[ABD Logo]The Association of British Drivers
Local Issues — Leicestershire
This page encompasses the area covered by Leicestershire Police, including the county of Leicestershire itself, the City of Leicester unitary authority, and the county of Rutland.
 
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This well-positioned solar and wind-powered vehicle-activated-sign on the A447 just north of Stapleton, displays a speed camera warning symbol to drivers travelling too fast to be able to respond to unseen hazards. Just beyond the sign are entrances to a garden centre and a petrol station which are obscured by the sweeping left hand bend.
© ABD 2005

This vehicle activated sign is situated on the B4114 northbound carriageway just before the M1 overbridge in Narborough on the southern outskirts of Leicester. It warns drivers of both the 40mph speed limit and the presence of speed cameras. Talivans are often seen just after the M1 bridge on the northbound carriageway, and lurking under the bridge on the southbound carriageway, or just after the traffic lights where the 40 limit changes to 50.
© ABD 2005

A Leicestershire Talivan lurking on a bridge over the M69 enforcing a 40mph speed limit during roadworks in March 2005.
© ABD 2005
Leicestershire Police get top marks for their policy of Glasnost on accident data, but then go and spoil it all by doing things like this:

Leicestershire Talivan FD02 TBZ parked completely on the pavement outside the stadium on Saffron Lane in Leicester. The van is parked immediately before a junction and would completely obscure a drivers view of pedestrians crossing the junction. Whether parking on the pavement is illegal for police vehicles or not, parking such as this is certainly unsafe, unprofessional, and serves to undermine public respect for the police.
© Gary Smith 2004, reproduced by kind permission.
More photos on Gary's website: 'Er, Isn't That Illegal?'
2008-10-29
20mph fanaticism reaches Leicester
The green party are jumping up and down like fleas on a dog's back after getting approval for widespread 20mph limits across Leicester. Although we expect Labour councillors to support such fanaticism, the move was also supported by Tories, only Lib Dem councillors managed to keep a grip on reality.
The ABD supports the use of 20mph speed limits where they are necessary such as on narrow urban side streets with cars parked both sides of the road, but to impose them for the sake of it across wide areas is not about road safety, it is about anti-car politics.
2008-04-29
How Dear, How Sad, Never Mind
Plans for congestion chraging in Leicester may be dead in the water after Nottingham City Council threw out such plans. Leicester has always said it would not go ahead unless Nottingham and Derby do likewise as it would loose out to those cities, a clear admission that congestion charging is massively unpopular with the public and businesses.
2007-01-11
Congestion Charging Debate
ABD spokesman Mark McArthur-Christie appeared in a debate on road pricing by BBC East Midlands on Thursday 11th January 2007.
The debate was broadcast on BBC Radio Derby, Leicester, and Nottingham; with live video over the internet.
In a BBC website poll, 1315 of 1480 peple (89%) said they would not be prepared to pay anything per mile.
The programme also described a British Chambers of Commerce survey showing that amongst businesses: The 6 East Midlands councils involved said that they would not go ahead with road pricing unless it was done nationally, as to do so locally would disadvantage the area.
 
 
A5 Limits to Drop to Even Dafter Levels
The Highways Agency have published public notices announcing their intention to reduce the speed limit to 50mph or 40mph on the A5 along the 8 mile stretch between Witherley Island, Atherstone and the M69, despite much of this route being entirely rural in nature (Map).
 
A further reduction is planned between the M42 and Grendon (see Warwickshire).

2005-12
A6 Kegworth 40mph Signs Illegal
We had good news for drivers prosecuted for exceeding the '40mph limit' on the A6 near Kegworth in 2005 — there was no such limit and the prosecution was illegal. The signs that Leicestershire County Council had installed (a 40mph sign with a round yellow border) did not comply with legal signing requirements and so did not constitute a legal 40mph sign, therefore any prosecutions were also illegal.
Although these signs have now been replaced with legal ones, there are many other signs in Leicestershire that are still illegal. Bad enough that they got them wrong in the first place, totally unacceptable that they are not replacing them all immediately.
If you spot a speed limit sign with a yellow circle around it, please take a photo and send it to us with the location.
The traffic signing regulations state that any background to a speed limit sign must be rectangular.

Bureaucratic Stupidity Reaches New Depths
A man has been handed a speeding fine after he was caught doing 61mph in a 50mph zone whilst rushing his pregnant wife to hospital. The baby was born a few minutes after reaching hospital.
The road was undoubtedly 60mph until a few years ago anyway, but the pigheaded bureaucrats have refused to use any common sense whatsoever.
No doubt they'd have been happy if they couple had not made it to the hospital on time and the baby had died.
A case of 'Slow Down For Death'. Why not email the pratnership with your thoughts on this: info@speedorsafety.com
 
 
Glasnost comes ... and goes .. and comes back
Previously on this page we praised Leicestershire Constabulary for publishing on their website up-to-date fatal accident figures by month. This openness being in stark contrast to some police forces which refuse to release annual accident figures until the following Autumn. We said we would like to see all police forces publish such up-to-date information, and to improve it further by giving some details of the cause of each accident.
Then all the road safety information disappeared off their site without explanation. We're glad to say it's since re-appeared:
Source: 1993–2004 Road Casualties Great Britain;
2005–2008 Leicestershire Constabulary

 
One in 6 speed camera offenders untraceable
Between April 2002 and March 2003, Leicestershire's 111 fixed and mobile cameras caught 60,936 drivers breaking the limit (167 per day).
Only 50,816 tickets were issued because a staggering 10,120 incidents (1 in 6) involved emergency or untraceable vehicles. The people who get prosecuted are the law abiding ones going about their business, criminals with false plates get off scott free.
33,644 drivers opted to accept three points and a £60 fine rather than a court appearance — that's £2,018,640 in real money.
 
 
Are Roads Really Dangerous?
Government accident figures, show that between 1995 and 1997, an average of 39 people per year died in falls at home in Leicestershire.
Or to put it another way, our roads are less than twice as dangerous as our homes.
Source: Metra Martech
 
 
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