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Emma Watson banned from driving for speeding
(www.bbc.com)
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this post was submitted on 17 Jul 2025
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Seems strict to me. but I'm not British.
30 is for built up areas. Also key is that jaywalking isn’t a thing in Britain. Pedestrians always have right of way and can cross the street at any point so in urban areas motorists must be prepared to stop at any time.
There’s also a 10% grace where prosecutions under that are unusal. But the chances of survival being hit at 38mph are significantly lower than at 30, or even 33.
The ban is for exceeding the penalty points on her licence. She had 9pts before this conviction, and speeding carries 6-8pts which has put her over the 12pt limit, which she accumulated over 3yrs so that’s a 6-month ban.
After 6 months she will need to take her driving test again and reapply for her licence.
Just as this this guy says
you dont get a ban for the first instance. This shows repeated offences. Lucky she has the money for a driver.
I have little patience for serial speeders. Gripe all you like, but speed limits save lives.
Particularly in populated areas, slow the fuck down. Too many people could get hurt, go speed somewhere the people aren't.
Oh yes you can, do 30mph over the speed limit and you will more than likely be banned for that one offence.
good.
you are clearly not competent enough to drive if you can't fucking read
Or if you’re too arrogant and self absorbed to think the rules don’t apply to you.
that too
I've been knocked down by a car doing 5mph. My head was embedded in the bonnet, bounced off it, and then I was on the road staring at the underside and tyre of a fortunately stopped car before my puny human brain could figure out what happened.
Being hit, even at 5mph, is not something you'd want, let alone 38.
My idiot sister racked up nine points in six months after moving to the UK. She claimed not to have seen the 40mph sign she blew past at 50. "They're so small!" She only started paying attention when she realised she was one ticket away from a ban.
To be fair, I struggled with the UK signs when I moved here from Sweden. Big yellow quite distinct, to smaller ones that pop less from the surroundings. Not an excuse as such, but I find it understandable.
If you don't know what the speed limit is then just go at 30. That's the slowest that any road will ever be unless it's a suburban housing but then it's pretty obvious.
The 40 signs are small but they're also repeated, you get it at the entrance of the 40 and then every couple of metres there's another 40 for the entire distance, so if you miss one you'll only be going at 30 for a while and then you'll see another and it'll tell you to go at 40.
I know!! Sometimes it's even painted on the road in huge numerals. I explained everything to her.
Pretty sure speeding in that range would net a fixed penalty of 3 points. Also, she would have had the first 3 points discounted via an awareness course. So, in effect this is likely the 5th offense, or less if one or more of the others was serious enough to get 6 points.
In America, we give medals for that kind of gumption, not punish it
/j (but only by the barest amount)
She already had nine points on her licence, so she's a repeat offender, hence the book getting thrown at her.
Conversely, this happened in Oxford, which is well known for being strict on drivers. She might have got away with it elsewhere.
I initially thought that. But the article makes it clear. But you need to know how our licenses work.
Normally for speeding (up to 42mph in a 30) you would get as a first offense the choice of paying for a speed awareness course OR 3 points + fine, and 43-49mph you would get a fixed penalty of 3 points and a fine. Subsequent offenses would go straight to points + fine.
However the points are important. Your points expire after 3 years. But if you have 12 active points at any time, you will then get a compulsory ban (unless you can prove to a court you need to drive, which is abused of course). Which is what likely happened here.
So, she's been quite the habitual offender.
How so? Its very clearly over the limit, its not like you can accidentally go around 30% over the limit. Plus don't cars usually over report their speed slightly?
The only surprise is that she was caught, so she probably does this all the time and this was just the time she was finally caught doing it.
When that 30% is 8mph, yes you can
Look at a speedometer. You see where 30 is? Now see where 40 is. Do you notice that the line for 40 is past the line for 30? If the needle is past the line for 30 you are diving too fast. There is no way you can do it unless you are not paying attention to your speed.
I was once pulled over for doing 50 in a 30 and I was just coasting down a long hill. I've also been pulled over for doing 35 in a 25mph zone (a classic Texas small town speed trap where the posted speed went from 65 to 55 to 25 in a very short distance with a cop posted at the 25 sign. You had to be on the brakes to make it.) Some cars are quite quick, foot on the gas pedal a moment too long and you've blown through 8mph. Some people spend more time with their eyes outside the car than on the dash. Hell a lot of you drive around with highbeams on and there's an indicator light for that too.
