine on most non-urban A-roads, we should be grateful it is still like this here and we have not followed the trend of other countries.

That is completely true, however I have seen someone successfully defend their failure to do this when challenged later (they reported the incident and left their details at a police station ASAP in complying with RTA Sect. 170). He argued that any passer-by could have taken a note off the windscreen and got access to his name and contact details, which could compromise his privacy and ease identity fraud.

Why are so many people so desperate to avoid or deny the fact that speeding can be dangerous and can kill? Speeding IS bad driving, so yes you're right, bad driving is always the cause but there are numerous types of bad driving, one of which is speeding. It's not only the outright denial of any danger related to speed that bugs and puzzles me, it's also the downright contempt that these people have for a sensible law. There may be many silly laws and rules out there but speed limits most certainly are not silly. Too many drivers are overconfident of their abilities and think they can safely drive at very high speeds when they have not been trained to. What's more, they are probably completely oblivious to the regular near-misses they have, as they are going so fast they won't even notice some things on the road. I just hope one day that speeding is given the same social stigma as drink driving, it fully deserves it. It might not be THE main cause in most accidents, but it is always a contributing factor, because the faster you are going at the time of impact, the worse the damage and injuries will be. And yes you can just as easily be using appropriately high speed even when you are not actually breaking the speed limit. The reason there are speed limits is because too many people don't know how to drive at an appropriate speed for the road. The people I am referring to are usually the ones who think they can drive at 100 on a motorway, mistakenly and naively thinking they are no risk to themselves and others.

I disagree that there should be a blanket reduction from 60 to 50, as 60 on most open roads is perfectly fine, and common sense can be used when the conditions are not suitable for going at the maximum limit (e.g. heavy rain, fog, or sharp corners etc.). I agree with mojo, they should introduce far harsher penalties if they really want to reduce speeding. Those who say "speed doesn't kill", well I think that's plain daft, if you are driving at 70mph and you hit a pedestrian, the speed most certainly will kill them. Everyone who says that is just trying to come up with a (poor) excuse for their lawless and overconfident driving. I am happy trundling along at 70 on the motorway and 60 on the large main road, perfectly fast enough for me.

Yes, if you know in what area he and his mother live, you can look on the electoral register. It is the parish clerk (in rural areas) or the clerk of the town/borough/city council (in urban areas) who keeps the electoral register at their home. You have the legal right to look at the electoral register: to do this you must contact the parish clerk and arrange to visit the clerk and look at it. You must look at it in the presence of the parish clerk and you are not under any circumstances allowed to borrow it/take it away with you, or make any photocopy of it, though you can make your own notes. All district councils should have a list of parish clerks and their contact details on their website. If they don't, you can contact the district council and they must tell you how to reach the relevant parish/town clerk.

There is no legislation actually saying you MUST give your details at the scene. These are recommendations but not law (although it is strongly recommended you do this as it will make your life a lot easier). (See Road Traffic Act 1988, Section 170, it gives an "either/or" option). However, if you do choose not to give your details at the scene, you MUST report it to the police (the "or"). There is actually no time frame given in the act for reporting it, but it is generally considered to be ASAP, and no more than 24-48 hours absolute maximum. It was the van driver who caused this so he should have been the one coming looking for you to inform you of what had happened. If he didn't, he must report it to the police and if he has not done that, he has then committed an offence. Re. not stopping, yes you must indeed stop, that is a legal requirement (same act, same section). But can anyone who is more knowledgeable explain how that works in a car park when the car is uninhabited and you don't know who/where the driver is? Is there any agreed unwritten rule on this, e.g. is there a reasonable time the person who caused the collision should spend going round looking for the owner of the car, or how long he should spend waiting at the scene for the owner to return? Obviously the perpetrator should report it and accept his guilt but at the same time it is not reasonable to expect him to wait at the scene for an eternity e.g. the driver of the other car may not be using his car again for a week or something. Re. leaving the scene: just from the van driver's perspective, can he defend this allegation if he is accused, arguing that he made every effort to locate the owner but was unable to do so and gave up after a certain reasonable amount of time? Not saying what he did was right, just how the other side may view it. This relates to my paragraph above asking what is seen as reasonable for an attempt to locate the owner of a parked car.

Once again, that's not what this group is for. It exists to challenge unfair and unacceptable treatment of consumers, not to lie down and let them win. Just look on the parking offences thread, how many people are led to believe by those tickets that they should give up and pay up when they should not have to, that is an example where the CAG really excells and encourages us to take a stand against these rogue companies and businesses. In my opinion the same stance should be taken here, not just to advise users to stop moaning and walk away. If a train conductor forcibly pushed you off the train despite you showing him a valid ticket, would you just accept it?

Really well said, couldn't agree more. To clarify my previous post, although I believe the speed limit could be raised to 80 on some stretches of motorways, I never go above 70 myself. I would only consider doing that if the legal speed limit was raised.

