Police officers gave Stephanie Cole, 58, a ticket for driving too slow on an English motorway (highway for us Yanks). How slow? Try 10 mph!
When police caught her there was a sign on her car which read: "I don't do fast. If I'm too slow for you DON'T hoot just overtake!" [...]
She had been travelling from her home to a Staples stationery store when she was arrested by police on 30 August.
"I really didn't want to go on the motorway, but I desperately had to go to Staples for an ink cartridge," she said.
"I don't know any other way to get to it so I went that way," she added.
When officers stopped Mrs Cole, she told them she had "no confidence" on the motorway.
Because there isn't a minimum speed, the cop gave her a ticket for "driving without reasonable consideration." Link
The reason she was ordered to take her test again is simple - it's the option which is available and least likely to cause the law to be regarded as an ass. Magistrates can't remove licences permanently, but they could impose a long ban (which would have had lots of people up in arms about her being a poor old dear) or nothing, which would have been too lenient. This way he's passed the buck to the examiner and kicked the problem into touch. If she's safe enough to pass a test she can drive, if she isn't she can't.
Oh, and of course, many test centres are near 70mph dual carriageways, which are often indistinguishable from motorways apart from the colour of the road signs. Driving tests often use such roads.
You can qualify it all you want that it applies only when the situation allows it. But invariably, some stupid jerk would still plow at that speed during bad weather and cause an accident.
I have thought for a long time that there should be a separate test for motorway driving.
For those who don't want to drive on a moor way they should be able to take a lower test and be restricted to low powered cars,say a low kilowattage output.
They should be required to display this status and benefit from much lower insurance premiums and road tax.
Say a sliding scale where the smaller and cheaper you got the more economical.
It would get a lot of people out of big cars that they didn't want or need, and keep the crazies off the motorway
Oh yeah that's the other bit,you'd have to pass a separate test to ALLOW you on the motorway.
Please remember that the speed limit in the UK is 70mph and that is routinely ignored and everyone drivees at about 88mph.
So if you pass the full test you get a red number plate say, and if you pass the runabout test you bet a blue one.
simple non?
In Texas (or at least North Texas), there is no minimum speed limit. However, I do believe one can get a ticket for reckless driving if going THAT slow.
A few years ago I was driving from a small unnamed town in North Texas (near the OK border) to Arlington which required me to take I35W through Fort Worth. At the time my car had a problem (don't remember now what it was) that would cause it to overheat and the engine shut down if I went over 55 mph (I got rid of it soon afterward since I couldn't afford to get it fixed). No one drives that slow through Fort Worth (unless an accident has the highway down to stop and go traffic). Although I stayed in the right lane, there were still people still people honking at me and flipping me off (not all Texans follow the state motto...lol). Of course, I drove through the really heavy traffic areas with my hazard lights on (so it was obvious something was wrong with my car) unless I had to switch lanes or make a turn.
I'm sure if I had gotten pulled over, the officer would have been understanding, but it was hell driving so far being forced to go so slow. If my car had been doing it before the trip I wouldn't have made it, but the problem only started halfway through. Oh well. I do kinda miss the car though...it was my first even though it was a piece of crap.