Flashing lights to show speed trap.

*Germanshepherdsmum

StoneofDestiny
Flashing gets them to slow down - job done.
No it's not. Job done would be getting a fine/points on their licence/losing their licence and maybe their livelihood. That might make them see sense, someone alerting them never will.*

I agree. I don’t flash for a speed trap because I want people who speed caught and deterred before they hurt someone.

It has always stayed with me that if you hit a pedestrian at 40 mph they are 90% likely to die, but if you hit them at 20 mph they are 90% likely to live.

I flash for hazards and put hazard warning lights on if there’s something ahead so those behind me are alerted, a habit we picked up in France.

When there is a speed trap in our area it is often reported on the local social media groups. It works in that drivers slow down in that area. I do wonder sometimes if there actually is one or it is just a local person calming the traffic.

I warn others why would you not. But I’m not a miserable bug ? lol

Last time I was flashed by an oncoming car I checked the speed limit signs and found that I was doing 38 mph in a signposted 40mph max. speed limited area.
A few weeks later I received a summons for speeding in a 30mph area.
I actually returned the 25 miles to where I’d been accused of speeding. Only to find that I’d remembered correctly and that I had been accused of doing 37mph in a 40mph signposted area.
I called in to a garage for a coffee and cake before starting off back home. Chatting to the girl serving I told her about my summons and she said she knew of a number of other drivers who’d received summonses. That it was due to the distance between the lamp posts on a short part of the road. That the law said there was a 30mph speed limit when the lamp posts were a shorter distance than normal between each other.
I pleaded not guilty but had to return to court to be found guilty. So for the first time in nearly 60 years of driving have points on my licence, have had to pay a £120 fine and an inappropriate and silly £50 towards of all things victim support, when I was the victim of driving past lamp posts closer together than average.
It must be 3yrs since that happed but it still makes me angry. Very Angry. Fuming at what I consider a complete travesty of speeding rules.

Direne3

*Esspee
Must say I haven't seen a speed trap in over 10 years and thought/hoped the police were using their resources to deal with crime.* When did speeding cease to be a crime?

Sadly, plenty of people don’t see it as a crime. Those who’ve had someone they love killed or maimed by a speeding driver tend to look at it differently.

People who drive slowly cab be a danger to other drivers as they try to overtake them. I’m not sure that drivers are aware that the speedometer on their care can be slightly inaccurate and on the slow side ie it shows you are driving at 30 mph when the actual speed is 27 mph. I became aware of this years ago when my speedometer differed from the speed shown on my sat nav.

It can be really frustrating driving behind someone driving at 28 mph for miles, especially if they also brake unnecessarily on bends and slow down even more. I realise that will make me unpopular with some people on here!

It was when my mother began driving slowly and not being aware of other cars trailing behind her that we became aware of the beginning of her dementia as her spatial awareness was affected.

I’m a flasher too! So many speed cameras near us and never a sign of a proper policeman. Much more profitable. Try very hard not to exceed speed limits but my husband was two miles over on a quiet Sunday morning in a tiny village by mistake and got another speeding ticket, so my sympathy with both police and husband has run out.

StoneofDestiny

Flashing gets them to slow down - job done.

No it's not. Job done would be getting a fine/points on their licence/losing their licence and maybe their livelihood. That might make them see sense, someone alerting them never will.

I don’t flash because it could distract people too much. If they are speeding then they should get caught - I did and it was a warning for me in the future. I haven’t done it since. Lesson learned.

I’m definitely a flasher, having been fined for being two mph over the limit. Certainly for any hazard in the road. Glad the hedgehog made it unscathed.

*Esspee
Must say I haven't seen a speed trap in over 10 years and thought/hoped the police were using their resources to deal with crime.* When did speeding cease to be a crime?

Flashing gets them to slow down - job done.

Trap. No. If you are travelling within the speed limit there isn’t a problem. Often areas are monitored because they have had incidents involving pedestrians and cars. I’d rather the police did this, regardless of people flashing their lights or not, than have someone I love injured or killed.

I would never flash my lights to warn traffic of a speed trap. They shouldn’t be speeding in the first place and deserve to get a fine if caught.

I flash to alert oncoming traffic of a need to slow down, be it flooding, wildlife in the road, speed traps etc. As for the self righteous on here, it is possible to miss changes of speed limits, for instance those on here in Bristol who are familiar with the road going in and out of Keynsham which has a change down to 30, yet the signs are always completely obscured by tree branches until you are alongside them. There will be other examples of that around the country which would be a nice little earner for the speed trap industry.

Flashing lights here mean there are ponies, cattle or sheep in the road. Sometimes big groups of pheasants. Recently someone flashed their lights at me and around the next corner were two peacocks being chased up the lane by a girl with a huge net!

I always keep within the speed limit...so far within the limit I'm called Captain Slow in our family.

I wouldn't flash for a police trap because it was being caught speeding that stopped me driving too fast. I did one of the police speeding courses which scared the bejesus out of me and made me realise the dangers of going too fast. I hope it would work for others who drive too fast and might save their life or the life of someone else.

I flash,A, to slow them down,B to warn drivers there are Deer crossing as we have lots of them where i live and C, if drivers haven`t put their headlights on.

I think one should always try to alert others to a danger ahead. A speed trap is not a danger but may turn out to be inconvenient and expensive to speeders, which they should be left to find out for themselves. Visgirl beware of finding you have flashed an unmarked police car!

OH flashed another car once because there were geese in the middle of the road. We had pulled up behind another car and the passenger got out to chase the geese who were attacking the tyres but the geese started to attack the passenger!

It is the responsible thing to do to flash your lights if there is a hazard ahead for other drivers not for speed traps.. which the OP mentioned.

Surely the point of me flashing a speeding oncoming motorist is to get them to slow down for everyone’s safety? I don’t only do it after passing a speed camera!

I flash!

I have always understood oncoming traffic flashing their lights meant a general "slow down". It could be for anything, Calistemon's herd of deer, an accident, flooding, etc.

Obviously the pious on here have a direct route to God and will have already been warned of these things.

Ps I wasn't exceeding the speed limit and wasn't going through a village.