By inventing the allegation that my ID was fake, they had already decided they did not want to serve me. They knew both IDs were perfectly genuine but yes I should have realised by then that it was all an act and I would not be served. All this completely goes against what the CAG is here for: to protect consumers against unfair practice and treatment by businesses and to encourage them to stand up and exercise their rights rather than giving in and letting the businesses walk all over them. What you wrote just there is a complete contradiction and embarrassment to the CAG and its cause to be honest. It's just as bad as those PPC people who trawl the parking tickets section telling users to stop moaning and just pay up. I don't want to drink there. I am not Mystig Meg, how am I supposed to know before entering the pub what the owners/bouncers will be like?

I was going to do a long reply but Bookworm graciously had all of it covered and I echo those comments completely. One last thing: I did provide proof of age to their satisfaction - they knew it was genuine, they just deliberately pretended it wasn't so as to provide themselves with a fabricated excuse for throwing me out. As to a pub 'not being respectable if it needs to employ bouncers' (or something along those lines, as mentioned a few posts ago), this is unavoidable in many student towns because the vast majority of pubs in these towns have bouncers as a matter of formality, even those in the majority that have no reputation of 'trouble' whatsoever.

My sincere thanks to all those who understand! I for one am in the CAG because I also will stick up for myself whenever I am treated wrongly by an individual, business or company. I reckon any doubters would quickly change their "put up and shut up" opinion if they were treated in this way and then publicly slandered.

Don't worry, I'm not going to go in that one again! Especially not with a 'wanted' picture of me on their window!

Well if that's the case, and if I may be frank for a minute, I'm not sure why you're a member of the CAG. The CAG actively encourages people to exercise their rights and not to "put up and shut up" after being mistreated. I apologise for my bluntness but I can't understand how you can have this opinion yet be a regular member of this group whose aim is to give more voice to consumers and to stand up against companies which tread all over us.

Well I can't wait for the day I no longer get ID'd. I have looked young long enough, it is annoying and patronising.

I think the speed limit ought to be raised to 80 in many parts, but I think 90 is too much. And it should most certainly remain at 70 in busy bits round large cities, e.g. M25, M42, M60.

Can you prove that? It's pretty easy to find statistics that just favour your own opinion, regardless of whether they're true or not. E.g. I've seen one article saying speeding is the primary cause of 3% of accidents, and another article saying that figure is actually 26%, and then that copper saying it's 33%. Difficult to know which one (if any) is true in my opinion, unless you work as a traffic cop and attend to accidents on a daily basis and are in the position to work out rough proportions of causes etc.

I appreciate your viewpoint but can't you understand the reason why I "continued arguing"? So if you were asked to leave for a completely invented claim of fake ID for a reason, you would just do so and not challenge it? I am aware that any pub/restaurant/shop is allowed to refuse to serve and/or ask a customer to leave the premises. BUT doesn't there have to be a decent reason? Surely a supermarket etc. can't just refuse to serve you because "they don't feel like it"? Or can they? The staff at this pub (which is an independent pub, not a chain unfortunately) knew full well that there was absolutely nothing wrong with my ID, they just consciously fabricated a reason for kicking me out. I have since discussed my experience with several prominent local figures who are familiar with, and have informed me of, the landlord and his family's beliefs, and I am 99% sure my crime was being an Englishman in Wales. I love Wales and it is such a shame a small minority of prehistoric thugs like these put such a stain on this wonderful country and its rightfully proud people. The force the bouncer used was not reasonable, and I have just learnt he has been charged with assault. I am slim, 5 ft 8, in my early 20s. They were both well-built men, in their 30s or 40s, well over 6 ft, and they were pulling me out without difficulty, my resisting made no difference. Thank you for the advice about the picture, I shall follow it up. For as long as I see my picture in the window I will spread the word verbally that this is a pub run by racist bigots who employ violent thugs to deal with any dissent. I have already got an article in the free local paper so look forward to that going on thousands of doormats later this week. If they had a valid reason for ejecting me, fair enough. But to deliberately fabricate a makebelieve reason (and in doing so accusing the DVLA of issuing me with a fake licence) is a step too far and I will push for the severest punishment for all involved.