But also, "Watson already had nine points on her licence before the speeding incident occurred, the court heard."
You paint a picture of a fucking atrocious driver who should not be on the road.
I'm glad my two anecdotes of 25-ish years of driving have given you a complete picture.
That's because Americans learn to drive at like 16 and then as long as they don't literally run over the instructor they pass.
Yes, a lot of people are bad at driving
I'm sorry your defence is that the gravity was doing the work not the engine and therefore the speed doesn't count? You realise that's not how it works
Did I say it doesn't count? The cop didn't issue me a ticket so he didn't think so.
I'd be open to this argument for something like 3 mph or 4 mph, maybe even five. But eight? If you're so bad at keeping track of your speed you can't tell the difference between zero and eight something is seriously wrong.
But it's double zero that's actually twice as slow
So I'm not advocating for speeding, and I think getting a ticket for going 38 in a 30 is reasonable enough, she should be more careful. But "the probability of death given a collision" is an astronomically low contributor to the risk to pedestrians compared to "the probability of a collision." We all know getting hit by a car is extremely dangerous even at low speeds. The risk of hitting a pedestrian doesn't go up much between 38mph and 30mph under normal conditions, so the risk to pedestrians doesn't change much. It's probably within typical margins considering the difference between drivers who may be older, have slower reaction times, have slept less that day, etc.
The amount you are allowed to drive over the speed limit is in fact 0mph (0 km/h for us Europeans).
Tolerance of violations of this is a sign of a deeply broken society
This is different in Germany but we learn about tolerance in driving school. Your speedometer can be wrong by about 10% and speed guns can also have errors. A good system accounts for unintentional speeding.
Speedometers are not allowed to display a lower speed than the vehicle is running at all under EU regulation - see https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CELEX%3A42004X0331%2801%29&qid=1752829119241 § 5.3
Displaying a speed slightly higher than actual speed is common and an acceptable margin of safety, such that if you are driving at the speed that the speedometer shows, you are more or less guaranteed to not exceed the speed limit.
In the UK you're allowed 10% (and I think +2mph) due to car speedo's not being 100% accurate.
It's actually not law, just custom. Most/all speedometers over estimate for this reason.
The motorway cameras, near Birmingham have been known to issue tickets for doing 71mph.
You can go from a 40mph zone to a 30mph on the same stretch of road. But there are signs well in advance to indicate the speed change. It's quite common for the rozzers to be 'sat' waiting in these spots to catch those that don't slow down in time.
It's common to get caught. It's less common to get gmcaight lots of times. Particularly for someone who doesn't drive a lot. Like wealthy people with drivers. She should sloelw down. Matthew Broderick too
There's a road going out of Southampton that's 40, and has a camera about 6m before the point where it becomes 50. The 50 signs seem more prominent than the camera. I've always thought that was a bit cunty.
There's a road near me where because of idiots messing around with the road over the years they've ended up with a situation where the speed limit goes from 30 to 50 and yes they also have a camera just before the 50 sign but in fairness to the council I think it's just a leftover from before the roads got messed around with.
It used to be a 40 to a 50, but then they decided to build some housing on the stretch of road that was 40 and decrease the speed limit to 30.
What's a rozzer?
https://youtu.be/r340C_6UtKo
Normally speed checks take into account that the car's speedometer and the speed camera are off by a bit, always in favour of the driver. So whilst the violation might be 38 in 30, the actual speed was likely a little bit higher (eg 40-45).
It is. A lot of councils set limits arbitrarily low to frustrate drivers. It makes for easy pickings if you set up a speed camera or frequent the area with mobile speed traps.
Speed limits are based on medical case histories on survivabilities. Sorry you think you have more right to live just because you go around in a metal box.
Won't someone please think of the poor oppressed drivers!
Prove it. Otherwise your statement is a lie/fabrication.
They can't cos it's obvious bullshit
Better we get frustrated than kill people. If councils make money off of you being a brainlet then that's a good thing.
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