I was in a pub the other day. I asked for a pint, and knowing I look younger than I am, I had my driving licence ready to show the barwoman, and she duely asked for it. After 'examining' it for about 15 seconds and continuously looking from me to the licence and the photo/DOB on it, she tutted and said "that's not you mate, you'd better get out before we call the police." I have had this particular photo licence for the last three years and have never ever had a problem before with anyone identifying me from it. I calmly denied her allegation and asked to see the manager. She went and got the manager (her father) and he also looked at my licence and agreed with his employee that that was not me on the licence and I was trying to use fake ID and purchase alcohol underage. I got cross at this point and explained frustratedly to the manager that there was nothing fake about my driving licence, and it is perfectly obvious from the photo that it is me. Then I remembered that by chance I had my passport in my pocket as I had recently returned from a weekend abroad. I produced my passport and the manager said although he agreed the passport was genuine and had the same DOB, name etc., because I had tried to "fob them off with a fake driving licence", they would eject me from the premises. Before I could reply, the manager had beckoned two bouncers and they physically dragged me out of the busy pub, in full view of all the other customers. When I tried to resist, one of the bouncers kicked me on the back of the shin to make me bend on my knees then they continued to drag me. When I was on the street the same bouncer made a point of pushing me to the ground rather than just leaving me there. I went straight to the police station and reported the incident. They said they could probably charge the bouncer with assault but weren't sure they could do much about the bar staff if they genuinely thought it was fake ID (even though it isn't). To top it off, the staff even had the nerve to produce a photo of me taken from their CCTV and stick it up on the outside window of their pub saying I am barred from the pub. This is very humiliating and completely unfair. I would love to see the manager and barwoman fired, their premises closed down and them sent to rot in jail along with the bouncer though obviously things will never go that far in reality. My question is, is there anything I can do about the manager and barwoman for (in my mind) perfectly consciously (i) refusing to serve me even though I had ID and there was no reason to throw me out i.e. I was not behaving badly etc., (ii) embarrassing me and tarnishing my reputation by putting up this poster; and (iii) this is possibly "race"-related as the pub is in Wales and I am English, I have since learned that the manager and his family are well-known around the area for having known anti-English feelings (although it has never gone this far) and I suspect he and his daughter saw on my driving licence that I'm from England and decided to make my life difficult because of that, I really cannot see any other reason.

Yes you are right, that is the rule in theory but definitely not in practice. I would advise anyone NEVER EVER to take the risk of not swapping over details at the scene, even if you plan to go and report it at a police station within 24 hours. I was once involved in a minor non-fault prang in traffic, I explained to the 3rd party I was in a hurry to get to a hospital as I was carrying a very ill relative and that I would report it to a station and they should do the same. The 3rd party was very understanding and had no problem with this. I duly went to the station a few hours later to report it, all I got was a barrage of verbals from the officer, I couldn't even get a word in edgeways to explain that what I had done was not illegal as I was here reporting it to a police station as per section 170 of the RTA. I was charged without even being able to explain anything as I quite literally could not get a word in edgeways. Because I was young at the time, it made matters worse as they saw me as a typical young driver causing trouble (even though it was established later by the insurers that I was 100% blameless for the collision). So I was duly charged and sent to court. When the day came and the charges were read against me, the judge asked me what I had to say for myself. I explained calmly that I was indeed involved in a collision and did not swap details at the scene, but as per RTA Section 170, I reported the accident to a police station less than 24 hours (3 to be precise) after the incident. The judge then asked me why I didn't explain this at the time, because then there would have been no need whatsoever for a court case. I replied that I had been shouted down and quite literally had not been given the opportunity to explain myself at the time. The judge threw out the case and there were no doubt some red faces at the local nick. Conclusion: ALWAYS swap details at the scene, don't take the long route, it could cost you a lot of time and money and even a court appeareance. My apologies for the incorrect information about the insurance details, I realise now that is not true.

Road Traffic Act 1988, section 170: Duty of driver to stop, report accident and give information or documents (1) This section applies in a case where, owing to the presence of a motor vehicle on a road, an accident occurs by which— (a) personal injury is caused to a person other than the driver of that motor vehicle, or (b) damage is caused— (i) to a vehicle other than that motor vehicle or a trailer drawn by that motor vehicle (...) (2) The driver of the motor vehicle must stop and, if required to do so by any person having reasonable grounds for so requiring, give his name and address and also the name and address of the owner and the identification marks of the vehicle. (...) (4) A person who fails to comply with subsection (2) (...) is guilty of an offence. Section 171 says: 171 Duty of owner of motor vehicle to give information for verifying compliance with requirement of compulsory insurance or security (1) For the purpose of determining whether a motor vehicle was or was not being driven in contravention of section 143 of this Act on any occasion when the driver was required under section 165(1) or 170 of this Act to produce such a certificate of insurance or security, or other evidence, as is mentioned in section 165(2)(a) of this Act, the owner of the vehicle must give such information as he may be required, by or on behalf of a chief officer of police, to give. (2) A person who fails to comply with the requirement of subsection (1) above is guilty of an offence.

I'm not a car savvy person but I know a couple of good forums you are very likely to find some details specifically relating to your car. I own a Peugeot 306 too and have found this one very useful in the past: www.pug306.net. Also try forum.rac.co.uk, and go to the technical questions bit, there are plenty of extremely knowledgeable car people roaming those forums, just like there are plenty of extremely knowledgeable legal experts roaming this forum! --- Mods: sorry if my leading the OP to those exterior websites is not acceptable, feel free to remove this if that's the case. I am not in any way employed etc. by those companies and as you will see from my other posts, I am not someone who 'advertises' things like that, but I feel in this case the OP will definitely get an answer on especially the first forum, which will help her with this problem she has:)

At the very first instance, the van driver committed an offence by refusing to give you his details. At the scene of a collision, it is a legal requirement for the parties involved to inform each other of their personal details and insurance companies.

I would advise you to double-check with an technology expert regarding the hospital's story about the CCTV footage. Maybe what they're saying is completely true and there's nothing they can do about it, but it is also possible they just told you that to stick up for their doctor and avoid being involved in any legal action etc.